I have a friend who almost went to prison (24 months) for something a stranger had done because a police officer gave false testimony against him. Because my friend's public defender was overloaded with cases, bus surveillance footage corroborating my friend's defense almost didn't make it to his trial. At the very last minute, while the judge was making his final statement, my friend's public defender busted through the door with the footage. A police officer blatantly lied to get him convicted for a crime he had nothing to do with.
My friend got off and the police officer blushed. Nothing else happened. The cop was never prosecuted for anything, not for perjury, not for testilying.
In case you were wondering, the answer is "yes": my friend is a black male.
edit:
Just wanted to say that yes, these kinds of things also happen to people of all races, especially working class people.
I really think false testimony should carry the punishment the accused is facing.
I also think prosecutors are absolutely negligent when it comes to the police and others they need a relationship with for their other day to day activities.
I've kind of come to the conclusion that we need a _separate_ prosecutor's office for police matters.
I agree, but want to point out that the plea for a lesser offense system is probably a bigger problem than false testimony. Cops and DA's in the US are allowed to lie through their teeth, at will, to get a plea deal. Often, they are aware the case is really weak, but that the suspect has no money to fight them.
It's just as bullying as false testimony, but far more common. I suspect a magnitude more innocent people are screwed by this than by purgery. Other countries, like the UK, seem to have more fair systems.
First of all, other countries don't have the stupid plea system, so prosecutors are not racing to get a plea deal at all cost. And a lot of countries don't even have peer juries(which in my opinion is another crazy invention) - just the judge + experts if needed.
Juries are a way of preventing the "system" having all of the power. A jury of my peers is a different demographic to a well educated but entirely indoctrinated 50 year old judge. They don't see this every day, they won't have built up the same responses that a judge inevitably would.
The proverbial headmaster arbitrarily deciding my fate? That feels more terrifying than a jury of my peers, to me.
An angry and easily manipulable lynch mob arbitrarily deciding my fate? That feels more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.
But more seriously, the jury system also has serious flaws. I'd guess its bias towards existing norms. Bias against minorities in the jury pool. And its hard enough for us not accidentally trap into social media echo chambers. I doubt i'd notice attempts to personally manipulate me by a well funded defense (even without FB-like info about me). At the same time, a public defender wont have the resources to even try.
Guess "no free lunch" applies to legal systems as well. So far we haven't found an optimal system, at least.
> An angry and easily manipulable lynch mob arbitrarily deciding my fate? That feels more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.
You mean a bunch of random people who have no vested interest in the trial's outcome, and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you in a premeditated fashion, vs. someone in a clear, long-term position of power that makes for an easy target of bribery, blackmail, or corrupt nepotism? You would seriously prefer that?
Centralization of power should generally not be preferred.
> who have no vested interest[..], and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you
But that is not true. An attorney will try that, while someone on a jury might not even be aware his believe in a nuclear family is used to paint the victim as a slut. Being aware of your own biases and noticing others trying to abuse them will require education and training. Random citizens won't have the time for that. A professional judge (should) take that time.
Do you take you medical advice from random citizens as well, since it is harder for the pharmacy industry to influence them? I'd want to avoid corruption. Transparency helps, but comes with its own issues... if at all possible. I do want a system that avoids centralized power as much as possible but still lets trained experts do the job. There's got to be a better balance.
It depends where you live. I've sat on a jury in a wealthy urban area in the UK, and I'm happy to say my fellow jurors had excellent critical thinking skills. Each of us had different expertise which we could contribute.
The system worked exactly as intended. Because jurors are paid almost no money to be there, I had a strong feeling that I didn't want to live with the guilt of sending a person to prison unless they were completely guilty and completely deserving of it.
While a judge will usually act fairly, a jury has a selfish incentive to actively look for ways to avoid sending someone to prison.
I don't think juries are a good solution everywhere. The UK does not have the remnants of racial segregation that the US does; racialism is endemic in US thought patterns. Additionally, the average person where I live is university educated. For that reason, I feel that every defendant should be given the option of a bench trial.
> An attorney will try that, while someone on a jury might not even be aware his believe in a nuclear family is used to paint the victim as a slut. Being aware of your own biases and noticing others trying to abuse them will require education and training.
So? That's what the jury selection process is for. Your defense should exclude jurors with such obvious biases.
> Do you take you medical advice from random citizens as well, since it is harder for the pharmacy industry to influence them?
Except I'm not beholden to only a single doctor. You are beholden to a single judge, and you don't get a say which judge tries you.
I guess as a programmer it makes far far far more sense to me that the person deciding my fate is a professional who has to follow a rule book, rather than a bunch of random people who act on their own emotions and who don't have to know anything about the law. If the prosecution presents them with an emotional argument that makes them feel I am guilty, they will vote that way - and I'd hope the judge can't be swayed that easily.
That's a hilariously naive view of judges. Judges totally have emotional and political motivations, and a huge amount of discretion. It's less "following a rule book" and more "trying to squeeze this scenario to fit the box I think it belongs in". If you think adjudication is anything like running a computer program you're dead wrong.
One of my favorite lines about judges is: "it's the responsibility of every person to know the law, except trial judges, who simply have to consider the arguments presented and have appellate courts to set them straight"
You realize that some judges are elected by the general public right? If they won their election on a hang 'em high, and let god sort 'em out kind of platform then guess what they're gonna do? Hang 'em high. Because if they don't they'll loose their job next election. They can literally loose their job for caring too much about whether the accused is actually guilty. This is one of the reasons why we have a problem with over aggressive prosecutors and police, because they, and/or their bosses, are basically politicians who often have much stronger incentives to appear tough than to be fair or effective. If you want to think of it in programming terms, imagine working at a place that does performance reviews and promotions based on LOC generated. That is the judicial system in some states.
> You mean a bunch of random people who have no vested interest in the trial's outcome, and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you in a premeditated fashion
This is not how juries are formed. The parties can refuse jurors and you can refuse yourself if you are chosen.
In the UK system juries are selected randomly, and there is essentially no selection*
Nothing like the American system, where the lawyers can go through 250 candidates to choose 12 jurors, letting them choose the race, gender, education and class composition of the jury.
*Challenges are possible, such as if the random selection procedure wasn't followed properly or if a juror knows people involved, but it's very unusual.
Each side -- depending on the state and level of court -- gets a certain number of premptory challenges; that is, they can exclude N jurors without giving a reason.
After that, the only way to exclude a juror is to prove to the Judge that the juror is biased.
There's loads of scenarios like that. All white jury against a black defendant comes to mind(or all black against white or any other combination you can think of). There's also plenty of research showing that juries are more likely to be sympathetic if you are attractive or someone they can identify with, with unattractive people/people from other social classes getting worse verdicts for the same crime.
That's not to say that judges do not exhibit such biases, but once again - they should be trained specifically against that. There is no such training or expectation on the juries. And yes, of course juries are asked "do you have any bias against this person" but I don't believe for a second that actually works.
Nothing you've listed is premeditated. Jury candidate selection is random, so premeditation is literally impossible unless the candidate selection process itself is compromised.
Certainly you can introduce bias in the jury vetting process, but that's what your defense attorney is for.
randomly selected how? By the order a $9 an hour secretary enters stuff into an excel spreadsheet? In some places yes. Even if it is random(normal case)...random selection of which old rich jaded PHD holding white guy you get? In many places yes.
What makes you think a jury is by definition "angry and easily manipulable"? This says a lot more about your view of humanity and yourself than it does jury trials.
Yes, i do believe individual humans are way less perfect agents than some free will devotees make them out to be. Making good decisions is expensive... requires both time and prior knowledge/influences. Something someone forced to do jury duty is unlikely to bring. They spend their resources to be experts in other fields.
Btw, if you wanted to go into the free will vs formed by society thing: The reason parents tell their children to "work hard" and "be responsible for them self" is this being an effective influence. Such is necessary by society to provide for people to become better individuals. I know it sounds contradictory at first.
But your argument is also applicable to judges. There's nothing in legal training that makes people magically superior to "normies", incapable of error and so on.
Meanwhile someone forced to do jury duty is gonna spend the time there whether they like it or not, so there's also no motivation to _not_ try to make good decisions. It won't save any time.
> That feels more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.
Except when the arbitrator has a grudge against you (maybe personally, maybe more generically - racially, ethnically, etc., maybe he just read a hit piece in the newsletter and is prejudiced against cases like yours). You can have a chance to sway the mob, but you have no chance against the professional who is out to get you.
To understand American system one has to understand that a lot of things there are designed not to produce best outcome in optimal cases, but to reduce harm in sub-optimal cases. It is meant not to solve cases with maximum ease, but to reduce the incidence of abuse. Of course, since people with power - aka the police, prosecutors judiciary, etc. - are not very interested in reducing their own powers they are actively working to undermine this design. Thus plea bargains, testilying, qualified immunity, blue wall of silence, etc.
> more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.
Roy Moore was a judge. Think of that.
Ousted from the bench, twice, for defying court orders, ignoring the law, and displaying a lack of impartiality. This guys thinking was basically "I don't have to follow the rules, because God tells me what's right." And he was a judge for a number of years.
Now look at this video of a recent trump judicial nominee.
He couldn't even answer basic legal questions, and admits to have never tried a case in court. I believe he dropped out of the process. But others have gone on to be judges, with only slightly better credentials.
So having a judge decide is no guarantee of a fair outcome. Juries exist for a reason. They aren't perfect, and nothing ever will be.
Yeah, the US judge selection process seems especially bad. Here in germany the issue of partisan judges comes up rarely, at least. I wonder why. Maybe that has to do with the highly partisan US politics, thanks to the US FPTP voting system practically allowing only 2 opposing parties. Hell, don't you even elect some judges in the same way?!
Also seems like we have a somewhat high bar that should filter the worst people... you need a 4 year legal education and after that have an up to 5 year trial period til you got a life long position.
Jury selection does absolutely everything possible to weed out jurors who wouldn't be impartial. Also the jury doesn't decide the punishment, the jury only determines if the prosecution has proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
On the other hand, it's horrific to me that my fate can be decided by people who have no formal education in law and can be swayed toward a guilty verdict by the prosecutors even in the absence of evidence - if they "feel" someone is guilty then they vote that way. That is insane to me personally. Yes, a judge might have a bias - but their decisions have to be based in the law and either you broke a law or you haven't - they can't go "well, there is no evidence, but I feel like you're guilty, so off to prison with you!" - a jury of peers can absolutely do that(the judge can overrule them for gross negligence of their duties but that doesn't happen very often).
AFAIK you can waive your right to a jury trial and simply appear before a judge in most jurisdictions.
In general through, judges have a strong bias towards the prosecution. DAs and judges are often extremely friendly since they work with each other every day. I would say that if you're innocent or your case has any extenuating circumstances, you almost always have a better shot with a jury than a judge.
Juries also allow for jury nullification, which allows for unjust laws to be ignored.
I dearly wish that jury trials were available in all cases. I recently went through a non-criminal case where justice was decidedly not served. The judge, of course, claimed he "had to follow the law" but his interpretation of the law contradicted the plain-text reading of the relevant statute. I had no choice but to suck it up unless I wanted to drop the rest of my life savings on an appeal. I feel pretty confident a jury would have seen things very differently.
> a judge ... can't go "well, there is no evidence, but I feel like you're guilty, so off to prison with you!" - a jury of peers can absolutely do that
The defence can ask a judge to throw out a case on the grounds that there is no evidence on which a jury could reasonably convict.
>> On the other hand, it's horrific to me that my fate can be decided by people who have no formal education in law
I think you're assuming quite a bit on the education, knowledge, and experience of the law on the part of the judge. There is no guarantee that the judge you get knows anything about the law pertaining to your case.
>> but their decisions have to be based in the law and either you broke a law or you haven't
And yet, judges are reversed all the time on appeal based on the idea that the judge got the law wrong.
Plus I'm fairly certain the judge has a great deal more power in the courtroom than the jury. A judge can certainly put you in jail for a period of time just because they feel like it.
Good comment, but confused about the "first of all" lead in. I felt like I already acknowledged this was a US unique problem, and specifically called out the UK system as superior.
I've started to think that prosecutorial discretion is one of the main problems in Western societies. It yields all kinds of injustices, and overly vague and expansive laws that essentially result in every citizen breaking a few laws a day.
If prosecutors didn't have a choice on whether to prosecute a case, the law would ultimately be a lot more reasonable because old and unjust laws would more readily be stricken from the books, and there would be no possibility of favouritism.
>overly vague and expansive laws that essentially result in every citizen breaking a few laws a day.
I've had the idea that the current system we have, which is basically you're not breaking the law unless someone is watching, isn't going to play nice with constant surveillance.
Currently, if a law isn't enforced, it's de-facto not the law.
Just imagine if computers in people's cars were phoning home to police. How many speeding fines would be issued daily? Failure to (completely) stop at a stop sign? Reckless driving? Look at how China is currently testing the waters with shaming j-walkers[0]. Just wait until this is fully institutionalized.
This debate is already well underway in the context of speed cameras, which can automatically issue a ticket to every single driver who is even 1mph over the speed limit. Many communities are limiting their use, for example by restricting their placement to only streets immediately outside schools.
>I've started to think that prosecutorial discretion is one of the main problems in Western societies. It yields all kinds of injustices, and overly vague and expansive laws that essentially result in every citizen breaking a few laws a day.
>If prosecutors didn't have a choice on whether to prosecute a case, the law would ultimately be a lot more reasonable because old and unjust laws would more readily be stricken from the books, and there would be no possibility of favouritism.
It is not "Western societies", in some Roman/Civil Law countries, as an example Italy, prosecution is not discretional, it is "mandatory" for crimes (whether this is effectively enforced in the same way and everywhere is another thing).
At one point in Anglo-American legal history it was possible to bring a private prosecution. Although on the balance it is probably for the best that doesn’t exist anymore in general, perhaps it out to be revived for cases of public misconduct where the public prosecutors have a conflict of interest.
>I really think false testimony should carry the punishment the accused is facing.
One problem with that is that e.g. someone who testified that they show OJ killing the woman would have gotten the "punishment the accused is facing" when OJ was found innocent.
So this has the potential to put an innocent man (testifying correctly, but where the accused for BS reasons is free of charges) to jail just as a false testimony now has the potential to do so.
OJ was not found innocent. Our criminal justice system largely does not find people innocent. It merely finds people "not guilty".
I realize that distinction may seem pedantic, but I think it's actually quite relevant in this case.
It's not sufficient that someone testified about what they saw, and have the case decided the other way. To start a perjury case against the witness, I would still demand all of the strictures of due process that apply to a criminal defense case.
That is, you would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the witness was _lying_ about what they saw. It would absolutely _not_ be sufficient evidence just to have a "not guilty" ruling. You would need to prove that they _could not have seen_ the testimony they provided.
Absolutely, this standard would make _some_ prosecutions against police for perjury hard or impossible. However, there are a number of cases that I believe could meet this evidentiary standard that are simply not pursued by the prosecutors office.
> You would need to prove that they _could not have seen_ the testimony they provided.
A problem with this is that people giving false eyewitness testimony often believe they genuinely did see the thing they could not have seen and are telling the truth. So, a system like this would have the potential to punish as "liars" people who simply fell victim to what seem to be built-in foibles of the human memory system.
(Note I'm not doubting that some witnesses really are consciously lying. The problem would be the potential to sweep up the innocent with the guilty, if the standard used is "what they said they saw is impossible, therefore they are lying." Additional factors showing they were consciously lying would be needed.)
We already have sorted through this problem as a society.
The standard for perjury is not "their testimony was inaccurate, or was false". The standard for perjury is "they _knowingly_ made false testimony".
My complaint is not about changing the standard for perjury. My complaint is that prosecutors often avoid a perjury charge towards police, even when there is the evidence to support a perjury charge.
The burden for finding someone not guilty is that there exists some kind of doubt as to their guilt.
In order for anyone to be found guilty of giving false testimony the burden would be likewise. It would require that it be shown without a doubt that they lied.
>It would require that it be shown without a doubt that they lied.
Well, if the accused is considered non guilty of what they said they saw them do, then doesn't that "prove" that they lied? (as much "without a doubt" as the other person is innocent).
It would prove that there was insufficient cause to find the other party guilty. Proof that the party had lied could include. The officer admitting including to others in public or private that he had lied or that the facts were different in a substantive way from what he had previously testified.
Video that contradicts officers testimony.
Physical evidence that proves the testimony was a lie.
All of the above would have to be sufficiently different from reality that would suggest that its impossible to consider the possibility that the officer misremembered.
Example fake scenario:
I heard violent screaming coming from inside the home so I had to break down the door and search for the person in need of help and I just happened to find drugs.
Contradicted by video from the ring door bell which recorded the officer just walking up and kicking the door down so he could conduct an illegal search.
For real examples see the article. None of the listed scenarios suggest any reasonable party could think that the police officer misremembered.
Yes I believe OJ was guilty but I also believe that most of America didn't know what the L.A. jury inherently knew - that the cops were corrupt and that they had reason to believe that they were lying.
Mark Furhman was definitely a liar and just a few months later the Rampart scandal happened.
> I really think false testimony should carry the punishment the accused is facing.
Theoretically a sound idea, but people misremember things. It is possible to give false testimony without actively lying, and difficult to prove conclusively whether someone is actively deceiving or misremembering.
This is why body cams should be mandatory, also for the police officer's benefits - videos can't "misremember". Also police officers should be held to higher standards than the general population when it comes to giving testimony.
100% true. It's why Canadian judges generally don't convict on testimony unless there were dozens of witnesses and little chance of mistaken identity (the person stayed at the scene the entire time, etc).
That is the biblical adage of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". If you look very closely into the background of this, one of the express conditions for this applying is that you lied to get someone else punished. You then faced the exact same punishment.
So for law enforcement, any lies or withholding of evidence to ensure conviction would automatically mean that the penalty being asked for is applied to all of those law enforcement and prosecutors involved. There would be no "free passes" given to law enforcement or prosecutors.
This, of course, will not happen any time soon in most jurisdictions.
If I were ever in a jury box, I would treat police testimony as less trustworthy then that of any other witness, because there is no censure for perjury by them.
Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box.
I sat on a jury that included testimony by a police officer.
Many months had passed since the incident and the cop said a bunch of things, then the defense said "You just said X, but in your incident report you wrote Y."
One of the jurors was stuck on "We should believe the police officer because he is a police officer" for about 60 minutes, before eventually becoming convinced that nothing he said added up.
I know many of us dread jury service, but really, if we don't go, then we're leaving all of these decisions to people like that, who are willing to blindly believe the police.
A trial that largely relied on eyewitness testimony (all of which differed from individual to individual in important details) for evidence. I knew from my Psych studies that eyewitness testimony is a smidgen better than bullshit (see: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-...) but I was unable to hang the jury (the rest of whom wanted to throw the book at this kid, and yes the jury was all white and the kid was black and this was Boston, one of the most subtly-racist places I've ever lived in) because the defense did not present the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony as evidence/argument. You are (paradoxically and incredibly frustratingly) not allowed to use outside knowledge to inform your decision... Only what was actually presented at the trial. I literally left that jury in tears, being consoled by the older women on the jury who applauded my valiant but unsuccessful defense (yeah, I'm a guy, but I give a shit).
While I can't go back to that guy and apologize for being a part of the system that let him down, I do now contribute monthly to https://www.innocenceproject.org/causes/eyewitness-misidenti... ... "Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing, playing a role in more than 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing nationwide."
There is some effort to reform the system going on based on the evidence that continues to emerge, but it will take years.
> You are (paradoxically and incredibly frustratingly) not allowed to use outside knowledge to inform your decision
From what I understand (I'm not from US), you are told this by the judge, but in fact you can (and are allowed by law) to use anything you want to form your decision.
Yes, you are told this by the judge, but I wasn't aware at the time that you can still use whatever you want to form your decision.
If I could do it again I would have hung the jury. Let's just say the system in place makes it veeerrryyy difficult to do so... which is of course a perverse incentive.
I'm still kicking myself (this is years later) because normally I'm a person who sticks my neck out for my own principles, and that time I succumbed. I won't make the same mistake again.
You're not allowed by law to disregard the jury instructions. It's a practical effect of keeping jury proceedings secret.
People do it anyway, and it's highly unlikely that they'll be found out, but the problem is it's a double-edged sword: in this case, justice might have demanded it; on the other hand, a Klansman could use the same approach to get another member off the hook for an obvious murder conviction.
Yes. :/ Sorry if that was unclear. I still feel bad about it and this is years later. It was a traumatic experience for me, eleven against me... Don't do what I did. Always stick to your principles (and your education, and your wisdom) when they are tested.
The ethical thing to do here, if asked whether you will treat the word of a law enforcement officer as always true, is to lie.
It's along the lines of jury nullification. The people have some recourse in overriding court rules and court rulings when the court is not behaving in accordance with justice.
You don't need to lie, but you need to be careful not to frame your realistic skepticism as bias. Then, if you do make the jury, you need to be incredibly tactful so that the prosecutor doesn't get the trial thrown out on the basis that, e.g., you're biased simply because you don't take police testimonies as ground truth.
The risk here is that there are people fighting to get out of prison for things they're not guilty of. If you have realistic expectations that police and their representative prosecutors can and do lie, please exercise caution.
Exactly. Saying "I will evaluate the officer's statements along with the other evidence produced to determine if his/her statements are factual" is not going to get you kicked off a jury.
If you say "You shouldn't believe anything a cop testifies to" will get you booted pretty quickly.
> Saying "I will evaluate the officer's statements along with the other evidence produced to determine if his/her statements are factual" is not going to get you kicked off a jury.
If you say this you won't be selected. Engineers and Scientists routinely get denied because of the application of logic.
>Saying "I will evaluate the officer's statements along with the other evidence produced to determine if his/her statements are factual" is not going to get you kicked off a jury.
You'd be surprised. The DAs/lawyers on the other side can see right through this, and don't want it. They want someone that is more likely to show blind trust to the law side.
I got to jury selection last time I was on jury duty and the prosecuting attorney straight up asked the prospective jurors, "would you believe the testimony of a policeman above the testimony of the plaintiff?"
The majority of cases are settled by plea bargains, which don’t have a jury and minimal involvement by a judge. Many proposed reforms of the criminal justice system try to address this exact fact.
Having been through voir dire, sat on a jury and been asked to hold the power to take a man's freedom, I don't consider it ethical to lie during voir dire. The whole premise of the trial is that the jury is impartial. To knowingly lie is to deliberately corrupt that. I wouldn't want to be tried by jurors that were wilfully dishonest; I cannot then in good conscience lie, or countenance my fellow jurors lying, imagined purity of motive be damned.
"The whole premise of the trial is that the jury is impartial."
There's no such thing as impartial. Unless you either have no emotions or have omniscient knowledge of everything (robot or God, basically), you'll always view a set of facts through an emotional lens that's been tinged by your past experiences, which are a tiny subset of everyone's past experiences. Part of the reason we put multiple people on a jury is to average out those differences.
Then again, I brought up unconscious bias and implicit association tests last time I was called for jury duty, and was excused by a very impatient and skeptical sounding judge. Questioning the whole premise of the legal system doesn't go over very well with the legal system.
It's meant to be impartial /to the accused/. It's not meant to be completely agnostic of the whole judicial system, and in some cases doing the right thing may require not fully disclosing your knowledge of that judicial system. Example: Potential jurors will be dismissed (or at least, so I've read) if they admit to knowledge of jury nullification, despite it being a legitimate part of the jury's powers.
It is a part of the jury's power, but more as a side-effect of other decisions.
The criminal justice system _does not think_ jury nullification is a legitimate use of the powers of a juror. Rather, the criminal justice system more views it as something of an unfortunate trade-off.
Juries (And indirectly, the Supreme Court) are the only part of the criminal justice system in the US Constitution. Juries are the core of the system. Everything else is minor details.
The Constitution and centuries of common law tradition thinks it is a legitimate use of the powers of a juror. Since those are the ultimate source of law in this country, the criminal justice system is wrong.
Someone who has been selected for the belief that police are more reliable that others is clearly not impartial. It's right in the dictionary definition of the word impartial: "treating or affecting all equally".
I have very worried feelings about anyone who can answer "yes" to a question like "will you treat the word of X as always true?", regardless of the value of X.
The bare minimum I'd need would be "yes, so long as they're not contradicted by less inherently unreliable evidence than that which relies on human memory".
In my experience, the defense asked specific questions related to this exact topic and sought out jurors who agreed that police testimony is not guaranteed to be factual. I have to assume this is common. They had no problem filling the juror box with jurors approved by both sides.
The ethical thing to do here, if asked whether you will treat the word of a law enforcement officer as always true, is to lie.
That question came up the last time I was called for jury duty. But it was the people who affirmed that they believe police are always truthful who were excluded.
Just say "yes, provided that they aren't contradicted by more reliable evidence". The only thing you left out is that your definition of "more reliable evidence" is very broad.
No, jurors have to swear to tell the truth when answering questions during jury selection. However, in practice if you express any reservations about police testimony you will very likely be struck from the jury by the DA.
My own limited experience on a jury is that, because of the way jurors are selected, they tend to be fairly deferential to authority (especially the judge's authority). Arguing for jury nullification or any similar concept is at a minimum going to freak your fellow jurors out, and I wouldn't be surprised if in practice they might ask the judge to kick you off the jury and use one of the alternates (regardless of whatever the legality of the situation calls for).
> However, in practice if you express any reservations about police testimony you will very likely be struck from the jury by the DA
That's not my experience, and mere reservations about the credibility of police wouldn't usually justify a challenge for cause, and prosecutors have a finite number of peremptory challenges. (Now if you say cops are all liars and everything they say must be disregarded, sure, that’ll probably get you tossed.)
As far as i understand it a jury is supposed to be composed of one's "peers", but the people the parent describes strike me as way off the american norm.
That is not the meaning of the word peer in this case. The concept of a jury of peers differs from the King being the jury. It refers to citizens as peers not people with red hair, the same skin color, or socioeconomic background as peers.
Jurors are asked if they will treat the word of law enforcement as always true.
Jurors are disqualified if they don't say yes.
Jurors are sworn, as you say, to tell the truth.
Presumable jurors get punished if they end up acting counter to their previous word?
Thus, jurors that end up on the bench are forced by law to act as if every word by law enforcement is true, even if it contradicts physical reality. No?
During jury selection, the prosecutor and the defense attorney get to interview each potential juror. Both the prosecutor and the defense can eliminate potential jurors based on their answers. I believe they are allowed an unlimited number of challenges "for cause" and a limited number of challenges without cause.
If a juror stated that they believed that the word of law enforcement were always true, the defense attorney would almost certainly challenge them for cause, as that is clear bias, and they would not be selected for the jury.
In practice it's a balancing act, where the prosecution wants jurors who trust law enforcement and the defense wants jurors who are skeptical of law enforcement.
It is illegal to punish a juror for the decision they make during a trial. This is often referred to as "jury nullification" (or rather, is an important part of jury nullification).
> Jurors are asked if they will treat the word of law enforcement as always true. Jurors are disqualified if they don't say yes.
Realistically, jurors will instead be challenged for cause by the defense if they do say yes to that question.
They might be challenged by the prosecution if they indicate a bias against police testimony (either for cause or as a peremptory challenge, depending on the details and the prosecutor and the judge.)
> Thus, jurors that end up on the bench are forced by law to act as if every word by law enforcement is true, even if it contradicts physical reality. No?
No. If that were the case, there would be no need for evidence, a judge, a jury, or a trial. "Just ask the cops" is not how this system works.
Remember you’re reading a thread of some folks on the internet that come from a similar background and seem to have opinions absolutely inconsistent with reality IMO, based on my experience.
Both sides look for jurors who have bias where they will come with a pre-shared opinion. The last jury I was on included a former US Attorney, an insurance investigator and a NAACP regional director. We were asked to answer questions honestly and nobody had access to our process.
I’ve been on 3 juries, and in 2/3 we partially or fully acquitted a defendant based on many factors. Frankly, in each case I walked away with an appreciation that the system can work.
While principals are important practically good people spend a lot of time applying the principal that one should do what has the most utility for all. This is to say looking at the forseeable ends and picking the means.
You are making the same statement again without a single proof or example to show why lying is ethical, moral, and correct. Repetition doesn't add correctness.
How are you considering that such disqualifies you from ever sitting in a jury box? Are you thinking more in the general principle that your bias would prevent you from being impartial, or more that it would be rooted out during voir dire, and you'd be dismissed because of it? Because if it doesn't come up in voir dire, and you don't volunteer it, you might end up in that jury box.
In my case, I'd have liked to think that I'm not particularly biased for or against police, though news stories like this one don't help in that regard. But when I sat in a jury box, I don't recall it coming up. The only question from voir dire that I can immediately recall was the defense attorney making sure I understood accusation != guilt.
With that said, I did up having to consider the police witness testimony unreliable. Not because I thought they were lying because they could get away with it, but because it was too inconsistent from one officer to the next. That was one of the first things we agreed on in the jury room, that the police testimony was too inconsistent to be useful, and that we would need to focus on the other evidence (video, DNA testing, call records, et. al.)
I was recently called for jury duty, and the whole jury was asked if they would give testimony different weight if it came from a police officer. When called up in voir dire, I said that I would give police testimony lower weight than others, and it wouldn't be enough on its own to prove guilt. The judge excused me from the case.
That’s fair enough, really. The defense probably would have thrown out the ones who said they’d put a higher weight on police testimony.
Being skeptical of witness accounts is fine, but you admitted partiality specifically based on their occupation - I assume they want people who as much as possibly will evaluate the account based only the facts at hand.
i've had one judge disqualify me for saying that i place zero weight on police officer testimonies, whereas the other judge asked me if i could take them seriously if there were other pieces of evidence that corroborated what the police were saying.
i served on the second jury; the police officer was blatantly lying but there was no evidence which corroborated their story anyway.
> Of course, this would disqualify me from ever sitting in a jury box.
Probably not; I've been on a criminal jury where virtually all the testimony was from police, and the questions in voir dire wouldn't have he really revealed that attitude unless it was so extreme that the prospective juror themself felt it would prevent them from fairly evaluating the evidence.
If the system expects you, literally counts on you, to be a good actor, then you should face a special kind of wrath when hard evidence reveals that you are not. Is this not a reasonable expectation?
A relative of mine once overheard a police sergeant rehearse the "story" he planned on telling the judge with his subordinate officers. He told his defense attorney, who basically shot holes through any credibility the cops may have had, and prevented the prosecutor from making anything stick, even when he tried demoting the charges from felony weapons to "disturbing the peace" -- charges my relative was innocent of regardless. I believe the police sergeant was fired, but he was not prosecuted.
In case you're wondering, me and mine are some of the whitest people you'll meet. It happens to black people more, but it can happen to anyone.
While "bodycams" show mixed results in civilian-police interaction, given[1] and from what the MSM say, officer testimony may be an area where bodycams do have a valueadd.
Perhaps bodycam footage could be required as corroboration for officer witness testimony to carry weight.
>While "bodycams" show mixed results in civilian-police interaction
I don't really believe those "mixed results", especially if those doing the research/reporting have ties with the police that wants those cams gone. Or where the results depend on the cooperation of the policemen wearing them during the research.
Yes, of course that is the current standing. But we also know neutral witnesses memory and recollection are not perfect, not to mention non-neutral witnesses like the actual perpetrator, or an officer who has perverse incentives, etc.
I am extremely surprised, there is no obligation to prosecute.
Reading more into the article
"Bronx dropped the case. Then the court sealed the case file, hiding from view a problem so old and persistent that the criminal justice system sometimes responds with little more than a shrug: false testimony by the police."
The judge themselves are obstructing justice. Where I am from the prosecutor would have turned and charge the officer on the spot.
Like as a judge how do you even trust the testimony of that officer or any officer anymore if the rate of perjury is half of what the article implies. They are not talking about
"I don't remember correctly." or "Maybe he mistook him for the wrong person." They literally planted evidences and then perjured themselves.
I really don't understand the police organization in the U.S. It incentivizes
An obligation to prosecute crimes seems like a difficult idea to work, but at the least it shouldn't be entirely up to the same prosecutors who rely on the police to do their jobs.
> An obligation to prosecute crimes seems like a difficult idea to work
I think it would be a very disruptive idea at first, because prosecutorial discretion has been so deeply ingrained in our legal system.
I'm not sure sure that it's ultimately a terrible idea though. There are so many laws that we all unknowingly break a few per day. A paranoid person might even suggest it's intentional so as to always have some leverage whenever it's needed.
Without discretion, there's no possibility of leverage against honest citizens. Proposing such expansive laws would be met with much more forceful citizen opposition, and lead to the repeal of the existing ones. And the police wouldn't get the free pass they now enjoy for false testimony.
But the short-term effect of taking away discretion would be a slew of cases everybody knows shouldn't be pursued. And it's not clear to me how it would be enforced.
No doubt some logistical issues would need to be sorted out, like say, grace periods until a law is reviewed. Enforcement via an internal prosecutors office might be possible.
I can't claim to have all the details figured out, but it's not an absurd possibility off the bat. The scope and deliberate impenetrability of the law is a serious problem that I think will only grow worse over time.
And it would also bring into question and previous cases the cop testified on.
Basically: A big headache for the poor DA. So it is easier to keep a secret list of cops to not be trusted or called to the stand, like they do in Philly.
Oh that’s interesting. I’ve never heard about that but I could believe it. Seems like Philly’s citizens are sick of it though: they just elected civil rights attorney Larry Krasner as District Attorney. He has promised to handle the problems that the philly PD causes, and he came out swinging. Fired 31 prosecutors in his first week.
It is if you're a LEO. They can, and do, get away with pretty much anything they want when it comes to violating your rights. That's why you should never talk to them beyond "yes, sir", "no, sir", and "with all due respect, I don't talk to police officers". They aren't your friend trying to have a conversation with you - they are trying to get you to give a self-incriminating answer (or at least an answer that gives them probable cause to further violate your rights).
As a white person who has been through "the system", it is absolutely corrupt and racist. I have seen black men put in jail for the same crime that white men were let go on - in the same courtroom, on the same day, by the same judge - with all external factors being equal except race.
Beat me to it. Was just about to write the same exact thing. If we common peasants lie on the stand they have no problem calling it what it is. If one of the anointed does it, it's called "testilying" or, my personal favorite, "misremembering". Sure, memory is pretty faulty, but not in the way these cops "misremember".
Yes, that's precisely why you should never, ever, ever talk to the cops:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
I love that video. That first speaker really spells everything out in a concise and easily comprehensible way of how you can and will be fucked (if you are the prime suspect) if you open your mouth, innocent or not.
The first speaker is a lawyer. Then the second lawyer, a cop, says essentially "he's right. but you should trust our (cops') judgment, we are trying to help."
Right, you have to live with some level of trust. "Hey we are looking for a guy who kidnapped a child. Have you seen a white van in this lot today? It's really important we follow up on any possible leads so anything you can remember might help!"
"Sorry I won't speak to you without my lawyer present."
"'Joyrider' [1] is not a term I will allow in my station, constable. [...] Crime is crime, and should not be trivialised. What next? Are we to refer to grievous bodily harm [2] as 'fun-punching'? Assault with a deadly weapon as 'a laugh and a stab'?"
Standards for comedy were much lower in the mid-'90s. [3]
I've heard of the police here in Northern Ireland refer to the act of lighting bins on fire as "Recreational Vandalism". While refusing to do anything about it happening repeatedly. Makes the blood boil.
And, what does the quoted officer say in the story about lying under oath?
"Behind closed doors, we call it testilying," a New York City police officer, Pedro Serrano, said in a recent interview, echoing a word that officers coined at least 25 years ago. "You take the truth and stretch it out a little bit."
An officer lying under oath in order to sway a verdict calls into question every single police report or court testimony from that officer.
You're absolutely correct. This is extremely serious.
I assume such a list would have rows consisting of, at minimum:
a. link to case's public testimony (CPT)
b. text in CPT to officer's statement.
c. text in CPT that contradicts the statement.
(I'd love to see an example row!)
2. Innocent until proven guilty? I'd say best to start with the clear lies first to build the list's credibility. However enough borderline cases surrounding an individual or department can also be interesting.
3. Defamation requires that the statements about the person be false. Referencing court docs about what they said should obviate that concern. Maybe the trick is to bill the db as a "list of inconsistencies" rather than outright lies.
4. I'd be more concerned about DoS attack rather than spam.
Hmm I like how your idea helps with both (3) as you said, and also with what I called "spam".
I had in mind a service where people were allowed to write in their claims of testilying -- how do you prevent it being "spammed" by every criminal with a grudge against a cop.
By asking them to cut and paste text from CPT -- which can then be electronically verified, you can cut down on the casual attempts. Of course a real attacker can get around that trivially.
Another question is where to host it. While truth is a libel defence in the US -- I am not sure that is true in other countries.
Unfortunately, I am unaware of any of those. It stands to reason that police officers speaking openly in this manner about lying under oath don't face repercussions and consequently don't get tracked much.
It's not perjury unless it's willful. I have no doubt that some of these inconsistencies (most?) are deliberate, but human memory is often pretty terrible. Good luck proving that the officer was deliberately not telling the truth.
Well, usually this comes from written statements right after the event right? It's not like there's a several week gap between the event and the report.... right?
How about making it a crime to misremember? Sure would make you think twice before you testified something as fact. Human memory is _very_ fallible. Time we started treating it that way.
Perjury can remain the term for the crime in general, and testilying can refer to the specific form of police officers systematically perjuring themselves for corrupt or otherwise dubious purposes.
It's worse; it's a specific subset of perjury. It's lying under oath by someone in authority, who presumes greater moral weight during testifying. And that testimony is often used to get people to plea bargain when they are innocent.
Funny that they are taking a dump on street level cops but don't seem too concerned about the perjury of high level officials who they publish endless editorials supporting.
I have first hand experience when I tried to drive away from the police because I knew I had a warrant for my arrest. They started shooting and said I tried to run them over. There were five separate police reports with the same story. I had eye witnesses, but they were addicts like myself. So you plead guilty and go to jail.
That's truly unfortunate. But it doesn't surprise me one bit. This is how they operate. They love trumping up charges any way they can ("stop resisting!") because the more "serious" crime they stop they better they look and then they are able to get promotions. Was there any dashcam or other video evidence available? I assume not or else I imagine it would have been used.
They really have no choice but to provide it, if the defense attorney subpoenas for it, but public defenders often don't do a good job defending people, and the dashcam evidence suspiciously often goes missing or broken.
What I meant is that the OP would have plead not guilty and then had their lawyer file the request as part of discovery to see if any dashcam or bodycam footage was available. Believe me, I have no expectation that they would review this naturally themselves and offer up evidence of officer wrongdoing (even though these people swore an oath to do exactly that).
We'll soon have a a future where our cars have like 14 cameras and a radar and police officers will still be having trouble getting their cameras to work reliably no doubt.
In my justice fantasies some smart ass company comes along to "help" the police by providing them with vests each containing 60 cameras all operating independently and unable to be turned off. The same company will "help" the police avoid complicated data maintenance issues by uploading to their secure servers. This same company would be very popular with the voting public who vote for laws that ensure police accept the "help". Just a fantasy for sure.
If that was the case, you have have been charged with Attempted Murder on a LEO and I'm quite surprised your not still in prison right now, unless it happened like 15 years ago.
It's a very serious charge to attempt any sort of violence against a Law Enforcement Officer (LEO), and at least where I'm from, prosecutors like giving the max sentence for cases such as those.
This is perhaps the single biggest thorn in my sister-in-law's life. She is a public defender in Marin County.
I feel if we could make the number of times an officer was found to testify to something that was shown to be a lie, was submittable as evidence in rebuttal to all of their testimony, it would quickly make bad officers unable to participate in the justice system.
I would hope that an officer that cannot make arrests because their testimony will always be stained in court will find themselves out of a job.
"California is among 22 states that keep officer discipline from the public, but it is the only one that blocks prosecutors from seeing entire police personnel files."
The institution of police needs to be abolished and replaced wholesale by something better. Measures meant to temper the systemic problems in the institution put in place by the Obama administration have been ripped out[1] by the white supremacist[2] sitting in the Attorney General's seat.
Their actions are counterproductive to the preservation of an integrated, fair civil society.
I wish people had to justify downvoting with a quick comment. I presume you are being downvoted a) for the possible hyperbole of 'white supremacist' (Is Sessions a White Supremacist, or protectionist and somewhere on the nationalistic scale? Genuine question, as I am unqualified to say) and b) as it is arguably fanciful thinking to simply 'rip it out and replace it wholesale' (I would argue 'never going to happen').
To a large extent, issues posed in this thread could be solved with body cams. When all police are held more accountable in this way, are your grievances eased at all?
How would you suppose a government bring about such a large upheaval when most modern politics spends its time on compromise and incremental change?
>When all police are held more accountable in this way, are your grievances eased at all?
No, because then they pull this nonsense[1]. They are an institution historically grounded in anti-labor terrorism and slave catching, crafted entirely to elevate the security of private property above all other societal concerns.
>(Is Sessions a White Supremacist, or protectionist and somewhere on the nationalistic scale?
You should reconsider your hesitance here. Intellectuals need to stop tapdancing around the issue of white supremacy, and call a spade a spade. He prosecuted a group of people that were helping African-Americans register to vote. He's pushed back time and time again against sentencing reform that would treat people more equally under the law.[2] Calling his actions "protectionist" or "nationalist" is explicitly excluding black citizens from The Nation in question. By attempting to misdirect and misattribute these actions you are complicit in the practices that sustain the root from which his hateful policies grow.
>You should reconsider your hesitance here. Intellectuals need to stop tapdancing around the issue of white supremacy, and call a spade a spade.
I am not a US citizen and don't know anything about this person, so I stand by my position on being unqualified to say (hence asking).
Actually on a side note, I agree with you, but on the other hand am equally concerned about the 'level platform' (e.g. 'my opinion is as valid as your scientific method') that we currently have in society.
Having said the above - Yes, I am a hesitant debater in general, so for other circumstances, I agree.
The reference you provided seems a little tenuous to this to me FYI (and is also a single data point). That flippant comment from a single police force regarding a corporation does somewhat reflect the power of companies at the moment, but I am not sure whether it shows anything more than this.
Side note, the police also said along the lines of "we will not rule out prosecuting the driver" (paraphrasing) which strikes me as terrifying, as the driver was arguably avoiding negligence as much as possible, while Uber could be considered grossly negligent here.
>They are an institution historically grounded in anti-labor terrorism and slave catching, crafted entirely to elevate the security of private property above all other societal concerns.
To play devil's advocate here, so were the Dutch[1], Swedish[2] governments etc.) - Which are among the more democratically represented countries we have at the moment (no where near a pure democracy, but still some of the best we have). These nations now have comparatively liberal prison and policing systems.
it's not a technological issue. Does it matter if body cams exist, when the footage can easily "go missing"? When the DA and the judge are incentivized to be lenient to advance their own careers? How often do you see headlines where the police commit outrageous atrocities and get a slap on the wrist?
The system is fundamentally broken. The incentive structure needs to be changed. This is a sociopolitical issue.
I do think that technology like this will be less and less corruptible over time though - I am fairly optimistic about this use case for cameras (but also have concerns about how unpleasant jobs like teaching and policing could become if people are monitored in an authoritarian way).
In terms of the system being fundamentally broken, my view is that 'ripping it out and starting again' is just not viable (esp with the US having essentially a 2 party system) - Incremental change such as introducing body cams, reducing its corruptibility, and general 'liberal' policy introduction over time is the only feasible path if relying on traditional government.
This incremental change, however, is far too slow, which is why I support Ethical Capitalism to provide an alternative path, guided by 'enlightened' public demand. Which brings its own problems and exploitable weaknesses of course.
>How often do you see headlines where the police commit outrageous atrocities and get a slap on the wrist?
I am fairly optimistic too in this regard - People are slowly wising up to Police perjury and other indiscretions, and it is more at the forefront of people's minds than ever before. I have no justification for this optimism in this conversation though unfortunately, as it is such a large nuanced shift to examine.
I had 6 or so different police officers testify against me during trial. Everyone of them told a different story, and the stories told did not corroborate with the evidence.
Even so, I received the stiffest possible penalty, 6mos jail and thousands in fees. The judge said his conviction was based on the fact that he "thought I was lying".
My life has been severely impacted by this wrongful conviction.
This issue runs deeper than lying police. When the DA and court system are in on it too, there is no hope.
Unfortunately, this problem is not entirely unknown in Germany, too. I have no idea how common it is, but there was one well-publicized case where somebody got beaten up by the police at a demonstration. The police claimed the man had insulted and attacked the officers and then resisted arrest. Video evidence the police had went missing mysteriously, but then volunteers started sending in the videos of the incident they had recorded, and the Chaos Computer Club (at least I think it was them) correlated all the recordings. The resulting video clearly told a very different story from the one the police had told. And I doubt this is an "isolated incident". When you cannot police officers to tell the truth about how they use the power given to them by the state, how can you trust them at all?
And just to be clear, my mother is a retired police officer, married to another retired police officers, so I have met my share of police officers, and all the ones I have met were decent people who valued honesty highly. But that makes the fact the police as a whole is willing to tolerate such behavior all the more troubling.
The problem with police officers lying like this is that it colors all other police interactions as suspect. If the police were smart, they'd turn these sort of people out rather than close ranks.
I don't understand why lying in court by cops is not being treated as one of the worst offenses they could make. Cops are entrusted with the use of potentially lethal force so they should be held to the highest standard. There is no excuse for lying.
It's the same for judges taking bribes. If you can't trust the legal system then a democratic state can't work properly.
well yes that too, but no police department should be hiring anyone who even perjures themselves a tiny amount .... the real problem here is a cultural problem within police departments and it's their civil oversight that needs to solve this
I expect some controversy for this observation, but jobs that come with power over other people (like being a police officer) seem to attract a disproportionate ratio of assholes.
I have no doubt there are good cops. But the nature of the job makes it appealing to a certain audience.
I spent some time in the US military in the 80's and 90's, and it was similar to the situation with cops. It did seem to improve after the infamous "tailhook" scandal, but I suspect it's still bad. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" seems unavoidable. Human nature is what it is.
> "Remember that the utilization of SOD [information obtained from the NSA] cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD." [aka parallel construction]
> "Kevin Richardson, the Police Department’s top internal prosecutor, said he believed so-called testilying was nearing its end. “I think it’s a problem that’s very much largely on its way out,” he said."
Very much largely?
Now, without wanting to cast aspersions on a prosecutor, is this guy lying about lying?
It's a problem on its way out because of the rapid adoption of body cameras on police officers.
If you look at the next 25 years, not only will every cop have a camera running 24/7, but also all vehicle's including the suspect's will be recording events from multiple angles.
Most homes will have cameras at the front door, and throughout the home in some form or another.
Many witnessneses are already recording things through their phones.
People may be wearing augmented reality style "google glasses" that can retroactively record important moments. Meaning they won't even intend to record the things that they do.
Right now its possible for the police to intimidate someone who pulls out a phone and starts recording, but soon there will be just too many devices, and it will be impossible to tell what is recording.
And drones... Traffic and delivery drones, can easily be rerouted during police incidents to provide overhead video feeds that help the officer, or help the court determine what happened at a later date.
That's hopeful... but false.
If there are no consequences, then it doesn't matter whether or not they lie, does it? The accused's outcomes are +1 or -1. The officer's outcomes are +1 or 0. The rational play for the officer is to lie for the +1.
Not to burst your technocratic bubble, but if you want to know how body cams work in the practice you can take a look at the Baltimore Police Gun Trace Task Force trial.
They stole money, then they filmed themselves afterwards (re)discovering the (now reduced) money.
Deep fakes take time. No one could possibly know that an incident is about to occur, so I wouldn't worry about that.
Also if a police department wanted to undertake a full on conspiracy to fabricate evidence, their will be so many cameras from so many angles, that there lies would quickly be outed.
In practice, that might get you more in trouble. I like to think LEO as well connected gang members. One should generally do what they tell you to not make them angry in any way. And after the interaction is over, one can think about taking legal action if necessary. Some sort of on person hidden video recorder would be better, as LEO can make up charges or plant things, but that's too much annoyance for normal people, so complying to whatever the ask is the best option. If you want to assert your right that might upset police, camera whose memory can't be destroyed easily is a must if you don't want to end up in prison.
"Police lying raises the likelihood that the innocent end up in jail — and that as juries and judges come to regard the police as less credible, or as cases are dismissed when the lies are discovered, the guilty will go free."
I'm not sure why the police protect each other when there is wrongdoing. When that stuff eventually comes to light it reflects badly on the entire group. Sure, we can tell people it's just a few bad apples, but that doesn't really hold up when the group continues to support bad apples. They're being complicit.
Really? Some 75% of Americans have "a great deal of respect" for the police. Sounds like the lying and getting away with it is working out just fine for their public perception.
The majority of Americans love the cops. There is an irrational fear of violent crime in America.
When I ask people why they are so consumed with carrying guns, they say its to protect them and their loved ones. I then show them statistically, that gun deaths are the 50th leading cause of death in the US they believe the statistic but being a victim of a violent crime is such a visceral emotion by some people.
Where I live (Finland) cops would have very little incentive to lie. We are brought up to treat each other in an egalitarian way, and that transcends most levels of our society. For example, in Turku stabbing[0] the police did not attempt to kill the suspect but to incapacitate him with as little force as possible. It's about how they are trained.
Police are quite respected, and not feared by anyone here.
Justice system is not about punishment, but about providing as low level as possible downside to illegal actions. So it's set up more like a statistical tool than like a personal punishment scheme.
Edit: I have to add, that while the general standards seem to be quite high, individual officers are not incorruptible. A head of drug enforcement was recently jailed for basically corruption. But the fact that anyone can be deposed if found wanting is perhaps a signal about the self repair in the system - individuals are corruptible, but the system and norms aren't. At least for the moment. Yes, a single officer might lie if bucketloads of euros are at stake, but a random officer would generally not lie for leisure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jari_Aarnio
The police are 100% your enemy once they start questioning you about anything. Record, record record.
Catch them in one lie, and you get off scot free. Source: been dealing with the "justice" system since I was 17, most recently last year where I recorded an agent of the court committing perjury.
Yes, nothing happens to them but most importantly, they've never been able to convict me of anything.
1) once a police officer submits or makes a knowingly false statement that results in your prosecution, exposing this taints all cases where that officer was involved which could result in retrials or dismissals. The da absolutely does not want to be responsible for this. They will drop the charges once your lawyer takes them aside after the statement has been made. Note: do not give your lawyer this evidence until the perjury has occurred. They may not be happy with you and inform the DA thus cutting you off at the knees (it's pretty incestuous at times.) Play dumb and outraged that this is happening to you.
2) a finding of perjury is rare, you're after dismissing the charges
3) nothing will happen to that officer but you may end up being considered hostile in that precinct.
No doubt about it, they are the enemy when it comes to finding a scapegoat and they do it with your tax dollars.
Edit: I'm unable to respond, apparently I'm commenting too much for the last hour so my response is here:
Think about this regarding not trusting your own lawyer: if the case gets dropped, the attorney makes no more in fees. If that evidence is neutered, it needs to go to trial. Trust no one. I'm a very hard looking guy (hard life but I'm really quite soft) and most people think I'm guilty of everything. Add that I am not white, don't look rich, and it's a recipe for distrust on sight. Even when faced with evidence, I've had people continue to lie as if admitting that I'm innocent would cause a tear in the fabric of the universe.
> Note: do not give your lawyer this evidence until the perjury has occurred. They may not be happy with you and inform the DA thus cutting you off at the knees (it's pretty incestuous at times.)
Seriously? Are these public prosecutors, or ones you pay good money for? Is it that the defenders think you are guilty but are going through the motions of a pretend defense? Either way it is a scary thought.
In general I thought you would want your lawyer to know as much as possible so that they have as many options as possible for constructing an arugment for you in court. If you have to second guess that, then you are in a bit of a lose-lose situation with every piece of info.
I was being rate limited for some reason, so I could not respond earlier, but here is my response:
Think about this regarding not trusting your own lawyer: if the case gets dropped, the attorney makes no more in fees. If that evidence is neutered, it needs to go to trial. Trust no one. I'm a very hard looking guy (hard life but I'm really quite soft) and most people think I'm guilty of everything. Add that I am not white, don't look rich, and it's a recipe for distrust on sight. Even when faced with evidence, I've had people continue to lie as if admitting that I'm innocent would cause a tear in the fabric of the universe.
> The police are 100% your enemy once they start questioning you about anything.
This is mostly not true for most people, especially if you are not-poor, white, and not actually committing major crimes. OTOH, the times when it is true aren't easily distinguishable from the times that it isn't true, which means you have an interest in treating it as more true than it actually is.
100% means it's always true for everyone. It's not reliably true for anyone, though it's sometimes true, and it's more likely to be true for certain people.
I am objecting to the “100%” characterization, and pointing out that reality is much more complex than that.
Hmm ok. That's an odd thing to take issue with. I guess you'll take the risk next time you're being questioned?
Edit: It doesn't matter if I'm not statistically correct, the question is whether you would take the risk that, no, they're not out to get you if they're questioning you for something serious... Seems a bad calculation.
Well, it depends. I mean, when I was last questioned by a CHP officer about an auto accident recently, sure, I took the risk that the officer wasnt looking to frame me for a crime and answered questions fully, completely, and accurately, and even volunteered information (even though I was at fault for the accident, and knew it.)
But, you know, different circumstances—or even different questions—and it might have gone differently.
The scandal and crimes aren't limited to the perjurious cops, but include prosecutors who fail to prosecute this perjury (and, even worse, rely on false testimony to secure convictions).
There was recently a case of some cops who shot a pregnant teenager [0]. A few months before the prosecutor cleared the cops, the police union donated $10,000 to her campaign. I don't know if this was pay-to-play or not, but it creates very bad optics that undermines the appearance of justice. These kinds of events should always require an independent, maybe even unelected federal prosecutor, lead the investigation.
Yup. This is why there needs to be a law mandating that ALL allegations of police criminality are automatically, statutorily handled by a special prosecutor. District Attorneys have shown very convincingly that they absolutely cannot be trusted to investigate the misconduct of police in their jurisdiction.
This is a simple change that would, overnight, completely flip the calculus of police who literally get away with murder.
DA's have to walk a tightrope, because if they push too hard in an investigation on a cop, they now find the well of police cooperation drying up on them. It's worse for their career to undermine their own ability to get convictions than it is to take on a cop here or there (I feel like the equation changes when you can make a career move like uncovering department-wide corruption).
I agree with you that if you have a different district/office handling this sort of stuff. But it always comes down to Who's Watching the Watchmen. Checks and balances are hard AF.
When a police officer does face charges, uniformed cops will show up en masse as a "show of solidarity" with the defendant but in reality they're trying to intimidate and influence the jury.
This is easy to control; while trials are required to be public, there is no reason a jurisdiction could not prohibit law enforcement officers wearing a uniform in court unless present in an official law enforcement capacity (e.g., acting as a bailiff.)
It's not so easy to control because judges have to be re-elected or aspire to sit on higher benches and having police unions oppose you can make that more difficult.
There's a reason why there are more former prosecutors on the bench than former defense attorneys.
Judges don't make laws (well, at least, they aren't the ones I'm talking about with a jurisdiction-wide, state or federal, prohibition.)
Now, if you want to say that it's not easy to control because legislators and ultimately the electorate are biased toward and support this kind of police intimidation, that may be the case (though that's exactly saying it's not easy to solve because we, as a society, actively desire the status quo. It's easy to solve, it's hard to convince people it should be solved, which has always been the problem with civil liberties.)
Point of order: There's more former prosecutors on the bench than defense attorneys for a myriad of reasons, including financial (public service, bribes excluded, doesn't pay as well) and personal (there are honorable defense lawyers who believe the system is corrupt and want to make sure it doesn't win when it shouldn't).
The fact that they've pissed off the cops may or may not factor into it. Not saying you're wrong, just that it's not quite THAT simple.
Well now we're getting to the real issue with any of this stuff. It's not a great career move for a politician to make moves against the police unions, so trying to get more oversight laws is pretty hard. The unions are strong, their supporters are many, and who in their right mind would want to fight "law and order" that the cops represent.
That is exactly why a special prosecutor should always be appointed and the special prosecutor should always be someone who would not directly work with any police organization connected to the case.
There is an inherent conflict of interest in having the person responsible for investigating crimes be someone who needs to work closely with the people and organizations who allegedly committed the crimes.
The police officers involved are entitled to a jury trial just like everyone else.
The deeper problem is that juries do not convict police officers for this sort of thing, which is one of the reasons that prosecutors decline to charge officers. While a "special prosecutor" might result in a more enthusiastic prosecution, without the risk of damaging the relationship of the district attorney with the police force.
I don't think a law like this would be a panacea, or would even meaningfully impact the problem.
> The police officers involved are entitled to a jury trial just like everyone else.
Having a special prosecutor handle police misconduct cases, instead of the DA, does not in any way preclude the right to a jury. These cases would still go to trial like any other. The difference here is that the incentives would be flipped: DAs are incentivized to go as soft as possible on cops- either by instructing the grand jury not to indict or presenting the weakest case possible at the actual trial, because if they don't it harms their ability to work with the police for regular cases. Special prosecutors would not have that issue.
> I don't think a law like this would be a panacea, or would even meaningfully impact the problem.
I'm not claiming it's a silver bullet. But it would help, if only because cops would then know that they don't automatically have a friend in the prosecutor if they break the law. And unlike a lot of the other steps that need to be taken to fix the American justice system, this one could be done instantly just by passing a law.
> The police officers involved are entitled to a jury trial just like everyone else.
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." -- Anatole France
> This is why there needs to be a law mandating that ALL allegations of police criminality are automatically, statutorily handled by a special prosecutor.
That lets every person arrested charge the police with something criminal, and have it taken seriously, no matter how bogus the charge.
What? You thought the police practice "testilying", but the criminals don't?
Now, true, some such accusations need to be taken more seriously. Not all of them, though. The prosecutors err too often on the side of the police. Erring too much on the side of the accusers is not the answer, though.
> That lets every person arrested charge the police with something criminal, and have it taken seriously, no matter how bogus the charge.
No, it doesn't. An independent special prosecutor can brush off an allegation as not credible as easily as a police-aligned prosecutor; in principle, they won't be biased by their other prosecutions depending on the police, but they don't somehow lose the capacity for judgement along with that source of bias.
I mean, the conviction rate on cops is embarrassingly low. You have body cam footage, cell phone footage, a law abiding citizen's testimony, and they still just get a month suspension. Too frequently we see cops abusing their power and they get a slap on the wrist.
I think there's a pretty wide range of options between "let the DA who needs the cops to lie so he can keep his conviction rate high half-ass his way though the case" and "bring charges literally every time someone wants to bring charges." I think OP was talking more about WHO handles them, rather than whether all of them have merit.
This is a non-issue. District Attorneys handle this situation all the time: they get plenty of bogus cases, or cases that could be real but have flimsy evidence, and then decide which ones are solid enough to take to trial and which ones are ignored. There is no reason a standing office of a special prosecutor for police misconduct couldn't do the same thing.
Fixing problems isn't just a matter of turning a knob on "who gets more trust" or "amount of investigation to do" or "how much government regulation to do'. Real-world problems don't exist on one-dimensional axes.
Fixing problems means making qualitative changes to how the broken processes work.
One solution is to relax the qualified immunity clause police officers receive, and allow civil penalties against the department and officers for perjury.
Right now they commit perjury and get promoted, things will only change when they start losing their jobs and pensions.
Civil penalties are a good call here - you cannot trust prosecutorial discretion in this case, as prosecutors who go after cops for lying on the stand find their jobs very difficult afterwards.
The point of the internal affairs department is often to appease voters by looking like they're doing something about police corruption. They're incentivized to go after high-profile career making cases, not the run-of-the-mill "cop says one thing and the videotape says another".
Making it easy and profitable to take clear-cut cases like this to civil court adds incentives to go after these sorts of things.
Not sure why this was down-voted; the police unions are a HUGE reason that police don't get fired, and even when they do, they get hired in another county or state.
Got thrown off the prospective jury pool in Palo Alto when I said "it depends" when the prosecutor asked me who's word I would trust between a police officer and an ordinary citizen. There was no physical evidence and it was going to be a she said/he said case. She said I must have a chip on my shoulder.
I don't have extensive experience with this but I've served on a jury and have been rejected for service. My sense is that they'll look for the ideal, pliant juror throughout the day but might gradually ease up as the pool gets depleted.
Leave it to the NYT to write a long piece about the police abuse and not mention the police unions, whose vast political powers are the main force behind the fact that it is so hard to prosecute police abuse, even by a single word.
But most police are honest. They work a dangerous job, at low pay, and with a mostly ungrateful public. These days, they are a political football with a powerful press working against them.
I'm glad cops are there. It'll be a bad day when the 'Ferguson effect' becomes amplified.
It's insane that we hold police to lower standards than everyone else rather than higher. We let them get away with lying and murder because a majority of society are what, too scared of dark-skinned people? Absolutely fucking insane. This situation will never change until there are real consequences. These officers should be fired, stripped of their benefits, and sent to jail with the criminals they probably lied to put in there. But they won't because as the article says, the "justice" system doesn't care. Justice my ass.
Why is there no baseline mentioned here? This is something that really bothers me about reporting these days. How much is 25 times? Is that a lot? I have no way of knowing. What kind of rate does that imply? How much should I discount police testimony given that information? If it's 25 out of 100, that's really bad. If it's 25 out of 100,000 - maybe it's not that pervasive a problem.
In a perfect world, sure. But in the actual world that we live in, reducing false convictions to zero is not realistic. So we have to look for areas where investing our resources in fixing a problem will have a comparatively large beneficial impact. If it's 25/100, there's a lot to be gained there. If it's 25/100,000, there isn't.
My friend got off and the police officer blushed. Nothing else happened. The cop was never prosecuted for anything, not for perjury, not for testilying.
In case you were wondering, the answer is "yes": my friend is a black male.
edit: Just wanted to say that yes, these kinds of things also happen to people of all races, especially working class people.