THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF LEGAL JOBS ON EARTH
LawCrossing Legal Daily News Feature
DC Judge Chides Police over ‘’Transparently False’’ Statements by Surajit Sen Sharma
In a case that involved the demand to receive certain police records by a civil rights group, the D.C. police was found blatantly misleading the court to an extent that led DC Superior Court Judge, Judith Macaluso to make comments severely criticizing the role of the police in the matter. Alluding an D.C. assistant D.C. police chief’s sworn statements that all his assertions were “true and correct,” the judge said: “Well, the foregoing is not true and correct … The foregoing is obviously and completely false.”
03/16/12
were innocuous and did not contain any sensitive information. Some of them were so old as to be
The case arose from the
considered obsolete. Some of the documents the police
demands of The Partnership
refused to handover had already been made public on
for Civil Justice Fund which requested the D.C. police
other forums.
in 2008 to provide copies of policies and special orders showing how the police functioned in the capital of the
The executive e director of the nonprofit advocacy
nation. Upon being refused, the nonprofit advocacy
group, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, said “You can’t just
group went to the court in 2009.
make things up and sign under penalty of perjury, and that’s what they’ve done in this case.”
D.C. police department officials stated in sworn statements before the court that releasing the
In some documents, the judge redacted sensitive
documents would endanger the public and tantamount
portions, but ruled otherwise that the records asked for
to supplying criminals and terrorists with inside
be released forthwith.
information. The officers claimed that there were no meaningful ways to withhold certain sensitive portions
Among the documents ordered to be partially released
and offer the rest of the documents for scrutiny.
is the document that records how the D.C. police deploys civil disturbance units for major events, and
The Superior Court Judge, however, found the stance
another that lays down how first responders to a
of the D.C. police to be “melodramatic” and expressed
homicide should function to protect a crime scene
“great concern with the credibility” of the officials.
and coordinate activities. The judge said that the
She also referred to the police representations as
document signed in 1980 only contained common sense
“transparently false.”
provisions and not any sensitive information that could aid criminals or terrorists.
The judge said that the withheld documents had been thoroughly reviewed by the court and many of them
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