Kentucky justice...with or without prejudice.

The American Bar Association has announced a study released Wednesday recommending that Kentucky suspend executions due to serious flaws in the legal system. Those flaws include low pay for public defenders, a lack of protections against executing the mentally ill, no rule to preserve evidence for future appeals, confusion amongst the jurors, prosecutorial misconduct and poor police work, especially involving false identifications and false confessions. A recent local case is a perfect example of this flawed and corrupt system.

Pleas Lucian Kavanaugh was charged with two crimes in a short period of time two years ago. Both cases were recently dismissed.

The first case involved the daughter of Detective William Persley, the partner of Detective Elizabeth Adams. Detective Adams had lost several cases in the past where she had charged Kavanaugh with a crime. Kavanaugh was found innocent of these charges after a trial determined many inconsistencies in the testimonies of Persley, Persley's daughter and former Detective Adams. Detective Adams was demoted to officer position after it was determined that she handled this and other cases questionably. Specifically, her procedure for witness identifications in some cases was flawed. It could be argued these flaws were done by choice.

One of the recommendations by the ABA was that videotaping should take place the entire time someone is questioned, not just part of the time. In the Kavanaugh case, Adams claims that the recorder just didn't work this time. The file seemed to be there but she can't get it to play. The defense asked for this file or access to the computer or to talk to the computer tech at the police department. All of these requests were ignored.

The second case was the infamous bus stop kidnapping that made all of the local news. Kavanaugh was announced on all of the local stations as the suspect. The police claimed that he was to be considered armed and dangerous. Kavanaugh turned himself in at a news station and then to the police station to ensure his safety.

After two years, Kavanuagh's defense team was put in contact with the witness or victim in this case. A short interview with her revealed why the prosecution did not want the defense to speak with her. She reveals more improper police work by Detectives Adams and Persley.

Adams, once again, decided in advance that she would pin this crime on Kavanaugh. Immediately while the victim is filing the report Adams tells her that she knows that Kavanaugh is the man they should be looking for. In order to make sure Kavanaugh is arrested she manipulated the eyewitness identification by first showing a drawing of Kavanaugh to her. She then returned with a group of pictures, one of them being Kavanaugh, and asks the victim to pick the assailant. Of course, she picks the one that looks like the drawing she had recently been shown. This was all done at the house of the victim rather than on videotape at the police station.

Days after this interview the prosecutor, Bobby Gullette, surprises everyone just weeks before the trial by dismissing the case at a status hearing with no explanation. No explanation was necessary. Should the case have been allowed to continue, Kavanaugh would surely have beat the charges and claimed his innocence. This would have also allowed the disciplinary file on Detective Persley to become public. Detective Adams' file had already came out in the previous case. Persley's is rumored to be even more damaging.

These two disciplinary files with two recent false arrests, previous false arrests and a witness testimony with damning information combine to set the stage for a costly civil case against the city.

Kavanaugh realized a few days ago that this case was dismissed 'without prejudice'.

Read the rest of the story at the link: http://www.examiner.com/courts-in-lexington/kentucky-justice-with-or-without-pre...

Wikipedia explains with and without prejudice in a criminal case: