单项选择题

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Joseph Jones had a criminal record, but he swore up and down that this time he was innocent. That’s what the 36-year-old felon told a Los Angeles Superior Court judge last year, just moments before pleading guilty to selling cocaine. He received an eight-year sentence. On Wednesday, Jones walked out of California’s Salinas Valley State Prison, his conviction overturned at the request of the Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti. Turns out, Jones really was innocent of the cocaine charge.
Jones’ case is not all that unusual. In Los Angeles lately, it is the prosecutors who are asking that defendants be set free. The criminal justice system seems to have been turned inside out as authorities probe what might become the most widespread police corruption scandal in the city’s history. "I wouldn’t say the system is in shambles, but it has certainly been seriously disrupted," says Michael Judge, chief public defender for Los Angeles. A high-ranking police official who asked not to be named adds: "I’ve never seen anything like this before in Los Angeles. It’s the kind of thing you hear about in other places. I don’t know if we’ll ever get over it."
Police authorities say at least one officer has been fired, 11 placed on administrative leave, and one, Rafael Perez, has resigned, as allegations swirl that they stole contraband, lied, planted evidence, roughed up witnesses and kept a crash pad where they had sex with prostitutes. Perez admitted shooting an unarmed man, then framing him by planting a semiautomatic rifle near his unconscious body and accusing him of attacking officers. Five Los Angeles prosecutors and a special police task force are reviewing hundreds of cases that might have been compromised. More than 200 police department supervisors and assistants are part of a board of inquiry expected to make recommendations to Police Chief Bernard Parks as early as next week. Five criminal convictions that Perez and his partner obtained have been overturned, and more could follow, a spokeswoman for Garcetti said.
On Wednesday, public defenders received a list of more than 1000 cases involving eight law enforcement officers targeted in the probe. Each must be reviewed for possibly tainted testimony. If evidence is suspect, lawyers say, they’ll argue for new trials or dismissal of charges. The courts could be tied up for years. Adding to the morass, officials expect an onslaught of civil law-suits against the police department from defendants who were wrongly convicted. The first has been filed.
"This is a tarnish on our badge," says Officer Ted Hunt, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which provides lawyers for accused officers. He cautioned, however, against jumping to the conclusion that police corruption is widespread. Only Perez has been proved guilty, he notes. "Other than this one tiny person who embarrassed all of us, LAPD coppers are honest and ethical, and they want to do the right thing," Hunt adds.
In September, Perez admitted in court that he had stolen about 8 pounds of cocaine from the police evidence room last year, In an attempt to lower his sentence, he offered to blow the whistle on alleged corruption in the department’s Rampart Division.
Assigned to a tough, mostly minority neighborhood west of downtown, Rampart Division police are known as pro-active. "Their job is to go out and get the street hoodlums, the ones who cause ordinary citizens to be afraid" Hunt says. "Rampart had the highest crime rate in the city, and they turned it around."
According to Perez, some officers at Rampart were doing more than good police work. Perez contends, for example, that in 1996, he and his partner, Nino Durden, shot 19-year-old Javier Francisco Ovando, then framed him for assaulting them. The shooting paralyzed Ovando. Though he had no prior record, the judge handed down the stiffest sentence possible because, the judge said, the defendant showed no remorse. Ovando was released from prison in September after serving three years of a 23-year sentence.
Tamar Toiser, Ovando’s criminal defense lawyer, says Perez and his partner testified brilliantly at the trial. "They were wonderful witnesses," she said. "They knew just when to look the jury in the eye. They called (Ovando)’a gang assassin.’" David Brockway, the lawyer who advised Jones to take an eight-year deal and admit selling cocaine, also remembers the same two cops as effective witnesses. If Jones had gone up against them, "Who would the jury have believed" he asks. By going to trial, Jones would have risked being found guilty and receiving a sentence of 32 years to life in prison under California’s "three-strikes" law, Brockway says.
"Innocent people are being convicted," public defender Judge says. "That’s the magnitude of the consequences, and this is really devastating for the system." But Hunt and other police officers say that the system is working. It’s the police department, they say, that uncovered the problem by aggressively investigating the evidence room theft, which led to Perez. (827 words)
The phrase "hand down" is in close meaning to which of the following