If you have nothing to hide, you have no reason to be afraid of a search

[PilotsError 2234]

I don't know how many of these people consented to a search, but I'm guessing a lot.  Just another lone wolf/bad apple/isolated incident of a cop roaming the streets putting dozens/hundreds/thousands of innocent people in prison.  

I don't know how to embed non-YouTube video.  Video in link.

 

The video shows the April 17, 2018, traffic stop of Florida resident Steve Vann by former Jackson County Sheriff's deputy Zachary Wester. Vann was subsequently charged with possession of methamphetamines and paraphernalia as a result of the traffic stop, but state prosecutors later dropped those charges as part of a review of more than 250 cases that Wester was involved in since his hiring in 2016.

State prosecutors have dropped criminal charges in more than 100 cases involving Wester after body cam footagereleased last September showed the officer allegedly planting drugs in a car during another traffic stop. A Florida judge also vacated the sentences of eight people whose convictions were based on evidence and testimony by Wester. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement launched an investigation into Wester, and several people have filed federal lawsuits against him.

In the body cam footage obtained by Reason of Vann's arrest last year, Wester searches Vann's truck after pulling him over for a traffic violation and appears to find a small plastic baggie in the vehicle's center console.

"Honesty is going to go a long way with me," Wester tells Vann, holding up the baggie. "Have you ever seen this before?"

"No, no what is that?" Vann says. "Where'd you get that?"

"The center console," Wester says as he walks back to his cruiser to perform a roadside test of the baggie for methamphetamines.

"There ain't no way, man," a distraught Vann says. "Oh my god, you gotta be fucking kidding me."

Wester then uses a Nark II field test for methamphetamines and MDMA. According to the manufacturer, the field test "will develop an IMMEDIATE (within 2 seconds) Dark Blue color as a positive reaction after breakage and agitation of the 3rd ampoule. If the color development is an immediate Pink slowly transforming to Lavender, you DO NOT have either Methamphetamine or MDMA."

Wester shakes the field test for about 10 seconds, checking it several times, but it remains red. Looking right at the small bag of pinkish red liquid, Wester then says "blue" and returns to Vann to tell him the substance tested presumptively positive for methamphetamines. The field test occurs at roughly the 3:45 mark in the video above.

 

The Jackson County Sheriff's Office confirmed to Reason that it uses the Nark II field test and that a positive result for methamphetamines should turn the solution blue.

Wester presses Vann to admit that he knew the meth was in his car, but Vann, breaking into tears at several points, continues to deny knowing where it came from. He appears confused and devastated throughout the exchange.

"I'm going to have to take your vehicle, too," Wester tells Vann. "Listen buddy, I don't think you're a bad guy."

At one point, at around 11 minutes 50 seconds into the footage, Wester drops some of Vann's personal effects into the trunk of his police cruiser, at which point he picks up the field test and looks at it again. It's still clearly red.

The Tallahassee Democrat first reported last September that local prosecutors were dropping dozens of cases involving Wester after body cam footage appeared to show him planting a small baggie of meth in a woman's car during a traffic stop.

The Democrat later published accounts by several other people who claimed they were framed by Wester during traffic stops. Before joining the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, Wester was fired from his previous job at the Liberty County Sheriff's Office for for inappropriate relations with women, the newspaper reported.

In 2016, The New York Times reported that the $2 roadside field tests that Wester and countless other police officers around the country use to establish probable cause to arrest someone for drug possession are unreliable and easy to misinterpret:

There are no established error rates for the field tests, in part because their accuracy varies so widely depending on who is using them and how. Data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab system show that 21 percent of evidence that the police listed as methamphetamine after identifying it was not methamphetamine, and half of those false positives were not any kind of illegal drug at all. In one notable Florida episode, Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies produced 15 false positives for methamphetamine in the first seven months of 2014. When we examined the department's records, they showed that officers, faced with somewhat ambiguous directions on the pouches, had simply misunderstood which colors indicated a positive result.

Such tests are not admissible evidence in court in most jurisdictions in the U.S. Instead, samples are sent to state forensic labs for verification.

Many of Wester's victims had prior criminal records for things like drug possession. They were, in other words, easy targets. No one would believe their word against a police officer's. If Wester hadn't been wearing a body cam, and if he hadn't been sloppy enough to film his amateur sleight-of-hand attempts and lies, all of their charges would likely stand, and he would still be patrolling the streets.

https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/17/watch-a-florida-cop-lie-on-video-about-a?fbclid=IwAR0twLLHVm622NgTWbEr_NRefFLaYg8fj0o6M3MA5ML-09qG09lvYrR6MMg

[Guest Lobo]

Well, one thing we know for sure—-Officer Wester should be teaching a master-class in body cam usage since his seems to work flawlessly, all the time...even when he’s planting evidence.  Gotta hand it to him.  

[gsoda3 3187]

we're obviously not going to screen this out.  the only way we're going to discourage this behavior is to punish it with enough force.  

[WBT 20134]

Last time I was called for jury duty, the prosecutor asked if we would have a problem convicting based only on a police officer's testimony with no other corroborating evidence.  Probably 95% of the people said that they would have no problem convicting in such situations.

 

Bernard

Edited January 18, 2019 by WBT

[SHOOTER12 8766]

4 minutes ago, WBT said:

Last time I was called for jury duty, the prosecutor asked if we would have a problem convicting based only on a police officer's testimony with no other corroborating evidence.  Probably 95% of the people said that they would have no problem convicting in such situations.

 

Bernard

Jesus....

[TwiceHorn 30738]

7 minutes ago, WBT said:

Last time I was called for jury duty, the prosecutor asked if we would have a problem convicting based only on a police officer's testimony with no other corroborating evidence.  Probably 95% of the people said that they would have no problem convicting in such situations.

 

Bernard

Gross. 

And the while war on drugs has certainly exacerbated the situation, cops and other law enforcement types are just susceptible to a sort of God complex in which they find it appropriate to become some combination of judge, jury, and executioner and in which the ends justify the means.  It's not new. 

And, as evidenced by the quote, at some point Americans became really fearful and stupid people willing to sacrifice their fundamental freedom for some false sense of security peddled by the state.  Probably has a lot to do with urbanization. 

Edited January 18, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[DanRydell 799]

12 minutes ago, WBT said:

Last time I was called for jury duty, the prosecutor asked if we would have a problem convicting based only on a police officer's testimony with no other corroborating evidence.  Probably 95% of the people said that they would have no problem convicting in such situations.

 

Bernard

And the other 5% got struck. That we even allow the state to use peremptory strikes in jury selection is perverse.

[Dendox 85]

3 hours ago, DanRydell said:

 That we even allow the state to use peremptory strikes in jury selection is perverse.

I have never thought about the perversity of the state having preemptory strikes.  reading your post really struck a chord and nerve.  that would certainly change the dynamic of the criminal trial.

I pick juries for a living - civil side.  I have been in a panel on the criminal side as was part of the 5%.  It was more like 2% in that case (drug possession).  I expressed my concerns and swayed a substantial portion of the other potential jurors.

1) cops aren't inherently trustworthy

2) three strikes and your out for personal use quantities is stupid when the costs are calculated

The theories resonated so well that the we were all excused for the day.  

 

[gecko 1104]

I'm sure Wester is guilty of something, it just wasn't possession of an illegal substance.

[High Plains Drifter 10916]

4 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

we're obviously not going to screen this out.  the only way we're going to discourage this behavior is to punish it with enough force.  

I suggest he do all the time his victims were going to do.

[RPM 26078]

4 hours ago, WBT said:

Last time I was called for jury duty, the prosecutor asked if we would have a problem convicting based only on a police officer's testimony with no other corroborating evidence.  Probably 95% of the people said that they would have no problem convicting in such situations.

 

Bernard

 

3 hours ago, DanRydell said:

And the other 5% got struck. That we even allow the state to use peremptory strikes in jury selection is perverse.

If ever asked that by a prosecutor I'd lie my ass off and say yes, then make sure the defendant walked.

[Guest Lobo]

Part of me still thinks both sides having peremptory strikes is still a good idea.  The sad part is watching these civil litigators try to get all moneyball with their analytical line of voir dere inquiry.  Gee Texas Wesleyan school of law graduate, I can’t Imagine why you’d be asking about my favorite kinda food in a lawsuit over a possibly botched oral surgery. Maybe you’re just being folksy and building rapport while we all nod and grin about BBQ.