A day after Colt running back Darrell Reid was arrested for disorderly conduct, the Indianapolis Star reports that the Marion County Prosecutor's Office has decided the evidence doesn't warrant filing charges.
Wow. Our small law firm does criminal defense work. We are constantly dealing with people who are charged with crimes where it appears the Marion County Prosecutor's Office made no attempt whatsoever to verify the facts before filing charges. Even when the Prosecutor's Office later learns the charges are without merit, they will leave them pending against people for months before dismissing or trying to get diversion to save face. It happens time and time again.
Previously on this blog I recounted how the Prosecutor's Office left felony robbery charges pending against my mentally disabled client for months. The Prosecutor's office had no evidence that my client committed the crime except the statement of one store worker who was supposedly robbed of a planned bank deposit, conveniently by a dumpster behind the store that was outside of video surveillance range. No money or cash was ever found on my client or where he lived. We obtained video of him that day having lunch across town at a restaurant, across town miles away. Even though the Prosecutor's Office was given the video evidence of him somewhere else during the supposed crime, they refused to dismiss the felony robbery charges. They left him in jail for months where he got beaten up when he didn't get his psych medicine and started talking to himself.
Apparently if you are an Indianapolis Colt, you get a much quicker and better review of the merits of the case than if you are a mentally disabled person. I don't know whether charges against Reid were supported by the evidence, and I take Carl Brizzi's office at his word that the they did not. But if anyone doesn't think there is a double standard in how the Marion County Prosecutor's Office handles cases, talk to a criminal defense attorney.
4 comments:
Paul
Talk to some of the defendants who spent over a year in jail with trials still pending long past the speedy trial deadlines. Brizzy's office will hold indigent defendants on charges that won't stand up in court for lack of evidence hoping to get the defendants to take a plea bargain. The one case you and I have both mentioned several times is still pending. It is my understanding the defendant was threatened by the judge who doesn't like the defendants thinking so there may be another sanity hearing. It’s disgusting what a prosecutor's office can get away with while judges continue to give them their blessings.
Leslie Sourwine
A few people need to call a press conference and point out the double standards that exist. Sunlight truly is the best disinfectant.
A press conference will do no good. Carl Brizzi is a member of the corrupt ruling class of Indianapolis, and so is the news paper and the t.v. stations. They support the colts and pacers and "get free tickets just like Greg Ballard and his wife?
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