A Rebuttable Presumption

A rebuttable presumption is a presumption which a court will accept as evidence of a fact unless and until the evidence shows otherwise. The following is an example

The Benefit of the Doubt

I have been watching and listening to the rhetoric and comments being made by both sides of the issue regarding law enforcement officers, and it seems to me there is one fundamental issue. TRUST. Peace Officers view themselves as a family. As with all families, there are family members that are just outstanding human beings. There are always a few family members, in every family we wish were better people. I submit to you the law enforcement family is 99.99% good. Having been in the law enforcement business for over thirty five years, I have seen a couple of bad cops who ultimately left the business. Some I helped start their new career asking “You want fries with that?” Maybe not as soon as the rest of us would have liked, but they left. As a family, Peace Officers are offended when the .01% of their family, who should not wear a badge, are characterized as representative of law enforcement as a whole. They are outraged when the rest of them are not given “the benefit of the doubt”.

I have a mostly former friend who hates authority of any kind by anyone but him. He dislikes law enforcement because they have “power” over him. He searches the internet for examples of so-called bad cops, then uses the news stories from whatever whack-o site, as evidence to support his predisposition that all or almost all cops are rotten. When I point out to him he just insulted me unfairly, he expresses surprise that I am insulted, stating “Oh, I didn’t mean you” You see, he, like the overwhelming majority of our population, he has never served in the military or law enforcement, and has never trusted another with their very life. They do not have the capacity to fully understand why we are offended when they unfairly criticize a brother or sister officer with no credible information to justify their opinion. His bias is hard wired to fit his agenda. There is no chance for the “benefit of the doubt” Coupled with this is a startling lack of knowledge of the law by my sort-of former friend. He does not understand concepts such as reasonable suspicion, probable cause, beyond a reasonable doubt, grand juries, you name it. He does not want to know, he wants to make decisions based mostly on his agenda and on emotion. Like a lot of hate cop agenda.

Mayor DeBlasio ran on a ‘cops are bad” platform. He assigned the features of a bad, racist cop to cops in general. Is that not what he told his son? He weighed in seemingly in support of the demonstrators, and failed to condemn the demonstrators chanting “What do we want, Dead Cops:” He condemned the cops in the Garner case as wrong, and the grand jury as bias, even though a close look by anyone at the videos shows any neck restraint was immediately terminated when the arrestee complained he could not breathe. Like my friend above, he is hard wired believing that cops are bad. It is his default position. The mayor is never going to change. What the good men and women of the NYPD want is simple. They want the so-called “benefit of the doubt” Given their outstanding record they, like all Peace Officers, want is a rebuttable presumption they acted appropriately. Law enforcement officer have never proclaimed they don’t make mistakes. They have never asserted there are not some bad cops out there. Peace Officers everywhere have a right to expect their government entities and the general public to give them the “benefit of the doubt”. The rebuttable presumption they acted lawfully. They have earned that right by any measure anyone wants to use. Mayor DeBlasio did not give them the benefit of the doubt because he is not mentally able to so, and he will never change. So unless the rest of the public wants to put on a badge and a gun belt and put their life on the line every time they go to work, like law enforcement does every day everywhere in this country. They had better give their cops a rebuttable presumption their cops acted lawfully, because the record supports this. Your police deserve and have earned the “benefit of the doubt”

Tony Koester, 2014