U.S. Says Seattle Gives Police Too Much Protection In Force Cases

A Seattle Police Department policy that allows officers to invoke protection against self-incrimination in routine use-of-force investigations is overbroad and offers unnecessary protection to police while undermining public confidence, says a U.S. Department of Justice letter reported by the Seattle Times. The Justice Department told  Mayor Mike McGinn that the protection is routinely extended to situations where it was never intended to be applied.

Justice said the letter was sent in hopes that the department would address the issue immediately, "given the serious nature of our concerns," wrote Jonathan Smith, chief of Justice's Special Litigation Section, and Jenny Durkan, U.S. attorney in Seattle. The letter focuses on the Seattle police application of a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Garrity vs. New Jersey, that any potentially incriminating statement made by a police officer cannot be used to prosecute him in a criminal case if the officer believes he was compelled to give the statement under threat of losing his job.

Texas Car Theft Agency May Soon Die, But Fee That Funds It Won't

A Texas government office that focuses on auto theft is on track to be defunded, but the $1 annual fee that Texans pay to keep the office open probably won't disappear, reports the Texas Tribune. Under preliminary legislative budget proposals, funding is nixed for the Texas Automobile Burglary and Theft Prevention Authority, a five-person shop that lawmakers created in 1991. It awards grants to police agencies to help prevent and investigate the crimes that are its namesake.

But the $1 fee Texans pay on their auto insurance policies to fund the agency would be swept into the state’s general fund to help close the $15 billion to $27 billion budget gap. “Sounds like a misuse of the fee to me,” says Talmadge Heflin, director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Center for Fiscal Policy. Without the prevention programs, auto thefts could proliferate, just as they did before the agency was created, resulting in rate hikes by insurers trying to cover their losses. “It’s going to be like Mardi Gras in the streets with these car thieves,” says Lt. Tommy Hansen of the Galveston County Sheriff's Department. “The theft rate in the state of Texas is going to skyrocket."

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-taxes/2011-budget-shortfall/texas-lawmakers-propose-raiding-auto-theft-fund/