Taser Killers Win By Cheating

When you have to cheat, when you have to lie, when you have to game the system to win, you've proven that you're wrong, you're guilty, and you deserve to lose.

But it was just a black guy who died. Just a guy with bipolar disorder wandering around naked, not harming anybody. Just a Marine veteran.

A federal jury verdict exonerating a Metro Louisville police officer in a Taser-related death has come under attack after the foreman was accused of researching the case on the manufacturer’s Web site and using the information to sway other jurors.

The case is one of a rising number nationally in which jurors have used iPhones, BlackBerrys and home computers to gather and send information about cases, undermining judges and jury trials.

Attorneys for the estate of Larry Noles, who died in 2006 after officers shocked him with a Taser, want a judge to set aside the Dec. 4 verdict in which the jury cleared one officer and was unable to reach a verdict on another.

Lawyer Garry Adams said in a motion that one day after the jury finished its deliberations a juror called him to say that at least two jurors, including the foreman, whom she described as “the principal advocate for police,” consulted Taser International’s Web site and used information from the site to try to persuade other jurors.

The juror who called Adams, identified only as T.B., later testified under oath, telling U.S. District Judge John B. Heyburn II that both jurors mentioned that the company’s Web site claims that Tasers are “non-lethal” and cannot cause fatal injuries.

“It really, really bothered me that they were using that ... instead of what was really said in the courtroom,” T.B. said.

SNIP

Noles’ estate claimed that Metro officers Michael Campbell and Matthew Metzler deprived Noles of his civil rights by using excessive force to take him into custody when they found him naked at Seventh Street and Algonquin Parkway, although he posed no threat to them or to the public.

Assistant County Attorney Frank Radmacher, who represented the officers, told the jury that Noles’ death was a tragedy but that the officers followed department policies in trying to take him into custody so he could be brought to a hospital for treatment.

Don't tell me there aren't emergency responders in Louisville who know how to get a mentally ill person to a hospital without killing him, because I know goddamn well there are.

Take a few of the millions of dollars Louisville's going to have to pay in future settlements otherwise and pay those responders to train police officers in non-firearm, non-taser methods of persuasion.