Courts get one right

Ex-New Zealand police officer Nathan Connolly, who extorted free services from a prostitute by threatening her a thousand dollars in traffic fines should she not provide him free service, has been sent to prison for two years.

We rarely hear of police trying to extort free accounting or mechanical services. But prostitutes traditionally have been vulnerable to police extortion, because of their precarious legal position. But prostitution is legal in New Zealand, and so the victim of police extortion was able to access legal mechanisms to enforce her rights.

Hoorah to the best piece of legislation to come of the prior Labour government!

Isolated incidents, Canadian edition

RCMP Corporal Robinson, who helped Tazer to death a confused Polish man in the Vancouver airport two years ago, and who went on a year ago to get drunk and smash his jeep into a motorcyclist, killing him, will not face charges for impaired driving causing death or dangerous driving causing death; the BC Attorney General thinks it too hard to get a conviction. He's now finally being charged, but only with obstruction of justice. After the accident, he fled the scene and downed some vodka: either because of the trauma of the sober crash or to blur the evidence of his having been drunk.

He was suspended with pay last October, after he killed the motorcyclist. He's still suspended with pay.

Things aren't all rosy in New Zealand either, as previously noted here and here.

Police and drink drive limits

Well, this, from the front page of the Monday Christchurch Press, puts police support for ever-lower drink drive limits in a fresh light, doesn't it?

Half of all police officers caught drink-driving in the past three years have beaten the charge, raising allegations of one law for police and another for the public.

Three officers are still fighting their cases in the courts, including one caught driving while more than three times the legal limit.

Even the police's top personnel manager admits it is hard to secure a conviction against an officer.

The average conviction rate for all drink-drivers in the past three years was more than 95 per cent, compared with less than 38 per cent for police officers.

That's for the cases where charges are laid. One hypothesis could be that police hold their own to a higher standard than the public and so lay charges even in cases where they think the evidence insufficient; in that case, the numbers above overstate court bias in favour of police. An alternative hypothesis is that police are less likely to lay charges against other officers, in which case the numbers above understate bias in favour of police.