NEWS: Police Get Their Enthusiasm Curbed

CULTURE: Police Get Their Enthusiasm Curbed

Juan Catalan has been awarded $320,000 this week by the city of Los Angeles. Four years ago, May 2003, Catalan was wrongly imprisoned for the murder of Martha Puebla. He spent five months in jail before his attorneys got busy watching some HBO bonus footage.

The footage showed Catalan chowing on some dogs at the game with his daughter. During the trial, Catalan provided ticket stubs and cell phone records placed him at the Dodger Stadium, but Catalan's unwillingness to submit to a polygraph test had police convinced they had the right man.

The $320K settles a case Catalan brought against the city for false imprisonment, misconduct, and defamation of character. Police explained the confusion thusly:

Yet another unfortunate example of the unreliability of eyewitness accounts. Another man is now in custody for the murder, and I imagine he has his Netflix queue stocked with movies and television filmed on the day of the murder – the case still probably being based on the same weak eye-ball account.

The Dodgers lost that night to the Braves 11 to 4.

Between things like this, the Boston PD blowing up everything they can get their hands on, and the ridiculous no-knock phenomena, someone needs to get the police back in check.

"a medium build male Hispanic, 19-25 years of age, 5'8" to 5'10"
- In Los Angeles, no way.


Oh, by the way. Some bullshit like this happened to a freind of mine in San Deigo. Big reason for me leaving California.

Yes. Like the guy here in Florida that was in prison for 22 years. Innocent. DNA set him free. Flroida paid him millions. When he got the money he said "I'd rather have my 22 years back."

Put the innocent in prison so they will learn to be criminals. Keep the criminals free to ensure Police, Judges, Lawyers and Law Makers have a job.

He's probably gonna buy guns and dope with the money

Precisely what I was thinking.

He had 3 witness, ticket stubs, and a cell phone call all for his alibi and the reason they charged him was because he wouldn't take a lie detector test that is inadmissible in court. I generally give the police the benefit of the doubt but in this case fuck the police. Just a shame the people who end up paying for this are the tax payers.

This is another case for not supporting the death penalty. I simply don't trust our system to accurately or justly convict suspects. What if the footage had never been found or shared?

another wow. good attorney.

Eye witness testimony is the most unreliable evidence there is. There's loads of studies done where people have watched a video, or whatever, and afterwards they were asked questions and depending on what the questions were, they were certain that the guy in it had a hat on, long hair, no hair, blonde hair, dark hair... every person described a completely different person.

It's so useless I'm amazed we're even allowed to use it really.

I hate the police

Well put.

Who will police the police?

well when you take into account the people that wish to become police officers, are you really surprised?

The people who were supposed to all along; us

Fuck the police? What exactly do the police have to do with this after making the initial arrest? How about fuck the DA for refusing to drop the charges. How about fuck the judge for thinking there was enough evidence to keep Mr. Catalan locked up.

+1

I dunno? Coastguard?

Just because he refuses to take a polygraph doesn't mean he's guilty... of the crime he's been arrested for.

The police are responsible for making him a suspect. While the police interrogated him they decided his three witnesses, ticket stubs, and cell records were not an alibi. The police requested the lie detector test. The blame falls on the DA and judge for letting it all go as far as it did, but the police were the front line, and the initial blame is theirs.

The authorities are so fucked right now it's not even funny. Had the Boston police not detonated anything and the lite brights turned out to be something that did wipe out a couple thousand people, everyone would be crying how BAD the Boston police department is. Granted terrorist paranoia is at an all time high, i'd still like to see the people that started the whole thing take a LITTLE blame for what they did.

Human Witnesses are a HORRIBLE means of defense. Ticket stubs can be picked from the trash, and anyone could carry my cell phone and make a phone call, it's been done before.

he had a pretty good motive if you ask me:

On top of that he refused a lie detector test. That doesn't make him guilty, it does make him look suspicious though. The way it sounds, the police made assumptions based off Witness claiming to describe him. His defense attorney did a damn shitty job of defending him. If he claimed to be at the baseball game, why didn't his defense attorney find this footage PRIOR to him going to jail? Why didn't the attorney do everything he could to PROVE that he was at the baseball game rather than rely just on ticket stubs, a phone call and human witnesses?

Yea it SUCKS ASS that this happened. The police, the judges the DA are HUMAN and are fallible. I am happy he only served 5 and a half months instead of 30 years before they figured this out. Everyone wants to point the finger at someone when something like this happens. But in reality it's a big mistake, and anyone who claims to have never made a big mistake in their life is either drunk or lying.

I would hardly blame the police for making an arrest based on witnesses to the crime alone. The fact that the girl testified against his brother makes an even stronger case for hooking the guy up. If you still want to blame the police, go ahead. Hold them responsible for the first 72 hours of his incarceration. Any time after that belongs to the DA.

The police may have been the ones to label this man as their main suspect in the murder, but that was only the first step. You still have the Prosecution/District Attorney's office that went ahead and filed criminal charges against this innocent man even with the shoddy evidence against him (and the apparently substantial amount of evidence that showed he WASN'T the right man).

Add in the Judge and/or Jury that went through with the verdict of guilty against this man, and you've got yourself a fucked up judicial system that goes waaaaay beyond just a couple of cops pulling in a wrong guy. Shit, cops pull in suspects all of the goddamn time. It's their job to do that. Sometimes they get the right guy, sometimes they don't and they release the person. They're not the ones that possess final judgement on a would-be criminal, though. Again, cops are just one small part of our judicial system.

In the end, I'm more pissed off at the Prosecutor's on this one. They dropped the ball, and I more than bet someone lost their job and their credibility on this one.