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Notes -
More. Definitely More.
The fact that burden of proof is on the state, and the standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt" means that ASAs have to bring as much evidence as they can muster (Cops at least reliably SHOW UP on given court dates) and have it all laid out so even the most brain-dead juror can follow along.
Meanwhile the Defense attorney can show up with a single legal pad and pen, no witnesses, no evidence, spend the entire case doodling drawings on the pad and never speak a word during the trial and STILL WIN (although if he does that and loses he'll catch a deserved Bar complaint).
Hence the leverage that a Defense attorney has is asymmetrical because the only thing the State can fire back is "We're going to trial and if you lose, we're asking for the Judge for the maximum sentence."
Defense attorney: "If."
(and if the defense attorney knows the Judge well, they can usually predict whether they'll actually hand down such a sentence on a guilty verdict)
And you can further leverage this power if you have MULTIPLE CASES lined up for trial with the same prosecutor (as PDs inevitably do). Forcing a prosecutor to stare down the prospect of prepping multiple cases in short succession OR start handing out plea deals like they're on clearance is like getting an armbar on your opponent in a Jiu-Jitsu match. They can try to fight it and risk breaking their arm, or they just tap and submit and give you what you're asking for.
Occasionally you get the Prosecutor who decides 'fuck it, not my money' and will throw down the gauntlet if they really want a defendant convicted, but they usually don't stick around long as they'll either leave to the private sector where they'll make more money or they get promoted up and out where their drive is more useful.
One last thing about this, is that from what I understand, technology has made the state's job even harder even though you'd think not. Back in the day when I was clerking for a judge, the state might just call the two POs who made an arrest. One would say, "well we saw a car crash into a parked car, the driver then slurred when we talked to him, we administered 3 field sobriety tests, he failed, then refused to blow, we arrested, blah blah." And the judge would listen to that and convict. Now, from what I understand, judges demand to see the body cam footage at trial, which does little to nothing in making the case stronger/weaker in almost all cases. Its just another nuisance for the prosecutor who has to comb through it all for the relevant timestamps blah blah.
The biggest way that body cams keep police (and other involved people) honest is that since the body cam will show what actually happened, they won't lie, or bring a case that requires lying, in the first place.
So of course in all the cases that get to a judge, and for all the evidence that the judge gets given, the body cam takes time and doesn't show anything useful. The body cam had its effect before that step.
Perhaps. From my experiences (limited to larger jurisdictions) bodycams seem to be accepted by cops as personal protection devices because false accusations were orders of magnitude higher than real ones, and railroading is just a waste of their time, outside of "getting" a known murderer with a fake non-cop "eyeball" witness. Now, out in the burbs where the cops and DAs treat minor DUIs like they are a high felony, IDK.
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Not really in my experience. I've beaten almost 100% of my own petty traffic tickets based on this. For DUIs they show up a bit more often, but the state answers not ready due to officers not in court for the majority of cases in major cities.
Which most judges will never give, and, in fact, most places don't even ask for. In Chicago, the standard post-conviction offer for a DUI is the same as the plea deal + more community service.
Certainly on one guy. Usually because the defendant or defendant's attorney done fucked up. I've seen an ASA spend 3 days prepping and hectoring officers just to get a guy because he was drunk and shattered a person's leg. I've seen the same because the attorney was jerking them around. But a mildly competent attorney should not have such problems in their entire career.
In my County most cops are expected to take the time to testify in all cases in which they had a hand. Including traffic cases. And since most traffic cases they handed out tickets for are put on the same court dates, it is not too much hassle for them to attend the hearing. This isn't their primary duty in their line of work though, so most of them don't want the hassle of having to actually testify across multiple matters.
This has gotten easier for them when a lot of hearings moved to Zoom/Videoconferencing. I've seen them give testimony while sitting in their patrol car.
This is truer for some jurisdictions than others. This is another value of a PD/Attorney, they know which officers show up and how often.
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