[Peace-discuss] Champaign Citizen Police Review Board

[Jan & Durl Kruse]

  See nasty editorial below:
On Jul 30, 2007, at 10:46 PM, Ricky Baldwin wrote:

> In the paper tonight Champaign mayor Jerry S. announced
> his intention to kill this before it can be even
> discussed any further.  He doesn't want even one more
> meeting after this to hear of it.
>
> Folks, especially Champaign residents, need to be
> there and speak up!
>
> There was also a nasty editorial tonight about
> Urbana's police review board proposal - a base lie
> that needs some letters to the editor in response!
>
> Ricky

Police review panel has plenty of teeth

Monday July 30, 2007

Next Monday, the Urbana City Council is going to meet and approve the  
creation of a police review board that will be made up of citizens  
charged with reviewing public complaints against police officers.

In the view of some people, mostly critics of law enforcement, the new  
review process is a good way to ensure more accountability. But the  
description of how the ordinance is intended to work and the provisions  
actually in the ordinance are at odds, and that's a bad way to start  
out.

Mayor Laurel Prussing has suggested that members of the review panel  
will essentially act as an appellate court. She said their duties would  
involve looking over the shoulder of Police Chief Mike Bily to see if,  
in their opinion, he properly handled a citizen complaint against a  
police officer. She said they would reach their judgment by examining  
the same materials as the chief reviewed, much as an appellate court  
conducts a judicial review by examining the written record of a trial  
court.

Her original proposal would have done just that. But when Alderwoman  
Danielle Chynoweth, the pied piper of the council majority, complained  
the ordinance was too weak and that it needed to be stiffened with  
subpoena power, Prussing quickly agreed.

Her position was that if Chynoweth wanted subpoena power, Prussing  
would pacify her by providing it. But Prussing has suggested that it  
will be seldom, if ever, used because most cities that have police  
review boards armed with subpoena power seldom use it.

There is, of course, a difference between a power rarely being used and  
never being used, and that difference could wreak havoc with  
individuals targeted by Urbana's review panel.

For starters, subpoena power is a blunderbuss authority that, in our  
society, is restricted only to a few forums. It not only lays the  
groundwork for an abuse of power but has the potential to create  
hostile situations where both citizens and city will feel compelled to  
arm themselves with expensive lawyers.

Appellate courts don't exercise subpoena power, and a body that is  
intended to conduct an appellate-like review certainly doesn't need it.

The ordinance also allows the review board to hear testimony, which  
goes hand in hand with subpoena power. Appellate courts, of course,  
don't hear live testimony. They review a record of the trial testimony.

So what the citizens of Urbana are confronted with is a police review  
board that is portrayed as one thing and, most assuredly, is quite  
another. That's not good.

How bad it is remains to be seen. Armed with subpoena power, zealots  
can wreak havoc. Urbana's police review board members will be well  
armed to do so.
  Find this article at:

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/opinions/editorials/2007/07/30/ 
police_review_panelhas_plenty_of_teeth


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