Lexington detective lies to grand jury in case regarding police officer’s death. - Lexington courts | Examiner.com

I wrote an article in July titled, 'Does Glen Rahan Doneghy's life matter?'. In that article I discussed local prosecutorial racism, propaganda in favor of police, prosecutorial misconduct and police corruption as some of the reasons Doneghy may not get a fair trial. Recent events in the case have made that article just shy of prophetic. The case involves a driver that struck a police officer who was tragically killed.

Lexington detective David Richards testified to the grand jury and at an earlier preliminary hearing providing false information. He falsely claimed that a witness at the scene claimed that Doneghy's vehicle was the only one on the street at the time. He also claimed that this witness saw Doneghy's vehicle deviate from it's course of travel and then struck officer Durman.

Doneghy's attorneys, Kate Dunn, Sally Wasielewski, and Gayle Slaughter attempted to talk to any witnesses to prepare their case. Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney, Lori Boling, falsely claimed that there were no witnesses, thus, denying them their right to interview the witness. I've personally seen this type of mis-direction and prosecutorial misconduct time and time again in my own cases.

The witness, Ronnie Hood, however claims that while sitting on his porch his bushes obstructed his view. Mr. Hood claims that he did not know about the accident until after he heard a loud noise. Additionally, Mr. Hood's home is several doors down the street from where the accident took place.

Our founding fathers understood a number of things about criminal accusations. It’s difficult if not impossible to prove a negative. It’s better to free a guilty man than to punish an innocent one. Government cannot be trusted or supported if it doesn’t respect the rights of the accused. Finally, they gave us a Constitution to protect our rights and provide confidence to the court system.

Because it is nearly impossible to prove a negative the accused is never required to prove his innocence. To do so would require the accused to prove he did not do something. The burden of proof rests with the prosecution who must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Commonwealth Attorney, Ray Larson, states on his website and on WLAP radio and internet sites that he believes 99% of accused are guilty. This guilty until proven innocent mindset has permeated our criminal justice system all the way down to the beat cops. It is because of this that prosecutors hide witnesses and evidence and overzealous police officers lie to grand juries. They believe that the accused is guilty anyway so what does it hurt to lie or hide evidence if it speeds up the process of conviction. What we wind up with are thousands of falsely accused being imprisoned by a system gone awry.

Ray Larson also makes no secret of his personal feelings about minority criminals on his website or in his lengthy rants on the radio. While portraying white collar criminals as tragic situations of wrong decisions he resorts to name calling and slander when referring to cases involving working class crime and especially minorities. White collar criminals are wished a better future after learning a minor lesson, usually without jail time. However, Larson tends to claim that minorities fit into the once a 'thug' always a 'thug' category and they will always re-offend, he states.

Doneghy is a poor black man and officer Durman was a middle-class father and husband and member of local mega-church, Southland Christian Church. He was also caucasian. Believe it or not, in 2010 going on 2011, that still matters in Kentucky. Very rarely, 10 times in the last 25 years, has someone been prosecuted for vehicular homicide in Fayette County. However, this case involved a police officer and a black man with a criminal record lacking the money for Johnny Cochran.

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