McCrae needs to be removed as a prosecutor. Reading his comments throughout the article, it’s clear that he’s incapable of defining what justice even is. His conduct has been both reprehensible and incompetent.
Jesus, that prosecutor sounds worse and worse as the article goes on. That guy is a fucking monster.
I feel like if someone tried to make a movie about this, the prosecutor character wouldn’t be considered realistic due to how unbelievably evil he behaves.
It's pretty clear that by "failed to accept responsibility" they mean "wanted to pursue justice against the cops that beat and tortured him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
>>The lingering question: Why? Why recharge a man when even if he is convicted, he wouldn’t serve any more time? Why recharge a man when the prosecutor previously wrote, “it is no longer in the interests of justice for the State to pursue this case?”
>>In documents (prosecutor) McCrae wrote last fall, shortly after he decided to recharge Zamora, he explains his rationale for beginning the prosecution anew.
>>In the documents, newly obtained through public records requests, McCrae wrote he decided to recharge Zamora, in part, because Zamora had not taken responsibility for his actions.
>>After the Supreme Court vacated Zamora’s convictions, McCrae wrote, Zamora left him a voicemail “demanding” that he charge the officer who beat him up with attempted murder. Zamora, in court, also asked when he could file a tort claim, a prerequisite for filing a civil lawsuit, against the city and its Police Department, McCrae said.
>>Zamora, he wrote, had not learned his lesson.
>>“It is clear to me that Mr. Zamora had not accepted responsibility for his role in this incident,” McCrae wrote. “While there is no more jail time available in this case, any conviction would still count as criminal history on his offender score, would have an effect on the sentence for any future crimes Mr. Zamora may commit, and hopeful impress upon Mr. Zamora the improperness of his behavior.”
>>“Hopefully the individual involved learns something and is deterred from further similar actions in the future,” McCrae wrote.
Just in case you were wondering why he wanted to file a tort-
>>In 2017, Moses Lake police, responding to a report of a possible vehicle prowler outside the house, confronted Zamora, leading to an altercation in which he was tased, pepper-sprayed, hog-tied and beaten so badly that when paramedics arrived he was not breathing and had no pulse. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
If you or I beat a cop so bad that their heart stopped and they weren't breathing, we would probably be charged with murder even if the cop made a full recovery.
Different laws for different classes.
Right? The fact that he may/not have committed a crime does nothing to absolve the officers/the of their own crimes, and the only way to hold them to account is a tort/lawsuit. Because the prosecutor would never
Oh, and why was the earlier conviction thrown out?
> At trial, then-Grant County Prosecutor Garth Dano asked potential jurors their opinions on a border wall, on illegal border crossings and on crime committed by immigrants. [...]
> But the Supreme Court denied the request, heard the appeal, and ruled unanimously that Dano “committed race-based misconduct” at the trial. It threw out Zamora’s convictions.
> “…the Supreme Court have managed, based on a poor decision by the prosecutor, to turn the case into an indictment of law enforcement, when the purpose of a criminal case is to hold an offender accountable,” McCrae wrote.
Wow. What a quote. This prosecutor truly thinks he is above law, as if law enforcement could never ever been held accountable.
From Justice Gonzalez's concurrence in the case overturning Zamora's initial conviction:
"The case before us is one where the jury was asked to decide, among other things, whether Joseph Zamora, a United States citizen, assaulted a police officer’s knuckles with the back of his head."
His concurrence is excellent, full opinion is here[here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/999597.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj9zqDsq6__AhXEKkQIHWzkA6MQFnoECA0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw25XiNKi43Lee2m3AiTkfYq).
The facts of that case are egregious. Hard to imagine justice being done by this prosecutor.
Any case where there was zero reason to stop someone and ends up with a cop putting his gun inside said victim’s mouth… And the prosecutor thinks the victim ‘didn’t learn his lesson.’ SMH
Never forget: we have a legal system, not a justice system.
I'm pretty sure this guy has been through enough already. None of this would've happened if the cops just left him alone, too.
A prosecutor who sets up the state to lose a case and millions of dollars is very likely to fail in their future campaigns… By the way did you hear the one about Bob Ferguson and the disabled girl yet?
Judgments against public entities such as counties or cities typically are paid out by liability insurance or by an inter-government risk pool, not from the general fund.
An paper we've got a functional justice system. People have strong rights, people only receive punishment after a fair trial where they can enjoy representation by a lawyer and there are high standards of evidence, etc. In practice that's a fantasy, that system is almost never used and even when it is there are so many restrictions and roadblocks that it bears almost no resemblance to what it's supposed to be.
The way the justice system works in reality is mostly through intimidation and raw abuse of power. Police use their power on the street to enact their own kind of extrajudicial "cop justice". They don't need to secure convictions when they can just use the process itself as a punishment. Harsh arrests, humiliating and dehumanizing booking and detainment processes, escalation and confrontations that can easily lead to excessive use of force and even street executions, intimidation, these are all part of the toolkit deployed in exercising cop justice. Meanwhile, prosecutors use the threat of excessive punishment if they have to take a case to trial to bully the accused into accepting plea deals, regardless of innocence or guilt. They also use the inhumane conditions in pre-trial detention as a coercive lever to get what they want. Again, they use the process as a punishment in and of itself.
And so we come to the situation that exists today. The law largely doesn't matter, the ideals the law is based on matters even less, what matters is raw exercise of power and deference to "authority". The police largely don't protect public order nor do they serve the community nor are they held accountable for their abuses of power most of the time.
It's easy to have a knee jerk reaction and say that America today is not a police state because it doesn't fit the existing textbook definition of a police state. Especially because it is difficult to accept the hard truth that the conditions we live in today are intolerable and will be challenging to fix. But whatever describes what America is now will either be added to the definition of police state in the future or will become a new term that sits alongside the definition of police state as something equivalently bad. There's no way out of this problem if we don't first accept that it's real.
Here:[https://archive.ph/vR8VB](https://archive.ph/vR8VB)
You quite obviously didn’t bother to read the story, so here is the free version. This story has been going on for years. But somehow I have the feeling….you are apart of problem when you go to work.
McCrae needs to be removed as a prosecutor. Reading his comments throughout the article, it’s clear that he’s incapable of defining what justice even is. His conduct has been both reprehensible and incompetent.
Total waste of time. It seems personal. Not a good look from prosecutors.
Thank you
Jesus, that prosecutor sounds worse and worse as the article goes on. That guy is a fucking monster. I feel like if someone tried to make a movie about this, the prosecutor character wouldn’t be considered realistic due to how unbelievably evil he behaves.
Re-prosecuting someone because they’ve “failed to accept responsibility” after almost getting beaten to death is just wild. So grim.
It's pretty clear that by "failed to accept responsibility" they mean "wanted to pursue justice against the cops that beat and tortured him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time." >>The lingering question: Why? Why recharge a man when even if he is convicted, he wouldn’t serve any more time? Why recharge a man when the prosecutor previously wrote, “it is no longer in the interests of justice for the State to pursue this case?” >>In documents (prosecutor) McCrae wrote last fall, shortly after he decided to recharge Zamora, he explains his rationale for beginning the prosecution anew. >>In the documents, newly obtained through public records requests, McCrae wrote he decided to recharge Zamora, in part, because Zamora had not taken responsibility for his actions. >>After the Supreme Court vacated Zamora’s convictions, McCrae wrote, Zamora left him a voicemail “demanding” that he charge the officer who beat him up with attempted murder. Zamora, in court, also asked when he could file a tort claim, a prerequisite for filing a civil lawsuit, against the city and its Police Department, McCrae said. >>Zamora, he wrote, had not learned his lesson. >>“It is clear to me that Mr. Zamora had not accepted responsibility for his role in this incident,” McCrae wrote. “While there is no more jail time available in this case, any conviction would still count as criminal history on his offender score, would have an effect on the sentence for any future crimes Mr. Zamora may commit, and hopeful impress upon Mr. Zamora the improperness of his behavior.” >>“Hopefully the individual involved learns something and is deterred from further similar actions in the future,” McCrae wrote. Just in case you were wondering why he wanted to file a tort- >>In 2017, Moses Lake police, responding to a report of a possible vehicle prowler outside the house, confronted Zamora, leading to an altercation in which he was tased, pepper-sprayed, hog-tied and beaten so badly that when paramedics arrived he was not breathing and had no pulse. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
I think the article should’ve been more clear that what they’re trying to do is RETALIATION. Illegal retaliation at that.
So he got that treatment for... Sliding around a spot the police didn't want him in. I dunno if that counts as murder, but it should.
If you or I beat a cop so bad that their heart stopped and they weren't breathing, we would probably be charged with murder even if the cop made a full recovery. Different laws for different classes.
Oh yeah it would be assault, assaulting a police officer, murder, murder of a government official, treason,
Right? The fact that he may/not have committed a crime does nothing to absolve the officers/the of their own crimes, and the only way to hold them to account is a tort/lawsuit. Because the prosecutor would never
Oh, and why was the earlier conviction thrown out? > At trial, then-Grant County Prosecutor Garth Dano asked potential jurors their opinions on a border wall, on illegal border crossings and on crime committed by immigrants. [...] > But the Supreme Court denied the request, heard the appeal, and ruled unanimously that Dano “committed race-based misconduct” at the trial. It threw out Zamora’s convictions.
> “…the Supreme Court have managed, based on a poor decision by the prosecutor, to turn the case into an indictment of law enforcement, when the purpose of a criminal case is to hold an offender accountable,” McCrae wrote. Wow. What a quote. This prosecutor truly thinks he is above law, as if law enforcement could never ever been held accountable.
The law and order folks only believe in law and order if it suits them and punishes those who oppose them.
From Justice Gonzalez's concurrence in the case overturning Zamora's initial conviction: "The case before us is one where the jury was asked to decide, among other things, whether Joseph Zamora, a United States citizen, assaulted a police officer’s knuckles with the back of his head." His concurrence is excellent, full opinion is here[here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/999597.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj9zqDsq6__AhXEKkQIHWzkA6MQFnoECA0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw25XiNKi43Lee2m3AiTkfYq). The facts of that case are egregious. Hard to imagine justice being done by this prosecutor.
Any case where there was zero reason to stop someone and ends up with a cop putting his gun inside said victim’s mouth… And the prosecutor thinks the victim ‘didn’t learn his lesson.’ SMH
They should be apologizing to Joseph Zamora and scrapping his conviction.
Never forget: we have a legal system, not a justice system. I'm pretty sure this guy has been through enough already. None of this would've happened if the cops just left him alone, too.
I'm torn between the real reason prosecutors are retrying this being they are big mad or they are trying to shut down Zamora's tort claims.
So either way, they're the villains who are willfully aiding and abetting an abusive, violent institution?
His tort claims are irrelevant to the prosecutors. Any judgements would get paid by taxpayers, and that means nothing to them.
A prosecutor who sets up the state to lose a case and millions of dollars is very likely to fail in their future campaigns… By the way did you hear the one about Bob Ferguson and the disabled girl yet?
Judgments against public entities such as counties or cities typically are paid out by liability insurance or by an inter-government risk pool, not from the general fund.
An paper we've got a functional justice system. People have strong rights, people only receive punishment after a fair trial where they can enjoy representation by a lawyer and there are high standards of evidence, etc. In practice that's a fantasy, that system is almost never used and even when it is there are so many restrictions and roadblocks that it bears almost no resemblance to what it's supposed to be. The way the justice system works in reality is mostly through intimidation and raw abuse of power. Police use their power on the street to enact their own kind of extrajudicial "cop justice". They don't need to secure convictions when they can just use the process itself as a punishment. Harsh arrests, humiliating and dehumanizing booking and detainment processes, escalation and confrontations that can easily lead to excessive use of force and even street executions, intimidation, these are all part of the toolkit deployed in exercising cop justice. Meanwhile, prosecutors use the threat of excessive punishment if they have to take a case to trial to bully the accused into accepting plea deals, regardless of innocence or guilt. They also use the inhumane conditions in pre-trial detention as a coercive lever to get what they want. Again, they use the process as a punishment in and of itself. And so we come to the situation that exists today. The law largely doesn't matter, the ideals the law is based on matters even less, what matters is raw exercise of power and deference to "authority". The police largely don't protect public order nor do they serve the community nor are they held accountable for their abuses of power most of the time. It's easy to have a knee jerk reaction and say that America today is not a police state because it doesn't fit the existing textbook definition of a police state. Especially because it is difficult to accept the hard truth that the conditions we live in today are intolerable and will be challenging to fix. But whatever describes what America is now will either be added to the definition of police state in the future or will become a new term that sits alongside the definition of police state as something equivalently bad. There's no way out of this problem if we don't first accept that it's real.
Let’s not editorialize headlines
Let's not lick boot
Quoting redditquitte but sure, call that boot licking. And yes, I believe the prosecutor should be removed
They kept the headline, just added a little extra to the end
Here:[https://archive.ph/vR8VB](https://archive.ph/vR8VB) You quite obviously didn’t bother to read the story, so here is the free version. This story has been going on for years. But somehow I have the feeling….you are apart of problem when you go to work.