Thursday, Feb. 23, 2006 - 5:37 a.m.

Good cop, bad cop

I don't like working late.  It throws me all out of whack for the rest of my evening which is pretty structured since I have lots to do when I get home.  I didn't get out of the office last night til almost 8:00 because we had discovery and production due in a case.  Production and discovery is a process that I actually enjoy because you really start to get into the meat and bone of the case and learn all the dirty little secrets from both sides.  Questions called Interrogatories are propounded to both Plaintiff and Defendant, and each side, once receiving theirs, has 30 days to answer and get those responses back to the other side.  Interrogatories ask basic questions such as "state your name", "your address," "what claims do you make for the basis of your suit," "name witnesses to the event that made the basis of your suit," and so on and so forth.  These are limited to 25 questions, but many times, attorneys create one interrog out of several related questions.  We can object to any question propounded and it is standard practice to do so.  Production requests are requests for copies of documents and "other tangible things" that support the claim of either side.  In our case, we represent the plaintiffs, two Deputy Sheriffs from a Texas County who were terminated after reporting a fellow officer for beating up a handcuffed prisoner.  (Yes, we like taking on terminated cop cases because there are MANY good cops out there trying to do the right thing, and paying for it with their jobs.)  They followed procedure by going up the chain of command and by referring the incident to an outside investigative entity, in this case, the Texas Rangers.  Both of our clients were told by the Sheriff to drop the investigation and were both terminated within days of the beating incident which they reported.  The officer that did the beating was charged and tried in criminal court, but the jury was hung.  No word if he will get another trial.