Can this get any worse?! After blogging about Lisa Shutter being sexually violated during a “traffic stop” by the Albany, NY police department — where one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter’s vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs, I wondered what else goes on in that department. You know it’s not the first time when the behavior alleged is so beyond the pale.
Well, in the comments of that thread, a reader put up another link that shows the Albany, NY police are equal opportunity alleged rapists, as yet another incident of police abuse hit the papers earlier this month.
Two years ago, Tunde Clement stepped off a bus at the city’s main terminal downtown.Oh yes, it also gets much worse below the fold.Clement, a black man, was carrying a backpack and coming from New York City. That may have been enough to pique the interest of undercover sheriff’s investigators scanning the crowd with their eyes.
They cornered Clement and began peppering him with questions.
He was quickly handcuffed and falsely arrested. He was taken to a station to be strip-searched and then to a hospital, where doctors forcibly sedated him with a cocktail of powerful drugs, including one that clouded his memory of the incident.
And yes, there was a pattern of targeting black men.A camera was inserted in his rectum, he was forced to vomit and his blood and urine were tested for drugs and alcohol. Scans of his digestive system were performed using X-ray machines, according to hospital records obtained by the Times Union.
The search, conducted without a search warrant, came up empty.
In all, Clement spent more than 10 hours in custody before being released with nothing more than an appearance ticket for resisting arrest — a charge that was later dismissed.
Twenty years ago, Kindlon and another defense attorney, Joseph Donnelly, who is now deceased, hired a private investigator to stake out the bus station and monitor the detectives working there.“Donnelly and I were hearing that just about every black man who came through the bus station was being literally grabbed and dragged into the men’s room and searched,” Kindlon said. “Occasionally, of course, they would get lucky and find some drugs. But the vast, overwhelming majority of black men searched were clean.”
…In 1992, Kindlon represented a Boston man who won a $200,000 verdict against Albany police after he was roughed up and falsely arrested during a bus station stop.
“If the cops do a bad search and find nothing, there is usually no legal consequence,” he said. “Any such ‘victim’ is glad just to get away with his skin still on.”
165 Henry Johnson Boulevard
Albany, NY 12210
Phone: (518) 462-8013
Fax: (518) 434-5528
E-mail: police@albany-ny.org
As Rea commented below, the above is not the correct contact info:
Albany County Sheriff’s DepartmentThe Clement case which is the subject of this post involved misconduct by the Albany County Sheriff’s Department–the earlier post about the Shutter case involved misconduct by the Albany City Police Department.
http://www.albanycountysheriff.com/
64 Responses to “Out-of-control brutality of the Albany police department”
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This looks to me like bad reporting rather than a legitimate retelling of events.
It seems that many of the facts have been gleaned from “a federal complaint” which would be the factual narrative this multiple-felon has submitted against the police and the doctors.
None of them spoke to the reporter, and, indeed, the editors didn’t seem comfortable enough with the accuracy of the story to identify any of the officers or doctors by name. It is very possible, if this matter proceeds, that a very different series of events will be revealed.
There are real abuses being committed by officers, but multiple-felon drug dealers are not known for telling the truth, and guys in prison have a lot of time on their hands to cook up allegations against cops and corrections workers. Sometimes these cases expose serious abuses, but a lot of them contain fabricated allegations.
This looks to me like bad reporting rather than a legitimate retelling of events.
It seems that many of the facts have been gleaned from “a federal complaint” which would be the factual narrative this multiple-felon has submitted against the police and the doctors.
None of them spoke to the reporter, and, indeed, the editors didn’t seem comfortable enough with the accuracy of the story to identify any of the officers or doctors by name. It is very possible, if this matter proceeds, that a very different series of events will be revealed.
There are real abuses being committed by officers, but multiple-felon drug dealers are not known for telling the truth, and guys in prison have a lot of time on their hands to cook up allegations against cops and corrections workers. Sometimes these cases expose serious abuses, but a lot of them contain fabricated allegations.
And the Albany bus station seems particularly set up for that sort of shit. I have family in the area and often get dropped off to take the morning bus back to Boston. The place is creepy as hell at 8AM on a sunny day. It’s basically a small one story building in the middle of a huge, rundown weed-strewn parking lot with the highway along one side and the backside of office buildings along the other. I’ve walked around while waiting for the bus, and even on weekdays, there’s very little around.
It looks and feels like a place that bad people can do bad things and get away with it. I’ve wondered why they don’t fix it up - the buses are pretty full with folks from the midwest and upper New England - but I guess they really don’t want to.
I lived in Albany for three years, and this kind of abhorrent behavior by police is quite common. And for a city it’s size Albany has a lot of cops on the street too. It’s a virtual police state, really.
Interestingly enough, one of Albany’s biggest, nicest city police stations is located in the all-black neighborhood of Arbor Hill. Guess the proximity enables them to abuse and harass black citizens easily!
I’m just wondering how in the hell certain medical personnel have managed to retain their licensure and employment if they are drugging and searching people WITHOUT A WARRANT!
Anybody got a line to George Annas? I’d be interested in how this remotely resembles any type of acceptable medical practice ethics. In other words, why and how the hell do the doctors involved and other medical workers find this acceptable?
Damn. That’s beyond fucked up. I hope that this sort of coverage forces them to clean up their act, but I’m not naive enough to count on it.
Looks to me like Mitchforth just found this blog, doesn’t understand the moderation system, and wants to bend over forward to be a police abuse enabler.
yeah…. cause really, anyone involved with TEH DRUGSES deserves to have their human dignity stripped away.
i vote Mitchforth for biggest waste of molecules this week.
Nah, Mitchforth is just a cookie-like troll. Mold is a much bigger waste of molecules this week.
Mitchforth: I’d feel a tiny bit of sympathy for you if there was any indication in the story that the essential facts are in dispute. I mean, it’s one scary-ass world out there if the cops can generally get away with this kind of crap.
But there is no indication that the basic facts are in dispute. As such, the only bad feelings I have for you are that it must *really* suck to be that stupid and callous.
The only sources the reporter has on the record discussing this incident are the plaintiff, who has a long criminal record and is currently in jail, and his lawyer.
Medical records are also cited, but the plaintiff or the lawyer would be the only people who would have provided those to the paper, and there’s no way to tell if they are legitimate or complete.
The fact that the guy has a lawyer and is not filing pro se indicates that the claim might not be totally fabricated. But I don’t reflexively trust this guy Queenan; I don’t know anything about him and he has no affiliation with any public interest organization that would lend credibility to the claims he’s advancing.
If an innocent guy was actually forcibly sedated and cavity-searched by police and doctors for the crime of being black while in a bus station, I expect that various public-interest and advocacy organizations, like the ACLU, the NAACP, Al Sharpton’s organization, various law school-affiliated civil rights clinics, and numerous other groups would be lining up to help Clement pursue these cops and doctors.
There are a lot of skilled and talented professionals in the public interest sector whose job is to make sure that abuses like those alleged here don’t go on. If someone is pursuing a claim like this and these folks aren’t around, I generally suspect that they’ve looked at the claim and didn’t think it was persuasive enough to merit their efforts and resources.
Instead, you’ve got one guy, Queenan. I’m sure he’s a terrific fellow, and he charmed the pants off the reporter, but I will withhold judgment until the advocates for the hospital and the police have their opportunity to take this complaint apart.
Guys in jail have a lot of time to cook up civil rights claims, and many of the things they allege would shock and disgust any person of conscience. Some of them are even true. But a lot of them are fabricated, and career criminals like this guy Clement aren’t known for their honesty.
And this guy is making really shocking allegations against doctors as well as cops, so a little bit of skepticism is pretty well warranted, since I generally expect medical professionals to have fairly good judgment.
Hey, uh, Weirdo. How can it be that the top post on your little blog is about how you don’t believe that anything has been proven against Spitzer despite the wiretap evidence and his statement Monday that was essentially an admission of his guilt. I would say, in regard to Spitzer’s actions that there’s no “indication… that the essential facts are in dispute.”
But he’s innocent until proven guilty, and you won’t believe a word of it until you see the evidence.
However, with regard to these accusations against the Albany police, you’re willing to take the word of a drug dealer that cops and doctors conspired to stick stuff up his butt.
It must really suck to be that stupid.
I find no reference to anyone named Queenan in Pam’s text. Maybe you confused him with other?
Hey, who let Cookie back in here?
elgie writes:
From the article Pam linked to:
Not to mention the fact that someone has to CALL the ACLU, and that attorneys fees are recoverable for civil rights violations. So a plaintiff’s attorney who finds a great case is not going to call up the ACLU and say - hey, want to take this solid money-maker off my hands?
Who let the trolls out? (bun-bun-bun-bun) Who let the trolls out? (bun-bun-bun-bun)
What is Albany’s budget for trolling blogs that disagree with questionable police tactics? Seems they have a “sadism is no vice in the destruction of civil liberties” fan club going down there.
Not the only ones going down in Albany if I’ve heard right …
The ACLU wouldn’t have anything to do with it, since it’s a civil rights violation rather than a free speech violation.
I don’t know anything about this case but I don’t doubt that most of the complaints against the Albany police are true. Police officers can be assholes. However, just because someone is skeptical about a claim or some claims does not make him a troll, you know? Is anyone interested in what actually happened?
“resisting arrest”
Every judge in the world should start with the assumption that if the only charge laid by the police is “resisting arrest” then he should immediately suspect police malfeasance and/or excessive use of force. And if the cops whine then they have nobody to blame but themselves for making it so.
I also find it interesting that our Troll Fleet seems intent on arguing about miniscule random points about specific cases - some of which are not even mentioned here.
Kind of like the Simi Valley frame-by-frame waltz. We have to look at tiny points rather than the whopping brutal whole to find some excuse space here!
No disrespect to the imminent NY Governor, but this is the whole “five blind men and an elephant” parable all over again. Obsess on irrelevant detail to distract from the much larger picture of a vast and sweeping pattern of abuse sheltered by family ties and bolstered by a blue wall of lies.
Look at the trees people, look at the bark, look at the limbs … no forest to see here!
MEH. That is SICK. Sick sick pig police idiots.
Hmmm. The troll remind anyone of anything…
“women lie about sexual assault”
“black people lie about abuse”.
http://www.theagitator.com/category/police-professionalism/
“Look at the trees people, look at the bark, look at the limbs … no forest to see here!”
Being a knee-jerk defender of cop-ish behavior means never having to soil your beautiful mind with thoughts of a forest.
Right Wing Authoritarian Cultist = Whoever is in authority (unless they are Democrats) must be believed and defended, no matter what they say, do, or lie about…
If an innocent guy was actually forcibly sedated and cavity-searched by police
Technically, an innocent guy was forcibly sedated: since Clements had not been convicted of any crime–or charged with one–relevant to this incident, he was by legal defnition “innocent”. Belligerance or lack of cooperation are not grounds to strip someone of their rights.
According to the article (emphasis mine):
The medical records show one of the doctors placed a call to the hospital’s risk management director to assess the liability exposure of what they were about to do.
In some cases, prisoners or people under arrest can be forcibly sedated without a court order if they are in imminent danger, such as when a bag of drugs bursts open inside them and they begin to have a seizure or fall unconscious. But the hospital’s records indicate Clement was behaving normally and showed no signs of any medical emergency.
“Spoke to Shirley of Risk Management,” a physician wrote, documenting the medical decision-making that afternoon. “OK to treat, sedate & remove FOB (foreign object body) against (patient’s) will despite his personal refusal.”
Regardless of the patient’s attitude or actions, he “showed no signs of medical emergency”–that is not something that could be easily hidden in hospital records, particularly in the section of the records at the time of the sedation. Since the doctors have time to consult with the legal department before sedating him, Clements couldn’t have been “in imminent danger”.
Yes, but being a convicted criminal means that no one can ever commit a crime against you, especially a police officer. It’s the same way that Guiliani argued that the undercover cop who killed Patrick Dorismond was completely justified in doing it because Dorismond had a marijuana conviction when he was a juvenile. Once guilty, always and perpetually guilty — that’s how the American justice system works.
I so wish I were snarking right now.
The doctor should have refused and he or she knew it, in other words. If he even had to call “risk management” he was fully aware that what he was about to do would cost him is license if he didn’t play the CYA routine.
Both “shirly” and the doctor should be stripped of their licenses. Period.
I’m just wondering how in the hell certain medical personnel have managed to retain their licensure and employment if they are drugging and searching people WITHOUT A WARRANT! Anybody got a line to George Annas? I’d be interested in how this remotely resembles any type of acceptable medical practice ethics. In other words, why and how the hell do the doctors involved and other medical workers find this acceptable?
The question of healthcare professionals’ involvement in police procedures has been a hot topic in medical ethics for a long time. It involves everything from participation in executions, to the confidentiality of patient information, to, as in this case, performing tests or examinations without the patient’s consent.
The issue was especially heated in the 60s and 70s, when civil liberties and police-powers issues were being worked out. Bioethicists and healthcare professionals tended to take a patient-centered view that they should not be required to violate patient welfare for interests of the state - that the state had other means to attain even legitimate law enforcement ends, and the damage to the caregiver/patient relationship, and the chilling effect on patients’ willingness to seek treatment, that would result from forcing caregivers to act against their patients’ interests would cause irreparable harm. (A minority of more conservative doctors sometimes took the position that no one has a right to expect to break the law with impunity and doctors as citizens should be ready to mount up and join the posse at any moment, but that has not been the general opinion within the professions.) So much of healthcare ethics is predicated upon the special fiduciary relationship between caregiver and patient that professionals have been chary of creating any exceptions to the traditional obligation to “do no harm”.
However, state law determines what is permitted or required, and some states passed laws on these issues. The laws took a variety of forms - for instance, when the AMA and other professional bodies officially opposed participation in state executions, some states passed laws prohibiting professional organizations from disciplining or de-credentialing anyone for doing so. Regarding evidence searches, some states prohibit them without court order, but some actually require any licensed professional to conduct such a search upon demand. And the courts have gradually trended toward allowing more- and more-invasive searches as a matter of course, with or without healthcare professionals’ participation.
The result was that the issue sort of faded away in medical ethics. It’s still recognized as a controversy, but one of the ones you can’t do much about. State laws are set, the court precedents are settled, and there isn’t much of a movement right now to challenge them. Caregivers who refuse to comply with a search demand, in a state that requires them to, will simply be charged with a crime, or lose their license - with no real hope of overturning the doctrine in the courts. Most hospitals, in states where patient interests still hold sway, have been good about not complying with search requests without a warrant, but in other states they have little practical choice.
As for requiring warrants, the courts have generally held that visual body searches, including strip searches, incidental to arrest do not require a warrant, but that internal searches, including blood draws, do require a warrant. But that is also interpreted according to whether the search is “reasonable” under the circumstances. (Blood or urine testing for DWI is a different matter. Because the courts interpret driving as a state-granted privilege, you must agree to such a search - and provide the sample for it - when you get your driver’s license; the fact that you have the license is “implied consent” for the search. But they still can’t force you to do it - they can just automatically revoke your license if you don’t comply.) Whether the search in the case described above was “reasonable”, and whether the doctors had freedom to refuse to participate, are presumably going to be among the issues at trial.
There’s a good brief overview of the issue in Slate, by an ER doc who was surprised to find he had no say in the matter, in his state. It includes a link to a survey of state laws on this and related issues. Here’s a state court of appeals opinion in a similar case that includes a good review of precedent in the general question of invasive body searches.
I’m just wondering how in the hell certain medical personnel have managed to retain their licensure and employment if they are drugging and searching people WITHOUT A WARRANT! Anybody got a line to George Annas? I’d be interested in how this remotely resembles any type of acceptable medical practice ethics. In other words, why and how the hell do the doctors involved and other medical workers find this acceptable?
The question of healthcare professionals’ involvement in police procedures has been a hot topic in medical ethics for a long time. It involves everything from participation in executions, to the confidentiality of patient information, to, as in this case, performing tests or examinations without the patient’s consent.
The issue was especially heated in the 60s and 70s, when civil liberties and police-powers issues were being worked out. Bioethicists and healthcare professionals tended to take a patient-centered view that they should not be required to violate patient welfare for interests of the state - that the state had other means to attain even legitimate law enforcement ends, and the damage to the caregiver/patient relationship, and the chilling effect on patients’ willingness to seek treatment, that would result from forcing caregivers to act against their patients’ interests would cause irreparable harm. (A minority of more conservative doctors sometimes took the position that no one has a right to expect to break the law with impunity and doctors as citizens should be ready to mount up and join the posse at any moment, but that has not been the general opinion within the professions.) So much of healthcare ethics is predicated upon the special fiduciary relationship between caregiver and patient that professionals have been chary of creating any exceptions to the traditional obligation to “do no harm”.
However, state law determines what is permitted or required, and some states passed laws on these issues. The laws took a variety of forms - for instance, when the AMA and other professional bodies officially opposed participation in state executions, some states passed laws prohibiting professional organizations from disciplining or de-credentialing anyone for doing so. Regarding evidence searches, some states prohibit them without court order, but some actually require any licensed professional to conduct such a search upon demand. And the courts have gradually trended toward allowing more- and more-invasive searches as a matter of course, with or without healthcare professionals’ participation.
The result was that the issue sort of faded away in medical ethics. It’s still recognized as a controversy, but one of the ones you can’t do much about. State laws are set, the court precedents are settled, and there isn’t much of a movement right now to challenge them. Caregivers who refuse to comply with a search demand, in a state that requires them to, will simply be charged with a crime, or lose their license - with no real hope of overturning the doctrine in the courts. Most hospitals, in states where patient interests still hold sway, have been good about not complying with search requests without a warrant, but in other states they have little practical choice.
As for requiring warrants, the courts have generally held that visual body searches, including strip searches, incidental to arrest do not require a warrant, but that internal searches, including blood draws, do require a warrant. But that is also interpreted according to whether the search is “reasonable” under the circumstances. (Blood or urine testing for DWI is a different matter. Because the courts interpret driving as a state-granted privilege, you must agree to such a search - and provide the sample for it - when you get your driver’s license; the fact that you have the license is “implied consent” for the search. But they still can’t force you to do it - they can just automatically revoke your license if you don’t comply.) Whether the search in the case described above was “reasonable”, and whether the doctors had freedom to refuse to participate, are presumably going to be among the issues at trial.
There’s a good brief overview of the issue in Slate, by an ER doc who was surprised to find he had no say in the matter, in his state. It includes a link to a survey of state laws on this and related issues. Here’s a state court of appeals opinion in a similar case that includes a good review of precedent in the general question of invasive body searches.
What Ms Kate said.
I’m pretty much sick to death of cops and cop-enablers.
Burke, who runs the sheriff’s Drug Interdiction Unit, said investigators need a reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk someone. That could be something as subtle as a passenger walking out an entrance door, leaving a bag unattended or going into a bathroom stall and not pulling down his or her pants, he said.
The above from the linked article. Going out the entrance is “suspicous behavior”? I’ve done in numerous times and never once been stopped by the police. Could it be because I am white looking? Nah, couldn’t be. They aren’t profiling or anything after all.
If an innocent guy was actually forcibly sedated and cavity-searched by police and doctors for the crime of being black while in a bus station, I expect that various public-interest and advocacy organizations, like the ACLU, the NAACP, Al Sharpton’s organization, various law school-affiliated civil rights clinics, and numerous other groups would be lining up to help Clement pursue these cops and doctors.
The problem is that this sort of abuse is so common that the organizations and individuals mentioned can’t possibly respond to all of them because they simply don’t have enough time: not enough hours in the day. One in 100 Americans and 1 in 9 black men is in prison at any given time. There are a lot of false arrests and acts of harassment going on. The unusual element here is not what happened but that we heard about it at all.
I’m just wondering how in the hell certain medical personnel have managed to retain their licensure and employment if they are drugging and searching people WITHOUT A WARRANT! Anybody got a line to George Annas? I’d be interested in how this remotely resembles any type of acceptable medical practice ethics. In other words, why and how the hell do the doctors involved and other medical workers find this acceptable?
The question of healthcare professionals’ involvement in police procedures has been a hot topic in medical ethics for a long time. It involves everything from participation in executions, to the confidentiality of patient information, to, as in this case, performing tests or examinations without the patient’s consent.
The issue was especially heated in the 60s and 70s, when civil liberties and police-powers issues were being worked out. Bioethicists and healthcare professionals tended to take a patient-centered view that they should not be required to violate patient welfare for interests of the state - that the state had other means to attain even legitimate law enforcement ends, and the damage to the caregiver/patient relationship, and the chilling effect on patients’ willingness to seek treatment, that would result from forcing caregivers to act against their patients’ interests would cause irreparable harm. (A minority of more conservative doctors sometimes took the position that no one has a right to expect to break the law with impunity and doctors as citizens should be ready to mount up and join the posse at any moment, but that has not been the general opinion within the professions.) So much of healthcare ethics is predicated upon the special fiduciary relationship between caregiver and patient that professionals have been chary of creating any exceptions to the traditional obligation to “do no harm”.
However, state law determines what is permitted or required, and some states passed laws on these issues. The laws took a variety of forms - for instance, when the AMA and other professional bodies officially opposed participation in state executions, some states passed laws prohibiting professional organizations from disciplining or de-credentialing anyone for doing so. Regarding evidence searches, some states prohibit them without court order, but some actually require any licensed professional to conduct such a search upon demand. And the courts have gradually trended toward allowing more- and more-invasive searches as a matter of course, with or without healthcare professionals’ participation.
The result was that the issue sort of faded away in medical ethics. It’s still recognized as a controversy, but one of the ones you can’t do much about. State laws are set, the court precedents are settled, and there isn’t much of a movement right now to challenge them. Caregivers who refuse to comply with a search demand, in a state that requires them to, will simply be charged with a crime, or lose their license - with no real hope of overturning the doctrine in the courts. Most hospitals, in states where patient interests still hold sway, have been good about not complying with search requests without a warrant, but in other states they have little practical choice.
As for requiring warrants, the courts have generally held that visual body searches, including strip searches, incidental to arrest do not require a warrant, but that internal searches, including blood draws, do require a warrant. But that is also interpreted according to whether the search is “reasonable” under the circumstances. (Blood or urine testing for DWI is a different matter. Because the courts interpret driving as a state-granted privilege, you must agree to such a search - and provide the sample for it - when you get your driver’s license; the fact that you have the license is “implied consent” for the search. But they still can’t force you to do it - they can just automatically revoke your license if you don’t comply.) Whether the search in the case described above was “reasonable”, and whether the doctors had freedom to refuse to participate, are presumably going to be among the issues at trial.
There’s a good brief overview of the issue in Slate, by an ER doc who was surprised to find he had no say in the matter, in his state. It includes a link to a survey of state laws on this and related issues. Here’s a state court of appeals opinion in a similar case that includes a good review of precedent in the general question of invasive body searches.
Mitchforth is just another ass-kissing enabler of brutal police activities…
They’re the “good guys” going after the “evildoers”, so nothing they do could be wrong…
I suspect Mitchy is also a Bush enabler…he sounds like he’s drunk way too much of the BushCo kool aid…
PS-Webmaster…your letterforms are sometimes almost impossible to read!
I made a mistake defending Mitchforth as “not necessarily a troll”-It’s really rude to say things like “your little blog” and “It must really suck to be that stupid.” Is that really necessary?
The hospital’s risk management department has an interesting problem: they OK’d forcible sedation to remove a supposedly dangerous object from the patient’s body, but the supposedly dangerous object didn’t exist. They and the police who ordered the assault should have their (metaphorical) asses handed to them in court.
Oh, and anyone who takes the “he’s a criminal, of course he should be taken into custody” line pretty much forfeits all credibility, at least in the US, where the supreme law of the land forbids such behavior. I do wonder, though, why M-f- and his ilk hate America’s liberty so much.
I’m just wondering how in the hell certain medical personnel have managed to retain their licensure and employment if they are drugging and searching people WITHOUT A WARRANT! Anybody got a line to George Annas? I’d be interested in how this remotely resembles any type of acceptable medical practice ethics. In other words, why and how the hell do the doctors involved and other medical workers find this acceptable?
The question of healthcare professionals’ involvement in police procedures has been a hot topic in medical ethics for a long time. It involves everything from participation in executions, to the confidentiality of patient information, to, as in this case, performing tests or examinations without the patient’s consent.
The issue was especially heated in the 60s and 70s, when civil liberties and police-powers issues were being worked out. Bioethicists and healthcare professionals tended to take a patient-centered view that they should not be required to violate patient welfare for interests of the state - that the state had other means to attain even legitimate law enforcement ends, and the damage to the caregiver/patient relationship, and the chilling effect on patients’ willingness to seek treatment, that would result from forcing caregivers to act against their patients’ interests would cause irreparable harm. (A minority of more conservative doctors sometimes took the position that no one has a right to expect to break the law with impunity and doctors as citizens should be ready to mount up and join the posse at any moment, but that has not been the general opinion within the professions.) So much of healthcare ethics is predicated upon the special fiduciary relationship between caregiver and patient that professionals have been chary of creating any exceptions to the traditional obligation to “do no harm”.
However, state law determines what is permitted or required, and some states passed laws on these issues. The laws took a variety of forms - for instance, when the AMA and other professional bodies officially opposed participation in state executions, some states passed laws prohibiting professional organizations from disciplining or de-credentialing anyone for doing so. Regarding evidence searches, some states prohibit them without court order, but some actually require any licensed professional to conduct such a search upon demand. And the courts have gradually trended toward allowing more- and more-invasive searches as a matter of course, with or without healthcare professionals’ participation.
The result was that the issue sort of faded away in medical ethics. It’s still recognized as a controversy, but one of the ones you can’t do much about. State laws are set, the court precedents are settled, and there isn’t much of a movement right now to challenge them. Caregivers who refuse to comply with a search demand, in a state that requires them to, will simply be charged with a crime, or lose their license - with no real hope of overturning the doctrine in the courts. Most hospitals, in states where patient interests still hold sway, have been good about not complying with search requests without a warrant, but in other states they have little practical choice.
There’s a good brief overview of the issue in Slate, by an ER doc who was surprised to find he had no say in the matter, in his state. It includes a link to a survey of state laws on this and related issues. Here’s a state court of appeals opinion in a similar case that includes a good review of precedent in the general question of invasive body searches.
Regarding the requirement for warrants for medical examinations in police cases, the courts have generally held that visual body searches, including strip searches, incidental to arrest do not require a warrant, but that internal searches, including blood draws, do require a warrant. But that is also interpreted according to whether the search is “reasonable” under the circumstances. (Blood or urine testing for DWI is a different matter. Because the courts interpret driving as a state-granted privilege, you must agree to such a search - and provide the sample for it - when you get your driver’s license; the fact that you have the license is “implied consent” for the search. But they still can’t force you to do it - they can just automatically revoke your license if you don’t comply.) Whether the search in the case described above was “reasonable”, and whether the doctors had freedom to refuse to participate, are presumably going to be among the issues at trial.
I’m very sorry for the triple-posting above. The anti-spam text is very hard to read, the posts are often delayed for an hour or more after submission, and there is no indication when a post has been accepted or rejected! The result is a tendency to keep posting over and over, thinking there was an error. I notice others have had the same problem.
My apologies for the (ironic) spamming.
The doctor should have refused and he or she knew it, in other words. If he even had to call “risk management” he was fully aware that what he was about to do would cost him is license if he didn’t play the CYA routine. Both “shirly” and the doctor should be stripped of their licenses. Period.
The hospital’s risk management department has an interesting problem: they OK’d forcible sedation to remove a supposedly dangerous object from the patient’s body, but the supposedly dangerous object didn’t exist. They and the police who ordered the assault should have their (metaphorical) asses handed to them in court.
The problem is the doctor couldn’t refuse, or at least couldn’t legally refuse without taking a stance that would (a) do nothing to prevent the assaultive exam from eventually being conducted, and (b) almost certainly resulted in being fired and the very least, and possibly prosecuted.
What the hospital lawyer undoubtedly informed the doctor was that it was either mandatory, or at least legally permissible, to perform the procedure. It certainly isn’t going to cost anyone their license to have done this (and, if it were illegal, merely calling the hospital lawyer first would not protect the doctor who did it). It could possibly cost them their license to refuse to do it, in a state in which such exams are mandatory, and would probably cost them their employment to refuse where the exams are at least not prohibited and hospital policy is to comply. And, given that (as is undoubtedly the case here) state law authorizes such exams, the patient has no standing to sue for malpractice in the case of the unwanted invasive procedure, and the doctor has no standing to claim professional privilege in refusing to do it.
Whether or not the police-mandaged search actually turned up any incriminating evidence means nothing. For the medical personnel, the only question is whether they were obeying a legal order within the bounds prescribed by state law - and, in too many states, the answer in cases like this would be “yes”. For the cops, the question is whether such a search would be regarded as “reasonable”, but again the answer is probably “yes” and at any rate that only puts the cops at risk - if medical searches in general are authorized, it is the cops’ responsibility to demand them only when justified, not the caregivers’ responsibility to make the (legal) decision about the reasonability of the search.
The bottom line is that, although non-voluntary invasive searches for legal reasons have huge implications for bioethics and healthcare practice, state law takes those decisions out of the hands of the professionals in many states - either by forbidding them or by mandating them. And, as I posted (too often) above, the legal issues are settled enough that there is little grounds for effective protest at this time. You can throw away your job, or maybe your career, by refusing to do what the law says - and arguably perhaps professionals ought to be willing to do so - but you can’t make much of a change, or even likely protect your patient, in the end, by doing so.
OK, Kevin T. Keithe, since the police may have had the authority (depending on state law) to force the doctors to do the search, are they on the hook for the fact there was nothing there? That the only charge they had was ‘resisting’ arrest, which can’t happen without an underlying charge?
Does not the obligation to do the search only apply to legal searches? If there is no imminent risk and no warrant, then it seems likely that the medical professionals can refuse to act.
And cops wonder why so many people hate their guts.
going into a bathroom stall and not pulling down his or her pants, he said
Hm, so if I have to fix my bra or pick my underwear out of my ass while I’m in the bus station, I’m automatically a suspicious person in Albany?
I’m beginning to think that the massive incarceration statistics in the US have something to do with law enforcement authorities seeing criminals in their cornflakes.
“Hm, so if I have to fix my bra or pick my underwear out of my ass while I’m in the bus station, I’m automatically a suspicious person in Albany?”
…could be wearing one of those suicide belts…
You can never be too careful when we’re dealing with IslamoFascistCommuno- LiberalGlobalEurabians…
:)
You should note that the first post was about the Albany police, while the present post is about the sheriff’s department–two different organiztions, answerable to two different governmental untis (city vs. county). Although the linked article suggests that some the the sherrif’s dept.’s illegal tactics come from having hired an ex-Albany police officer . . .
Um, Keith, there was no search warrant.
Does Nuremberg mean anything? Belmont? Helsinki?
How about Hippocratic Oath?
Spare the legalmumbojumboese - these doctors did not have to search for shit and could sue the hospital blind and challenge its accrediations if fired for refusing.
People like you are simply “following orders” enablers spewing threats that do not exist. We know from international precident that doctors do not get off the hook for “just following orders” - ESPECIALLY doctors.
And particularly, do NOT call or email the police at the number or link given in the post to complain about the Clement case–wroong department!!
Does not the obligation to do the search only apply to legal searches? If there is no imminent risk and no warrant, then it seems likely that the medical professionals can refuse to act.
Most states have patient consent laws. If a patient does not consent to a non-emergency procedure and does not sign to that effect, the only legal route is a court order.
Cops bringing in a person doesn’t count without that warrant.
I wonder if the insurers of the hospital are aware that they are conducting non-consenting procedures without a court order? Shall we do some digging and find out?
I thought I read that the hospital was trying to bill him for the search and his insurance company was refusing to pay.
How does that work?
You REFUSE a procedure, they perform it against your will, and they bill you for it?
Mitchforth:
Please work on your reading comprehension. I laid out the case.
A shame-filled apology does not prove that one engaged in illegal activity with an escort. It proves that the person is shamed… which can mean ashamed of being caught doing so when married. Or, maybe, as is intimated about Vitter, he’s into something weird, like diapers.
The money shuffling strikes me as bogus, especially given the quantities that were being discussed.
And, just curious… what did I say that the legislators should do once additional evidence surfaces, when the story points to actual laws being broken? Something more than “he hired an escort and maybe shuffled money”? I believe it was to the effect that they should go forward?
In contrast, in this story, that Clement was searched is established and we have this little tidbit from the article:
I’d call you a moron, but it’d be redundant at this point, wouldn’t it? You’re out of your league.
Caren, if you think about it, such a situation is the Bushies’ idea of heaven: they deny you things that you need and want from your government, replacing them with forcible receipt of things that you don’t want, with the bonus of being forced at gunpoint by police officers enforcing laws which shouldn’t exist! Sweeeeeeeeeet, from their point of view.
Longhairedweirdo,
I don’t even know what you’re talking about with regard to Spitzer. His bank reported him to the IRS because he was moving money around in a suspicious way to pay for the prostitute. They have his text messages and wiretapped conversations. They have subsequent wiretaps of the girl talking about how she had sex with him.
Newspapers are reporting now that he had a years-long habit of buying sex and that the prostitutes all knew who he was. He apologized and then resigned. He didn’t even try to deny it like Larry Craig did. What is there for you to doubt?
And yet for these allegations against the police, one newspaper story citing the complaint and records provided to the paper by this guy’s lawyer are indisputable proof. Do you see the intellectual inconsistency there?
Look at the article. Look at the attribution. When the reporter says “X happened” what does he cite. He clearly didn’t witness any of these events personally.
He attributes his narrative of events to “a federal complaint,” Clement’s lawsuit. In other words, the most favorable construction of events for his claim his lawyer could write. He might as well have just let Queenan write the newspaper article.
He also cites “medical records.” Where would the Times Union obtain these “medical records”? Do you think the writer went to the hospital and said “Hey, can I have the medical records for the guy who is suing you?” How do you think the hospital would respond?
I think they would not give him the records. They would cite patient confidentiality and refuse to comment on a pending legal matter.
You know where the reporter would get the records? From the guy’s lawyer. That is the only place he could get those records. Which means that the records available to the reporter in writing his story were only those records Clement’s lawyer wanted him to see. Anything else, the lawyer may have withheld or redacted.
So the only source for that entire narrative is Clement’s attorney, and yet you’re willing to believe it uncritically. But in the Spitzer case where a mountain of damning evidence has been disclosed and he’s made an admission of guilt, you don’t want to rush to conclusions.
There’s no intellectual inconsistencies here; it’s all part of the great circle. Your mind, like, perceives the cosmos, man, and I am a troll for suggesting that there may be some pertinent facts that will come to light when the cops and the hospital answer this complaint.
But evidently, that’s just so demonstrably wrong, and I can’t see it, because I’m out of my league.
Mitchforth, you are missing the larger point that Clement’s case isn’t the only case here.
There is the 1992 attack on a man exiting a bus from Boston that has already been adjudicated.
There is the illegal body cavity search of a woman not cited for a traffic offense or charged with any crime.
There are actually more than this - too many to detail.
You love your minute details … I prefer to look at the larger picture which is a PATTERN of abuse by law enforcement authorities.
You can nitpick away little stupid details ala Simi Valley Video, but you won’t take away from the LARGER TRUTH.
Rent a car … try it out yourself. Except you might actually enjoy the long finger of the law, eh?
Mitchforth:
One last time, but only because you’re a complete dunderhead.
And no charges have been filed. So, as yet, no proof of a crime.
They have a wiretap of a woman talking about how she *met* with him. No specific statement saying that a law was violated.
Yes, newspapers are saying something now. If only they’d said the exact same thing yesterday, you wouldn’t be looking like quite so much of an idiot. Just curious: do they actually have someone alleging an illegal action? Or are you missing the point that you can hire a woman from an escort service and do things with her that are legal (but would still make most men ashamed to talk about in front of TV cameras)?
Face it, the NY GOP called for impeachment when they couldn’t name a specific act that they knew he performed that they knew was illegal. That was sleazy.
As for the rest, please, go on; I’m sure you won’t be satisfied until you’ve made another feeble argument. This time I won’t answer, because you’re a waste of time, so you’ll be able to pretend that you actually “won”.
Mitchforth: “You know where the reporter would get the records? From the guy’s lawyer. That is the only place he could get those records. Which means that the records available to the reporter in writing his story were only those records Clement’s lawyer wanted him to see. Anything else, the lawyer may have withheld or redacted.”
This is absolute bullshit. A patient or former patient can request copies of their records at any time, whether they’re suing the hospital or not. As a hospital nurse, I can’t imagine how you could concoct a story like this just by withholding or “redacting” parts of an otherwise innocent record… but if there was any question of that, all the reporter would have to do is accompany Clement to the hospital when he picked up his copied records. Mitchforth, there’s such a thing as skepticism, and then there’s such a thing as bending over so far backwards to give the cops the benefit of the doubt that your head disappears up your ass. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Please go away.
Hob,
Goes without saying he could get them from Clement. Clement is in prison on a drug conviction arising from an arrest subsequent to the one disputed in his lawsuit, because he is a habitual felon.
Clement is not quoted in the article, and there’s no reason to think the reporter talked to him. One would assume he is letting his lawyer speak for him about his lawsuit.
Also, strategic omissions can certainly change the context of of facts in a narrative. I’m sure you’re familiar with patients who have filed spurious or baseless malpractice suits against your hospital. Consider the way those facts would appear if the story were only told by the lawyer suing you, and he provided a copy of the patient’s records with redactions to make the hospital look as bad as possible. That’s what’s going on here.
So, Mitchforth, your contention is that once someone is a convicted criminal, it’s impossible for a crime to be committed against them?
Wow.
Felons never lie.
Cops are teh evil.
Prisons only hold the innocent.
Let me place your sorry @sses in Graterford. It is in Pennsyltucky and you might find benefit in dealing with so many “wronged” individuals. You can share so much. Hate to tell you, but most folks in jail are not nice. Very few are Nelson Mandela. Most are Jeffy Dahmer or Ms Homulka.
Mitchforth brings up points and all you do is stick fingers in your ears and emulate Bush. Not what I’d expect from adults.
Mold:
You might not be aware of a little thing called the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It guarantees that we will be secure in our persons, unless there is probable cause to demand a search.
We know that the search occurred, and we know that there was no court order presented to the hospital (which is why they checked their risk before performing the procedures).
So, feel free to explain how any other fact could arise that could excuse the decision to perform such a search without a warrant.
If the police had probable cause to order this search, they should have obtained a warrant. Even if the law does not require it - and I can’t believe that the law could be *that* bad, but I admit it’s possible - it would have demonstrated a respect for human dignity. “No sticking cameras up a person’s ass without a warrant,” doesn’t sound like a hard standard for the cops to live up to.
And if they didn’t have probable cause, they shouldn’t have performed the search.
Not even if the victim was extraordinarily “not nice”.
Weirdo,
Once again, you don’t know what you’re talking about. If the police had a good reason to believe it was likely Clement had drugs concealed inside his body, that would be a textbook example of a valid search without a warrant.
A balloon or condom full of drugs is a very dangerous thing for a suspect to have in his body. If the balloon ruptures, then the mule will die of an overdose.
Imagine a situation where, instead of searching Clement, the police put him in a holding cell and go before a judge to get a warrant to search his body. While they are waiting for that, the baggie in his guts breaks open, and he dies in police custody.
Would you be praising the police for respecting this guy’s Fourth Amendment rights in that situation? I think you would be angry at the “pigs” for not getting the guy the medical assistance he clearly needed.
A “reasonable suspicion” is sufficient to justify a stop-and-frisk search, which is probably most of what the narc cops in Albany are doing at the bus station. A more intrusive search, like a cavity search or a search of domicile requires “probable cause” to believe there is evidence of a crime going on. If there is no urgency that harm will occur unless police act, or that evidence will be destroyed if it is not seized quickly, the police should go before a judge and get a warrant.
If the police believe that there is an urgent need to proceed immediately, the justification for the search is considered retroactively and if it is found to be lacking, the evidence resulting from the search is suppressed.
In this case a “phalanx” of officers rushed this guy to a hospital where doctors performed an expensive medical procedure on him. One possible interpretation of these facts is that these professionals reasonably believed that this guy was likely in imminent danger and responded in a manner consistent with that belief.
The other possibility is that there was a large conspiracy of cops and doctors to stick stuff up this guy’s butt.
I think you can guess which scenario I think is more likely.
Weirdo,
Once again, you don’t know what you’re talking about. If the police had a good reason to believe it was likely Clement had drugs concealed inside his body, that would be a textbook example of a valid search without a warrant.
A balloon or condom full of drugs is a very dangerous thing for a suspect to have in his body. If the balloon ruptures, then the mule will die of an overdose.
Imagine a situation where, instead of searching Clement, the police put him in a holding cell and go before a judge to get a warrant to search his body. While they are waiting for that, the baggie in his guts breaks open, and he dies in police custody.
Would you be praising the police for respecting this guy’s Fourth Amendment rights in that situation? I think you would be angry at the “pigs” for not getting the guy the medical assistance he clearly needed.
A “reasonable suspicion” is sufficient to justify a stop-and-frisk search, which is probably most of what the narc cops in Albany are doing at the bus station. A more intrusive search, like a cavity search or a search of domicile requires “probable cause” to believe there is evidence of a crime going on. If there is no urgency that harm will occur unless police act, or that evidence will be destroyed if it is not seized quickly, the police should go before a judge and get a warrant.
If the police believe that there is an urgent need to proceed immediately, the justification for the search is considered retroactively and if it is found to be lacking, the evidence resulting from the search is suppressed.
In this case a “phalanx” of officers rushed this guy to a hospital where doctors performed an expensive medical procedure on him. One possible interpretation of these facts is that these professionals reasonably believed that this guy was likely in imminent danger and responded in a manner consistent with that belief.
The other possibility is that there was a large conspiracy of cops and doctors to stick stuff up this guy’s butt.
I think you can guess which scenario I think is more likely.
Mitchforth answered the question.
Mold:
For some version of “answering the question” that refers to spewing irrelevancies, ignoring contradictory facts that are available, forsaking the use of critical thought, engaging in fallacious bifurcation and unfounded speculation, all in an attempt to shore up an untenable position, I’d have to agree with you.