The Noble Lie Paradox
~Reliving the tragedies of “old school” policing tactics
Every newsletter on MYLIFEplus25 is public and free to everyone, but we ask for your support. Please consider becoming a patron now to help fund our ongoing legal efforts that dare to speak truth to power. This isn't journalism, it's activism! And these efforts are only possible through the support of good people just like you who believe that change is possible.
Thank you and I hope you enjoy today’s post.
—
On November 8, 2019, Gisell Estrada, a 17 year old student aide at Albuquerque High School was arrested for murder, armed robbery, and conspiracy in the murder of Calvin Kelly.
And in reading this as a potential headline one might think, well, thank God for the police and hard-working detectives, the determined prosecutors, and a judicial system capable of holding these criminals accountable.
Which is true, generally speaking, but in this particular instance – not true.
Because Gisell Estrada was innocent. Her arrest was not based on good detective work, the sound judgement of a prosecutor, or the diligent efforts of a fair and impartial judge.
It was instead based on a self-serving, blame shifting accusation of the first suspect in custody who happened to be facing life imprisonment. Sound familiar?
The suspect in custody blamed an unknown Facebook profile named “Lexi” the responsible party for Calvin Kelly's murder. The profile was then shared with the resource officer at Albuquerque High School, who then shared it with a school administrator, who then falsely identified Estrada as the infamous “Lexi”.
Albuquerque High School, Albuq. NM Source: Jonanderson Architecture.com
The lead detective in the case, former APD homicide detective Jessie Carter, without any further investigation to confirm that Estrada was in fact “Lexi,” obtained a warrant for her arrest without adhering to a APD investigative protocols; the prosecutor Natalie Lyon went along with it, stating in a subsequent IA investigation, “we trust what our detectives are doing,” also adding that she “had no reason not to believe what [Carter] said,” which followed suit with the court’s actions in approving the warrant.
Essentially, the responsible parties who should be exercising due diligence, from the prosecutor who scrutinizes the substance and relevance of the gathered evidence, to the judge who determines if there is sufficiency to proceed, all decided that Carter’s experience superseded the need for scrutiny.
And the result was the wrongful arrest and detainment of an adolescent, Hispanic girl based on nothing more substantive than the fact that someone said she resembled the real suspect Alexis Pina, all without any investigative efforts to actually link Estrada to (a) the “Lexi” Facebook profile, or (b) the murder victim Calvin Kelly by either motive, physical evidence or circumstances.
Source: Library.com
I frequently speak on the black, moral stain on our justice system represented by each and every wrongful arrest or conviction that takes place in the United (caceral) States of America. In my articles the number 46,000 is frequently repeated, as the number of wrongful convictions that most estimates suggest take place every year in this country.
But it's a number that can be too overwhelming to conceptualize. Kind of like reading about reported deaths from Covid, genocide, or something banal like diabetes. It means something and it's significant, but it can also seem too far detached from our daily lives to bring forth anything more than a passing grimace or thought.
But this should rightly terrify each and every one of us because it reveals a legal system unhinged from protocols, constitutional safeguards, or even common sense.
Some may say, well, the young Estrada was only inconvenienced by six days and that's not the end of the world, or her life. True, but such sentiment overlooks certain things like the trauma of thinking, oh, my God, they want to send me to prison for the rest of my life for something I didn't do. Suddenly six days becomes an eternity for anyone in that predicament.
Others may point to the Herculean task we've set for homicide detectives and law-enforcement officers in asking them to keep our communities safe. What we ask of these officials can be a thankless, seemingly futile task: the endless bureaucracy, the impunity of seeing criminals repeatedly pass through the revolving doors of a justice system to indifferent to care, to even recognizing that regardless of how many warrants, arrests, or convictions are made our communities are never going to be fundamentally safer until we collectively start to address the underlying causes of criminality.
Something that isn't politically convenient, expedient, or, for that matter, expectant given the somewhat cannibalistic nature of our current political system.
And from this it’s convenient to push aside what happened to Gisell Estrada as an unfortunate mistake attributed to human error and otherwise good and diligent intentions; afterall, Jessie Carter should be permitted the occasional error. Right?
Well, human error is human error and it is inevitable, yes. By no means am I suggesting that Carter be charged with a crime or incarcerated. But the evidence before us also doesn't suggest that this was simply human error.
Nobody needs to be a trained detective to know that any potential suspect identified in the manner that Estrada was identified requires a further, more reliable identification, especially for a charge as serious as murder.
At best, someone saying that Estrada resembled a person of interest in an otherwise anonymous Facebook profile should never be enough to issue a warrant. And any detective who thinks it is, probably shouldn't be in law enforcement.
Protocols exist for very specific reason of safety and legality. How would any of us feel about losing a loved one to an airline crash where it’s later determined that the tragedy could've been avoided had the pilot simply not decided that his preflight checklist wasn't convenient that day?
It's not going to matter how distinguished his otherwise unblemished career was, because at the end of the day he made a conscious decision to forego protocols meant to save lives for nothing more pressing than his own convenience. And if that pilot were to survive, none of us would be too keen in seeing him continue on as a commercial pilot.
Furthermore, the way in which this “oversight” was handled by the individuals who wrongfully arrested and detained young Estrada reveals a systemic rot at the core of our legal system.
As mentioned this incident took place on November 8, 2019, then, the aforementioned authorities became aware of her wrongful detainment five days later, and she was released on her own recognizance on the sixth day. Despite the disgraceful investigative efforts that led to her arrest to begin with, the charges against Estrada weren't immediately dropped. Why?
It stands to reason that if her initial arrest was sustained by nothing more than the unfounded suspicion of a school administrator who could only say that one person resembled another, then the charges against Estrada should've been dropped immediately – with prejudice – upon learning about the grave injustice of her arrest and detainment.
The fact that her charges weren't immediately dropped until sometime later brings us to the crux of yet another systemic injustice that underwrites countless wrongful convictions every year. I call it the noble lie paradox.
Once law-enforcement and the prosecution have someone in custody, especially for the kind of crime that draws swift and critical media attention, they are reluctant to admit fault – even less so when said fault calls into question whether they should have the arrest and prosecutorial powers bestowed upon them that they have.
For one, there is ego to contend with, in that no detective or prosecutor wants to admit that an error is grave is even possible in a system with as many checks and balances as ours is supposed to have.
Which brings us to the need collectively felt by every headline of fear from every violent crime in each and every one of our communities. Crime surrounds us, and at times can feel like it's closing in on us.
Perhaps because if we were to acknowledge just how fallible our justice system truly is we would start to reject its awesome authority over our lives. Conviction Integrity Units (CIUs) wouldn't be part of a progressive agenda they would simply be a necessary element for returning confidence to our justice system.
When the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that “the majority of wrongful convictions come about through governmental misconduct,” the Bureau is referring to the very same instances that lead to arrests, indictments and eventually convictions where authorities know that justice is not being served and do nothing to intervene.
Harold Medina Chief of Police
Raul Torrez District Attorney Cabq
Then, there's the issue of professional self preservation. Detectives and prosecutors who work together on a daily basis. And whether or not they become friends, they see themselves on the same side of an ongoing battle between law abiding citizens and criminals.
And while subjectivity is ideal, it's not realistic given the circumstances, which brings us to the final crux of the problem: admitting fault exposes all involved parties to liability.
The ACLU filed a suit on behalf of Estrada in January, 2021. If not for that suit it’s unlikely that any IA investigation would ever have taken place. Obviously fault and the blatant disregard for APD protocols were uncovered, which should make prevailing in federal court inevitable. Which we should hope, considering how inconsequential the official disciplinary efforts were: a 32 hour unpaid suspension? Really?
This is a disgrace to our concepts of justice and accountability. Especially when there's another term for it, it's called impunity. Former detective Carter serves his penance and then resigns to take a position on the U.S. Marshal Task Force, essentially being promoted to the highest ranks of law-enforcement where there's even less oversight.
We have to stop this madness because nobody is going to stop it for us. We can't have police arresting our children as though the possibility of their innocence isn't even worth considering. And someone needs to state the obvious: the detective, the prosecutor, and the judge in this case treated Estrada like a nonentity because of her gender, race, or some other factor that authorities would rather ignore.
Maybe I'm seeing a problem where there isn't one, but even if I'm wrong we need to be brave enough to ask these kind of questions. Because according to Natalie Lyon, the prosecutor who signed off on Estrada’s arrest without any due diligence on her part, Carter was “old school” and frequently made arrests in cases involving youth offenders.
First, let's consider what it means to be “old school” in the context of law-enforcement. In the old school of crime fighting police were permitted to intimidate, purjur, bully, plant evidence, lie, and fail to disclose exculpatory evidence as a way to arrive at convictions by any means necessary. “Old school” reminds me of Rodney King, and more recently of George Floyd.
“Old school” brings to mind the 2737 exonerations currently registered on the Exoneration Registry, because the majority of those tragedies were caused by tactics that, more times than not, were used against minorities.
Which brings us to the question of how frequently did former detective Carter use these “old school” methods. Because if this was a regular part of his investigative repertoire then we need to systematically dismantle and reconstruct all his investigations.
We also have to speak up to those in law-enforcement and make it known that we aren't looking for more “old school” law-enforcement tactics that did nothing more than oppress communities already on the fringes of collapse. We've been down this road and we know where it leads.
And having a prosecutor basically heralding Carter's work as “exemplary” considering the evidence before us is equally troubling, and it directs us to the failed leadership of District Attorney Raúl Torrez at a time when he is asking lawmakers for less oversight and more leverage in his pursuit of convictions.
George Floyd Mural Source: Kimt.com
The consequences for this kind of sloppy detective work need to be more than slaps on the wrist or 36 hour timeouts in the corner. They need to be expulsion from what must be an honorable profession. But it can only be this way when we demand it.
The reason this kind of “old-school” behavior exists is because we’ve built a success matrix for law-enforcement where they’re rewarded for making arrests and helping prosecutors get convictions – period. Yes, they do investigations, build cases, and in doing so try to hold us all accountable for infractions of the law. But, homicide detectives almost always have more open cases than manpower or resources to solve them.
As a recent frontpage in The Albuquerque Journal reported, “NM’s violent crime up, arrests down,” showing that 70 percent of violent crimes are going unsolved.
The school official who made the identification is not at fault, and the detective was most likely overwhelmed with other cases, but detectives can't take shortcuts, in the same way that pilots must do their checklists, surgeons must wash their hands vigorously, and firefighters must follow certain protocols when entering burning buildings.
The school officer’s identification should only ever have converted Estrada into a “person of interest,” nothing more.
It's time to remind ourselves that police officers, just like prosecutors, have a great deal of professional and ethical responsibility. They make decisions of lasting impact, and almost any PD in its attempt to distract us from the truth will try to call something like this a “mistake,” nothing more.
Departments will blame short staffing, the courts, prosecutors and in very rare instances the officers themselves. If the latter, however, it's typically because a deal has been struck where the offending officer agrees to resign to often later accept a better position in another department or agency. It's the same strategy used by the Catholic Church to hide pedophile priests for decades. And this is why people should be aware of what's happening, what should be happening, and what isn't happening.
This detective didn't make a mistake in the sense of how most would categorize a mistake. What he did was substandard, shitty detective work that finally caught up with him. In most instances a wrongful arrest quickly becomes a wrongful conviction and it simply goes away on its own.
And by “go away,” I mean to say that the individual either signs a plea as a desperate act to get out of jail, or languishes in prison for years on end literally silenced by circumstance. And despite this, detectives just like Jessie Carter go on with their lives, accept awards at ceremonies, or receive promotions to the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country where apparently “old school” is encouraged.
Jessie Carter may in fact be a fine human being, and a law-abiding and conscientious citizen who regularly volunteers at the local soup kitchen. But a good human being doesn't necessarily mean a good detective, prosecutor, or judge. And it's important that we not confuse the two, or in this instance, three, and start taking action.
These positions of power require oversight, which is why we need District Attorneys who are willing to create their own Conviction Integrity Units, giving us all the necessary transparency to trust in the arrests and convictions that our law-enforcement and justice system produces.
change.org Sign petition
If you agree that tragedies like this could and should be prevented then please take the time to sign this petition. Because only we could tell our elected leaders that enough is enough. “Old-school” law-enforcement tactics have never made us safer and rubber-stamping, blind indifference from district court judges is not what we have them there to do. Gisell Estrada deserved better, we all do.
And the urgency of action is critical because this kind of official misconduct makes our communities unsafe, precisely because if we don't trust in law-enforcement or the legitimacy of our legal system then they can't keep us safe. Please, take action, sign this petition and make our elected representatives at all levels aware that we need their voices and legislative actions to forever make “old school” law-enforcement tactics a thing of the past.
—
