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: Grits for Breakfast

Oppose legislation that could prevent reporting police misconduct, bloat budget

There's a bill up in House Criminal Jurisprudence today, HB 41 by Rep. Jose Menendez, that would create a new state jail felony for making false allegations that a police officer engaged in felonious conduct, upping the charge from a Class B misdemeanor.Under this bill, a false statement to the police would become "a state jail felony if the false statement made by the actor with the intent to deceive alleges that a peace officer engaged in conduct that constitutes a felony offense."Talk about a bill rife with unintended consequences! Average people don't know the law and have no immediate way of knowing whether they're alleging a felony when they report police misconduct. And despite the "intent to deceive" language, it's all but certain this law, if passed, would be used to intimidate potential witnesses out of reporting police misconduct at all...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on March 08, 2011 (boomark / email).