Cops Receive Qualified Immunity for Coercing a 13-Year-Old Into Confessing to a Murder He Didn't Commit

In May of 2013, Art Tobias was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment after confessing at age 13 to a shooting that he did not commit. Eight years later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has ruled that Tobias can sue the officers who interrogated him for violating his Miranda rights when they ignored his request for an attorney. Yet the court gave the officers qualified immunity for allegedly violating Tobias's 14th Amendment due process rights when they coerced him into signing a confession by fabricating evidence and insisting he'd receive better treatment in court if he gave in.

The 9th Circuit conceded those interrogation tactics were indeed abusive. But the officers received qualified immunity because the exact factual circumstances surrounding Tobias's experience were not etched in a previous court precedent with razor-like precision. As such, Tobias will not be permitted to sue on that claim.

After the summer 2012 killing of Alex Castaneda, police zeroed in on Tobias, despite being told that he bore little resemblance to the man caught on video committing murder. The boy, who was then an eighth-grader, was pulled out of school for questioning. He was not read his Miranda rights until 20 minutes into the interview; shortly after, he asked for a lawyer.

"Could I have an attorney?" he asks. "Because that's not me," referring to the video of the shooting.

"But—okay. No, don't worry," responded Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Detective Julian Pere. "You'll have the opportunity."

He was not given the opportunity. Instead, the 13-year-old was given a lot of lies, including that "somebody gave [him] up" as the murderer—they didn't—and that if he refused to confess he'd look like a "cold-blooded killer."

Most notably, Detective Michael Arteaga said that his mother identified him as the shooter. (She didn't.) It's "fucked up" and "fucking pitiful," Arteaga continued, that Tobias's mom would be forced to testify against her own son.

"You're full of shit. And when this case is presented to a district attorney's office, they're going to see you're a cold-blooded killer," Arteaga claimed. "Okay, but I'm telling you man, we have a lot more evidence than you think, and right now when we take the case to court they're going to think you're a big time gang killer who didn't want to tell the truth, who is down for the hood. It's going to look like you're down—you're so down for the hood that you didn't want to speak. So they might throw the book at you."

Tobias obliged.

https://reason.com/2021/05/05/qualified-immunity-police-coerced-confession-art-tobias-los-angeles-9th-circuit/


People often refer to cops as pigs. While I hate blanket statements and stereotypes, in this case they deserve to be called pigs. And the system that protects them needs to be overhauled.

Doing this to a child while letting the actual murderer run free is fucking horrific.

Just...wow.

Sickening.

eddie wrote:Just...wow.

Sickening.

Isn't it?

Bullying a 13 year old boy into a false confession.

Letting the real killer run loose.

I don't know how these people sleep at night.

There's no good reason those fuckers should be protected from the consequences of their actions.

"Subsequently, Tobias filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages from the city of Los Angeles. Tobias’s lawyer, David Owens, obtained more than 300 pages of documents from police. The documents included reports showing that the day after Tobias’s confession, on August 21, 2012, police arrested Eric Martinez in a burgundy car that was registered to an address that was a known location of M.S. gang members. Martinez was 20 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 260 pounds. He was wearing a white shirt and was arrested after people called police saying he was among a group of men yelling “M.S.” and brandishing a handgun.

Police confiscated the gun. Firearms analysis linked the gun to the shell casings found at the scene of the shooting of Castaneda, Barragan, and Villanueva. Although the bench notes of the analysis showed that the examination of the weapon and the casings was completed in December 2012, the official report of the findings was dated May 7, 2012—the first day of Tobias’s adjudication hearing. That report was among the documents that were not disclosed to Tobias’s lawyer.

Martinez was prosecuted only for illegal possession of a firearm."


More from a different site.


So cops arrest a known MS member, who actually matches the description, CARRYING THE FUCKING GUN USED IN THE CRIME, and they don't disclose this to the kids lawyer. They don't charge the actual shooter for the crime, as that would mean they would have to admit a mistake (and that they were fucking liars). Instead, they let a 13 year old get marched off to serve 25 years for a crime he didn't commit.