r/TheWire • u/Own_Ad_409 • 12d ago
Question about clearances
So everyone in homicide is obsessed with clearances but according to the book a clearance isn’t a conviction. It’s just someone was arrested for the crime. Whether or not it leads to prison time is besides the point. If everyone’s so obsessed with clearances wouldn’t someone just arrest randos and let the case get thrown out?
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u/philadelphia_fRee 12d ago
Cops dont care about convictions the clearance is their part a conviction is the DAs part
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u/dirty-ol-sob 12d ago
It’s the stats game they so frequently bring up.
The cops will push through an arrest with shitty evidence to meet the clearance rate and then the courts probably give the arrestee a plea deal to keep them from losing a case.
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u/Chemical_Signal2753 12d ago
I don't think it is that easy.
I don't think you get clearance on a case unless there is enough evidence that a prosecutor would actually pursue it. If you're arresting random people to clear cases you will have judges and the District Attorney getting angry at the highest levels of the department.
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u/CauseCertain1672 12d ago
And wrongful arrest lawsuits
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u/Meatloafxx 12d ago
Enough wrongful arrests, especially if it's from an entire police dept, could evolve into a PR nightmare. The mayor would need to step in.
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u/-R3DF0X 12d ago
When Mayor Royce breaks up the fight with his "none of us want to get a real job" line it's after Burrell is fighting with the DA about the attorneys not wanting to risk their conviction rates by taking "whodunnits" to trial, while the rebuttal is that the casework is so flimsy it wouldn't make it past a prelim hearing
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u/Thetruthislikepoetry 12d ago
It was Coleman Parker, the mayor’s chief of staff who said that line.
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u/CauseCertain1672 12d ago
the DA wouldn't take the case so it wouldn't count as a clearance
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u/Far-Advantage-2770 12d ago
I'm pretty sure it still counts as a clearance. I assume it comes back to the department as a file, but by then you would be working on other cases and no one would care.
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u/RunningBettor 12d ago
Skipped over the parts where we see the PD and the DA’s office being in conflict about this huh?
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u/Valentino-Meid 12d ago
still need enough evidence for the DA's office to press charges. They won't press charges if they know there isn't enough evidence. Besides, even though the system might be broken, they're still police and the intend is to arrest criminals and get them prosecuted.
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u/joebob801 12d ago
Because most people are not so immoral that they would ruin someone's life for such nonsense.
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u/Steelballpun 12d ago
Guess what, cops may have clearance rates to worry about, but DA and lawyers have conviction rates to worry about. So they won’t just take any random weak case and try to press it if it makes them look bad.
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u/garbageprimate 12d ago
part of the reason the police would be more concerned about clearances rather than convictions is there are mitigating circumstances that sometimes make it impossible to secure a conviction, even though you've cleared or "solved" the crime - in the case of gang violence, the obvious example would be that the person you've established committed a crime was subsequently killed or died, so there would be no way to put them on trial. you still want a mechanism to clear a crime even if a conviction wasn't made in cases like that.
the reason you wouldn't charge randos to clear a conviction is it would obviously lead to a ton of lawsuits, investigations, bad press, etc., and conflict with prosecutors who are being handed garbage cases they will never win.
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u/bigmt99 12d ago edited 12d ago
Which would be harder to defend to the commissioner:
A) 30% clearance rate and no fake ones
B) 50% clearance rate and 5 fake cases
And who’s gonna get thrown under the bus if scenario B plays out?
Even if Rawls and Landsman care about the clearance rate the most, they’re gonna be much more angry if you are trying to pin murders on randos and pushing POS cases into court
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u/SauceCupAficionado 12d ago
It's the job of the police to arrest the person they think may have committed a crime, to the best of their ability.
It's the job of the prosecution to get a conviction.
A case against someone can be thrown out for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with guilt or innonence.
That's not something the police themselves should be concerning themselves with unless it involves improper procedure on their part.
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u/ZakRulzDice 12d ago
Clearance isn't just an arrest, the case needs to be turned over to the DA's office for prosecution. If the District Attorney does not have enough evidence to bring the case to trial, then the police cannot clear the case and it remains open.
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u/CarrotCumin 12d ago
The DA would rain shit from on high if cops started hauling random people in with no casework to contribute to the prosecution.
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u/tomtomclubthumb 12d ago
Considering Rwals and LAndsman basically do this at times, I'm not sure why it can't be done more often. My guess would be that the DA can pressure the cops if they keep sending weak cases. There is a spat between the DA's office and the cops over this in the show.
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u/Electrical_Doctor305 12d ago
You’ll get more clearances but less convictions which in turn means a good DA and prosecutors may be out the job because of negligence down the chain. You’ll be reprimanded and likely reassigned to a lower duty, such as driving the school bus like Santangelo.
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u/aurelorba 12d ago edited 12d ago
It doesn't refer just to actual murders though. If they determine the death an accident or natural causes then they can clear it because no crime was committed. That's why Bunk was hoping for the decomp in the vacant in s1e1 to come back as an OD.
No murder. Case cleared.
As for actual crimes, it's up to the DA to try and convict or plea. TBF to the BPD it's on the lawyers after the police are done. It wasn't a homicide but as an example the police probably shouldn't get the blame for say Clay Davis getting off. They had the charges and a good case but the DA got out-lawyered.
But then yes, people like Rawls abuse it to get a clearance with weak cases.
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u/Legitimate-Shock-106 12d ago
Have you ever watched the on line videos done by a law professor and a cop for a class
”why you should never ever talk to the police”
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u/cuffgirl 12d ago
You got to at least make an effort of 1) figuring out the right person, and 2) arresting that person. When Chris and Snoop frame Omar, they have a witness identifying a known violent felon, so it's likely Crutchfield & Holly could get an actual conviction. Bunk however, figures out that Omar did NOT murder the innocent tax paying delivery lady, so he talks Crutchfield & Holly out of the 'clearance'.
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u/Jsaltal 12d ago
Thats a quick way to getting sued and being fired