Between the Lines

The biggest culprit in crime coverage is the use of “court documents.”  The phrase suggests something produced by the court, and, therefore, impartial.

But all of the substantive documents in a criminal court record are adversarial pleadings by one of the parties, almost always the prosecution.

When a story quotes “court documents” saying that a suspect did this or that, the journalist is quoting a document written by the police in order to convince a judge to issue a warrant or a prosecutor to issue a charge.

There’s nothing wrong with an “Affidavit of Probable Cause” or an “Affidavit in Support of a Search Warrant.”  But they are not “court documents” in the sense of being  produced by the court.  They are police documents that tell one side of a story.

“Arrested” Does Not Mean “Guilty”

I can’t say it often enough: being arrested does not mean someone is guilty.

There are thousands of false convictions every year according to a study by The Ohio State University.  All of those, and many more, started out with the wrong person being arrested.  But newspapers routinely impugn guilt from the fact of an arrest.

When the media report arrests, don’t confuse the arrests with guilty people being caught. 

An arrest means that a peace officer found probable cause to arrest someone.  Probable cause is a low standard, well short of the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard necessary for a conviction.

When the media report arrests, don’t confuse the arrests with guilty people being caught.  I wrote a blog post about this a couple of years ago when KARE 11 TV in the Twin Cities reported that 225 “Drunk Drivers” were “busted.”

Two hundred and twenty-five drivers were arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. Not all of those people were, or should have been, convicted. They may or may not have been guilty of drunk driving.

You would not know that from the KARE 11 coverage, which convicted all 225 without due process or trial.

 “Alcohol-related”

Just search any local news source for the term “alcohol-related.”  It’s a meaningless term, but it is used almost daily.

In the case of driving and vehicles, the term “alcohol-related” is defined by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) to mean “at least one driver or nonoccupant (pedestrian or pedalcyclist) with a BAC of .01 g/dL or higher.”

Read that carefully.

“Alcohol-related” does not mean that the incident was in any way caused by alcohol impairment.  It doesn’t even mean that the person who tested positive for alcohol was the one at fault.

If a pedestrian with a measurable BAC, standing on a sidewalk is hit by a maniac sober driver, that incident would be classified as “alcohol-related.”