Janet Huckabee, the wife of former Arkansas governor and potential 2012 GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee, was recently involved in a multi-car traffic accident that later sparked an argument with the officer who appeared on the scene.

The Tolbert Report provides a transcript for part of the conversation which is posted below. They also provide information about how the incident was resolved in court.

Janet Huckabee - "Did she say I was on the phone?"
Trooper Blackmon - "Ma'am, that has nothing to do with it."

Huckabee - "It has everything to do with it.

Trooper - "No it doesn't."

Huckabee - "It has to do with whether I am telling the truth or not."

Trooper - "Okay, they gave me an exact description of your vehicle. I mean..."

Huckabee - "That's why I stopped up here. Yeah, that's right. I realize there was a vehicle and we were both merging."

Trooper - "They gave me an exact description of your vehicle. They told me exactly what you were doing. You told me that you were going into their lane as well."

Huckabee - "Did she tell you I was talking on the phone?"

Trooper - "Ma'am, that has nothing to do with..."

Huckabee - "I just want an answer from you. Did she tell you I was talking on the phone?"

Trooper - "She didn't tell me. The passenger told me."

Huckabee - "That is a lie. That is an out lie."

Trooper - "Ma'am, I don't have anything to..."

Huckabee - "So if that is a lie how can I know that the other part is not a lie."

Trooper - "Ma'am, you verified it by your own statement."

Huckabee - "I said I was merging but I said she was merging."

Trooper - "Okay, well she said she wasn't merging."

Huckabee - "She also said I was on the phone. So if one is a lie, why shouldn't the other be a lie."

Watch the video.

As a group of young men questioned why they were being detained on an Oakland, CA train platform, and grew irate when they saw a transit officer manhandle one of their friends, Oscar Grant tried to reassure them everything was going to be OK.

"'Just be cool,'" Jackie Bryson recalled Grant saying to him. "'We are going home tonight.'"

Grant, 22, never made it home. He was shot and killed by officer Johannes Mehserle, who worked for Bay Area Rapid Transit and has been charged with Grant's murder on New Year's Day 2009 reported the AP.

The officer who has pleaded not guilty claiming that he thought he was using his taser.

Grant was lying on his stomach handcuffed when he was shot. Grant's friend Bryson has testified that officer Mehserle stood up and said '(expletive) this' and then he shoots Grant."

It has been reported that Bryson may have tainted his testimony because he made it clear that he had a general mistrust for police and even prosecutors. The truth is that too many young black men living in America do have a general mistrust of the police.

The mistrust comes from stories like this one that spread throughout the black communities across this country when brothers are murdered by the police. It does not help when one finds out that the victim was face down on the ground with his hands handcuffed behind his back and the police obviously in total control of the situation.

Two Pulaski, TN Police officers involved with the arrest of Doctor Terry Wynn on May 5 have been suspended without pay.

"Simply put, they did not weigh the actions of Doctor Wynn versus the immediate medical attention that was needed for her patient," Police Chief John Dickey told the Board of Mayor and Alderman.

The City of Pulaski called in an outside law firm to investigate the arrest. According to the police chief, racism was not an issue, but the officers should have used better judgement when determining the seriousness of the situation.

The police pulled over the doctor who was driving faster than the speed limit. She explained that she was on her way to the hospital to deliver a baby. She pulled off driving less than a mile to the hospital.

The police officer followed her to the hospital parking lot and arrested her. Fortunately, a relative of the expecting mom was able to call the police station and explain everything to the chief.

The chief agreed that the doctor should be able to deliver the baby and freed Dr. Terry Wynn before she was booked.

Former New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau has been selected by a federal judge as a special master to help force the city to improve the hiring of black firefighters. He is 90 years of age.

This is the same person that as DA of New York, consistently was involved in cases spanning his 35 years in the position where minority men killed, shot, or attacked by the police rarely received justice through the legal system.

It is appalling that this guy would now be assigned to push the N.Y.C. Fire Department to revamp its hiring practices to end discrimination against black applicants for firefighter jobs. The New York City Fire Department only has about 350 black firefighters out of 11,500 total or a paltry 3 percent.

What are the Black leaders in New York saying about this appointment? What about this retired DA's history makes him qualified to find a balanced and just solution to this issue?

This is important because the livelihood of African American men are at stake. No one should think for a moment that how he managed the office when it came to black victims over the decades will make him sympathetic to being fair and balanced with helping the black firefighters in New York find equal hiring opportunities.

Below are links to a couple high profile cases in which African American crime victims received no justice when Robert Morgenthau was DA in New York for 35 years. If a family member was killed during his time as DA, the DA's prosecution team had an almost impossible chance of winning a trial against the civilian killing police officers.

No Trial For Dorismond

All Police Acquitted After Firing 41 Shots and Killing Unarmed Amadou Diallo.

Interestingly, black men are finally in a position based on discrimination by the NYC Fire Department to receive more job opportunities, and an ex-New York DA that many minorities felt were privately hostile to the community and it's civil rights during his tenure as DA is selected to take the lead for the black firefighters.

A Seattle police officer offered a tearful apology after being caught on camera kicking an innocent man and using a racial epithet.

The video shows a group of officers standing around three men who are lying on the ground. Seattle Police Detective Shandy Cobane shouts, "I'm going to beat the [expletive] Mexican [expletive] out of you homey! You feel me?"

Cobane later kicks the man in the head and another cop kicks him in the hand.

The police were investigating a robbery. The individual whose civil rights were violated by the police were not involved in the robbery.

This November, voters in California will have a chance to vote on legalizing the sale of marijuana to adults as well as personal possession of marijuana.

Marijuana is a popular recreational drug. It has been studied, argued, and reported that it is less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol. Many African Africans are in prison or on probation because of nonviolent marijuana possession. In many of these cases, the individuals were using marijuana for their personal use.

Until marijuana sales and possession become legal, African Americans will continue to be disproportionately impacted. US marijuana policies, which rely primarily on criminal penalties and law enforcement, have basically been ineffective at controlling the use and sale of marijuana.

NORML which is a foundation that is working to reform marijuana laws has studied this issue and concluded in a report that while adult African Americans account for only 8.8% of the US population and 11.9% of annual marijuana users, they comprise 23%of all marijuana possession arrests in the United States.

The Huffington Post has a great article with more facts and details about marijuana.

185 cases have been dropped or overturned because a Camden NJ police officer pleaded guilty for his role in an operation where he used illegal search warrants, created false reports, and planted evidence on people that he would later arrest.

Former Camden Officer Kevin Parry, 29 entered the guilty plea about his role in the conspiracy and that there were at least four other police officers that were involved with him.

It really makes a difference when you have a Justice department that is willing to investigate these cases. If the President of the United States and the federal Attorney General are not interested in going after criminals when they happen to be police officers, these kind of cases against officers will not be prosecuted.

It appears as though we have a President and Attorney General in Eric Holder that have a zero tolerance policy for police misconduct that results in false arrests as well as police cover up for the killing of innocent civilians.

The AP has reported that an 80-year-old woman with a criminal record stretching back to 1955 has been sentenced to three years in state prison for ransacking and stealing cash from a Southern California medical office. Doris Thompson thanked a judge Wednesday for not sending her to Los Angeles County jail, which she doesn't like, and said she deserved a longer sentence. She also told the judge, "God bless you."

State records show Thompson, who has used 27 aliases, has repeatedly been arrested during the past 55 years, mainly for petty theft and burglary. She's gone to jail several times.

She actually asked the judge for a longer sentence. You know the economy is bad when someone decides to ask the judge for a longer sentence. It is a tough economy. It is probably easier for some struggling Americans to receive 3 hot meals a day along with a bed and medical care while in jail versus having to find a way to provide these three basic life needs for themselves as a free person.

The blue wall of silence finally has a small crack in it. The Huffington Post reported today that a retired lieutenant police officer pleaded guilty in the cover-up of the department's probe of the shootings to conceal that police gunned down unarmed civilians during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The supervisor of the police probe, Michael Lohman, a 41 year old 21-year veteran of the force, pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice. The federal prosecutor said Lohman is cooperating with investigators who want to know more about the police department's actions.

Interestingly, a state judge throw out the original charges against seven officers that were charged with murder or attempted murder. Fortunately, the federal authorities then stepped in to investigate.

In unsealing the case against Lohman, prosecutors drew a picture of how the shootings at the Danziger bridge immediately spawned a cover-up.

Lohman went to the scene and saw no weapons near or with the victims of the shooting, federal officials said, and concluded the shootings were not justified.

The documents allege Lohman and an unidentified investigator he supervised drafted different versions of false reports. Among the claims was a fabricated statement by one of the victims that she had seen her nephew and others firing guns on the bridge.

Federal officials say Lohman drafted his own 17-page false report after becoming dissatisfied that another investigator's false account was not logical.

The Huffington Post also reported that when another investigator planned to plant a gun at the scene, Lohman just asked him if it was "clean," meaning it couldn't be traced, according to the documents. Read Story.

For the most part, men of color do not know how to respond when stopped by the police while they are going about their daily life legally. In too many cases, a police officer will stop an innocent person for some reason or another and the person ends up arrested.

Many times, a person is arrested because the officer did not like the fact that the person they stopped is questioning the approach and appropriateness of the racial profiling. Expressing one's frustration when a police officer pulls you other and voicing displeasure is both okay and legal. However, an officer that is controlling and does not like the way you question their authority can arrest you on a number of charges. The main one seems to be the very vague disorderly conduct charges.

It would be great to see African American and Latino politicians address this issue with organizations like NAPO (National Association of Police Organizations) or IUPA (Internatonal Union Of Police Associatons)in order to come up with standards on the best ways for men of color to respond to profiling stops when they have not committed any crime.

In the meantime, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has developed a printable set of guidelines when racial profiling takes place. The information may not be perfect, but it gives one an idea of how to handle these situations when they are stopped by the police. Read Guidelines

The guidelines are saved as a PDF file and one would need a PDF reader which is available for free if it is not already installed on the computer being used. Here is a link to a free and popular PDF reader called Acrobat Reader - Download File

This story was reported on NPR.com. It is too important not to share the entire article because this situation could happen to any of us.

Do prosecutors have total immunity from lawsuits for anything they do, including framing someone for murder? That is the question the justices of the Supreme Court face Wednesday.

On one side of the case being argued are Iowa prosecutors who contend "there is no freestanding right not to be framed." They are backed by the Obama administration, 28 states and every major prosecutors organization in the country.

On the other side are two black men — Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee — men who served 25 years in prison before evidence long hidden in police files resulted in them being freed.


Harrington, McGhee And The Principal Witness

Back in 1977, Harrington, captain of his Omaha high school football team, was applying to college and being recruited for a possible scholarship at Yale.

Then he and McGhee were arrested for the murder of a retired police officer in neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the state line.

The principal witness was 16-year-old Kevin Hughes, who had a criminal record, and after being arrested in a stolen car, first fingered two other men, one of whom turned out to have been in jail on the night of the crime.

After his first stories didn't pan out, Hughes implicated Harrington and McGhee, but his eyewitness account was riddled with errors.

He initially got the site of the shooting wrong and the weapon. He said the murder was committed with a handgun, then said a 20-gauge shotgun and finally a 12-gauge shotgun.

He also failed a polygraph test. According to lawyers for Harrington and McGhee, the Council Bluffs police and prosecutors knew all this and more. But they went ahead and indicted the two men, winning convictions before an all-white jury.

'Living A Nightmare'

Former Bush administration Solicitor General Paul Clement will tell the Supreme Court that in 1977, Council Bluffs was an almost all-white community, and that politics and race played a part in the prosecutor's decisions.

The county prosecutor, David Richter, had been appointed to his post and was facing his first election, observes Clement. "He has an unsolved murder, something that is hardly standard fare in Council Bluffs, Iowa," he says. "He had the perfect suspects, if he could tag the murder to a couple of young African-American teenagers from across the state line."

Harrington couldn't believe what was happening to him. He says he was "living a nightmare."

Convicted two days after his 19th birthday, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

"When I walked into that front door and that gate closed behind me," Harrington says of his first day in prison, "it was so humiliating that all I could do was cry. I cried all night."

In prison, Harrington assumed a tough alter ego he called "T.J." and did everything he could to survive.

Harrington struck up a friendship with the prison barber, who petitioned for the police records in his case. According to defense lawyers, those records not only disclosed how police and prosecutors had coached Hughes until his story matched the facts, and how other witnesses were coerced into lying, but that the records also showed that police and prosecutors had withheld evidence that pointed to another suspect.

They had identified a white man named Charles Gates, who had been seen with a shotgun near the scene of the crime. Gates, the brother-in-law of a Council Bluffs Fire Department captain, was interviewed and failed a polygraph. But prosecutors and police abandoned their interest in him in favor of Harrington, who was not even offered a polygraph.

"So the bottom line," says Clement, "is essentially that police and prosecutors together at some point in this case stopped looking for the real killer, the real suspect and decided it would be far easier to get an eyewitness account that said to a moral certainty that the two African-American youths from across the state line have committed this crime. "

Total Immunity?

But even after 25 years in prison, Harrington never gave up. In 2003, armed with the newly disclosed police records, he petitioned the Iowa Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction as well as McGhee's, and concluded that the star witness was a "liar and perjurer." Since then, all the witnesses have recanted.

McGhee, Harrington's co-defendant, agreed to a plea deal in exchange for time served. Harrington refused any deal, and prosecutors dropped all charges against him. Under Iowa law, for all practical purposes, there is no way for the men to recover compensation for their 25 years of hard time. So they sued the prosecutors and the police under a federal civil rights law for violation of their constitutional rights.

The Council Bluffs prosecution team, while still maintaining that Harrington and McGhee are guilty, contends that even if the men were in fact framed, prosecutors, under established Supreme Court precedent, have total immunity from being sued.

The Supreme Court has indeed said that prosecutors are immune from suit for anything they do at trial. But in this case, Harrington and McGhee maintain that before anyone being charged, prosecutors gathered evidence alongside police, interviewed witnesses and knew the testimony they were assembling was false.

The prosecutors counter that there is "no freestanding constitutional right not to be framed." Stephen Sanders, the lawyer for the prosecutors, will tell the Supreme Court on Wednesday that there is no way to separate evidence gathered before trial from the trial itself. Even if a prosecutor files charges against a person knowing that there is no evidence of his guilt, says Sanders, "that's an absolutely immunized activity."

Whatever constitutional wrongs were suffered by Harrington and McGhee, he says, they were the result of their conviction at trial, not the investigation that preceded the trial. Without the trial, he contends, Harrington and McGhee "are simply unable to point to any deprivation of liberty that they suffered from the fabrication itself."

Uphill Climb

Not so, says Clement, the lawyer for Harrington and McGhee. The prosecutorial immunity at trial doesn't wash back and launder a frame at the investigative stage, he says.

Clement notes that the Supreme Court has given immunity to prosecutors only after an indictment takes place. Before that, Clement contends, prosecutors have the same limited immunity that police have — namely, they can be sued if they violate clearly established constitutional rights. And in this case, he says, by the time the indictment took place, "the prosecutors were already up to their necks in this conspiracy ... to frame someone for the crime they didn't commit. That violates the Constitution any way you look at it."

While the justice of this argument may be easy to grasp, Clement has an uphill climb before the Supreme Court. There are good reasons for prosecutorial immunity. Prosecutors at every level of government worry that allowing any lawsuit, ever, would provoke a flood of lawsuits, and that prosecutorial independence would be compromised, with district attorneys shading their decisions for fear of being sued.

An Illinois cop was caught on tape beating a special education student. This incident started because the student did not have his shirt tucked in his pants. - See Video

This video clearly shows the abuse of power that takes place at times. Fortunately for this student, there is video to back up his claims of abuse at the hands of the officer.

President Obama recently weighed in on the Kanye West and Taylor Swift MTV awards show situation. He basically called Kanye a Jackass for his stunt while Taylor was receiving and accepting her award.

What is interesting is that it became a big, negative media story in many parts of the country when President Obama weighed in on the Professor Gates arrest. President Obama mentioned that the police officers acted stupidly for going to Gates home to check out a call they received about unknown men possibly breaking into the house and ultimately arresting Gates who owns the home.

After the backlash from the media and many Americans for criticizing the police, President Obama decided to have a beer summit at the White House with himself, the arresting officer, and Professor Gates. The President goes further in judging Kanye West and there is no backlash whatsoever from the media or Americans.

Many people want to know if the police are above criticizing or was the situation with Professor Gates being arrested at his own home a grey area which is why so many folks jumped on the President for becoming involved in a local policing issue.

Although Kanye West did not do the right thing the night Taylor Swift won her award, he realized his mistake and publicly stated so. As humans, there is good in realizing an error in judgement and admitting it.

Everyone wants to feel safe in their communinty. In the name of safety, are brothers ready to give up some of their rights as a resident of a community. Would you believe that there are some brothers who have been arrested and/or received a trespassing ticket as a resident of a particular housing complex.

This issue has been raised by retired NYPD detective Carlton Berkley who is currently running for a City Council in District 9. Mr. Berkley is also a co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.

Trespassing in one's own community is another issue where most residents do not understand the law, and how best to respond when approached by a police officer regarding this issue. Many people in this situation simply believe that the officer does not have the right to ask them to move along. Without knowing the law and possibly responding to a police officer as though they are simply singling you out can lead to tension laced dialogue with an officer. This kind of dialogue has often times placed a person in the officer's mind within the crossing the line category. This is one of the ways that brother's find themselves arrested.

If only brothers knew and understood the law, life between brothers and the police would not have to lead to an arrest for matters that are not serious or criminal when the are first approached by an officer.

Most of are now aware of the arrest of the African American Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home recently. Even the President who calls Gates a friend has spoken publicly about this unfortunate but very common incident for many of us.

Why do Latinos and African Americans seem to be the ones in the news because they were arrested when they believe it was not warranted? Professor Gates was basically arrested in his own home for disorderly conduct. Was the actions of the professor illegal which warranted his arrest?

Most of us do not know all the details of this case, but we do know that all the charges were dropped quickly. It would assist everyone interested in this case if they knew exactly what was disorderly conduct in Cambridge, MA. According to an article written by Adam Winkler in the Huffingtonpost, there are clear decisions of the Massachusetts courts holding that a person who berates an officer, even during an arrest, is not guilty of disorderly conduct. And yet that is exactly what Gates was arrested for. Is this the main reason why the charges were dropped?

Unfortunately, many of us in this situation do not have our case dropped, and we have to go through the stressful, costly, and agonizing process of going to court along with being arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted, and booked. If only we knew what the law and rules were when it comes to dealing with the police.

Some police have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to dealing with civilians. Other police officers almost expect a certain amount of back talk from civilians depending on the situation. Some of these officers believe that they need to have thick skin to be successful in their policing work. Other officers feel that different situations do not bring out the best attitude in civilians and understand to a certain extent when civilians are emotional, agitated, upset, nasty, stressed, or even lippy.

Since there is no hard rule to understand and follow, many of us find our self in a situation where the officer thinks that we have crossed the line and decides to arrest us. It would be very easy to say that whenever dealing with the police, it would be best to stay cool, answer all their questions, and do not ask questions. Although this approach may not have you cross the line with an officer, you certainly will feel as though you have no constitutional rights which you can exercise when dealing with the police.

We have to realize that whenever a police officer is left to decide based on his own personality, tolerance level, and perspective about a situation or person, we will never be quite sure where the line is drawn and how to walk up to it without crossing it if desired. Would a simple and standard warning from the police that is clear and everyone understands solve this problem?