Amy Coney Barrett took the Oath of Office on Oct. 26, 2020.
When Justice Barrett was an appeals judge —
Embellishing the truth on an affidavit is a good way to be held liable for damages in a lawsuit.
www.policemag.com
“On the afternoon of Nov. 19, 2013, the plaintiff went to his mother’s apartment and found her lying on the floor with a blanket partially covering her face and head. She was barely breathing and there was a circle of dried blood on the blankets and congealed blood on the floor by her head.
William called 911, and when paramedics arrived, he explained that someone had “caved his mother’s head in.”
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“According to the affidavit the phone records showed that the defendant made a call to his brother from the victim’s apartment an hour before he called 911. However, a phone expert at the police department had informed the detective that the time data on the cell site sheet was off one hour because the cell location was located in a different time zone. The phone call information actually depicted the call the plaintiff made to his brother after finding his mother on the floor.
“Rainsberger told the detective that he had purchased an iced tea on the way to his mother’s house. Police reviewed video surveillance that they claim showed the defendant “discarding a long straight object in the trash”—inferring that the defendant discarded a weapon in the trash. However, the court reviewed the video footage and determined the discarded object looked more like the iced tea can the plaintiff testified he had purchased.
“In the affidavit the detective claimed nothing was taken from the apartment and that a lockbox containing savings bonds was in plain view and untouched. However,
the actual facts were that the victim’s pocketbook and medications were taken and the lockbox was hidden and did not contain any valuables.”
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Judge Barrett ruled that a police officer DOES NOT GET qualified immunity if he or she lies on the arrest affidavit.
And I’ll add as a comment . . .
For crying out loud—
The police jump to a conclusion and fixate on it, and they try to twist facts to make their 1st guess right.
In this case, they jump to the conclusion that the son killed his mother. Okay, fair enough, it’s possible it happened that way. But that should not be the only possibility they consider.
Maybe because pressuring the son for a “confession” during the 2 months he was in jail has the best chance to “solve” the case ? ?
And trying to find the low-level, scuzz-ball criminal who was responsible faces a lot longer odds ? ?
But you never know until you try. For example, criminals sometimes like to brag.
And one of the tragedies of this case, from the perspective of the family, is that the police
didn’t really try to find out who did this.