What To Do If You Have Been Beaten-Up or Falsely Arrested By The Police?

In the movie “A Few Good Men“, Tom Cruise makes the statement: “A trial is an exercise in placing blame”. That statement was quite profound. When the police use unreasonable force on civilians or otherwise violate their constitutional rights, they almost always arrest them for some “resistance offense”; crimes that are so vague, that almost any conduct by one can be twisted into the truly innocent of having somehow “resisted” or “delayed” or “obstructed” a police officer - California Penal Code 148(a). The idea is for the police shift the blame from them to you; that your commission of some crime caused them to have to use force upon you. The police are not legal scholars, but they are taught from day one that if you are convicted of such a "resistance offense", you are now basically legally “precluded” from obtaining civil redress for the outrages perpetrated against you; sometimes via traditional doctrines like "collateral estoppel", and sometimes via court created “policy decisions” such as Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Because the courts and District Attorneys are usually more than happy to help the police protect them from you, here's what you need to know if you are a victim of police misconduct.