Yes! I get to blog for a minute.
Couple of thoughts:
- If you missed the story about the DUI case that disappeared, please take a second and review it. This is a scandal.
If you did miss it, it’s quite simple: Apparently criminal cases can just be lost — like loose change in the car.
On Sept. 2, 2007, police pulled over B.D. Howard after, they say, he turned off before a checkpoint and failed field sobriety tests. A police officer wrote a report recommending that DUI charges be filed against Howard.
But sometime between the time when the case was logged in on the Police Department’s computers and the time when it should have been logged into the computer system at the City Attorney’s Office, his case disappeared.
But the disappearance of the first DUI file raises concerns about a case-handling process that is vulnerable to human error and in which staffers missed the chance to correct their mistakes before it was too late. The investigation shows how Howard’s DUI case, and at least one other, fell through the cracks, with people arrested never being charged — or at least never having their cases reviewed by prosecutors — because of what’s been described as pure mishap.
A pure mishap?
How many other criminal suspects have gotten off because our city simply lost their cases? This must be reviewed formally by the city.
Rani Gupta is turning into a premiere government reporter. If you see her name on a story, you can trust it’s going to be good.
Leonard Baron, a real estate professor at San Diego State and a consultant, is hosting the Survival in San Diego blog today. It’s great. If you want perspective on buying or selling a home or if you have questions of your own, get over there, quick. He’s on a roll.