Pubdate: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 Source: Daily Herald (IL) Copyright: 2001 The Daily Herald Company Contact: P.O. Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006-0280 Fax: (847) 427-1301 Website: http://www.dailyherald.com/ Bookmarks: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption) http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) UNTOLD DAMAGE FROM A LIE No one, including appellate court justices, likes to free a felon with a long history of offenses. Thus, it had to be with some dismay that the 2nd District Appellate Court overturned the drug conviction and eight-year prison sentence of Lorenzo Allen, an Elgin man with multiple felony convictions on his record. Dismayed or not, however, the appellate court made the only decision it could have under the circumstances, given grand jury testimony by Elgin police Officer Daniel Rouse that can only be described as pure fiction. Since that testimony was the basis of the initial indictment, the court ruled not only that Allen's conviction be overturned but that he also could not be retried. The decision will be appealed to the state's Supreme Court. Rouse testified he had seen Allen go to and from a bathroom during a 1998 drug raid and that he saw Allen flush drugs down the toilet. The court said Rouse could not have witnessed such events, nor did any other officer, though Rouse tried to prop up his initial untruth by saying he was representing what other officers saw. That position was not supported by officers' reports, either, the court said. We would stop short of calling the decision "beautiful," as did Allen's original defense attorney, Van Richards of Elgin. But we cannot disagree with Richards' contention that "the system has to work for everybody." For justice to be individually served and for the justice system to work as a whole, telling the truth on a witness stand is paramount. It is especially imperative when those witnesses are police officers. By not doing so, police officers jeopardize the prosecution of individual cases, as Rouse did, and destroy their own credibility. Much as any lie does, a lie on the stand makes suspect every other statement that officer makes in the future, a painful reality Rouse already is beginning to discover. What is worse, though, is that Rouse also did untold damage to his colleagues and to citizens' belief in a system that many already doubt is impartial. The testimony of other Elgin police officers will no doubt be scrutinized more closely for some time to come and their arrests may be more harshly analyzed, all that thanks to a colleague's lie. No one case is worth that sort of damage and as the appellate court made more than clear, such deceit by a man sworn to uphold the law is simply indefensible and intolerable to anyone who venerates justice. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake