Why Police Lie Under Oath Everyday in the USA

[DowntownGator]

"Police officer perjury in court to justify illegal dope searches is commonplace. One of the dirty little not-so-secret secrets of the criminal justice system is undercover narcotics officers intentionally lying under oath. It is a perversion of the American justice system that strikes directly at the rule of law. Yet it is the routine way of doing business in courtrooms everywhere in America."

Read the rest of this very enjoyable article here:


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/why-police-officers-lie-under-oath.html?hp&_r=0

[Spurffelbow833]

Part of the problem is the fairy tale world most people are brainwashed with as kids. No matter how dirty and crooked the police are, there's this tape playing in people's heads about the way things ought to be and we just need to get back to it. The policeman is our friend. They serve and protect us. Hogwash. I don't even blame the cops for spreading this nonsense because anyone who pays attention will hear plenty of them deny it.

[ChartsandGrafs]

The policeman is our friend. They serve and protect us. Hogwash.

Exactly. Police exist to serve and protect the ruling class, not the peons. The police are the equivalent of low-level street enforcers employed by Mafia crime syndicates, whose primary role is to generate revenue and intimidate the Mafia's victims into compliance. Everything else we hear about cops is just mindless propaganda.

A lot more jury nullification and "private justice" are in order.

[Lawdog88]

It's a longer read than usual, but for those who applaud the Courts when they take the time to recognize the obvious and point it out for all to hear, it is worth it:

After Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961), applied the exclusionary rule to state prosecutions, one trial judge noticed the profusion of “dropsy” testimony in New York City—testimony by police officers that a defendant dropped drugs onto the street upon seeing the police:

Were this the first time a policeman had testified that a defendant dropped a packet of drugs to the ground, the matter would be unremarkable. The extraordinary thing is that each year in our criminal courts policemen give such testimony in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cases—and that, in a nutshell, is the problem of ‘dropsy’ testimony. It disturbs me now, and it disturbed me when I was at the Bar. Younger, ‘The Perjury Routine,’ The Nation, May 8, 1967, p. 596:

* * * Policemen see themselves as fighting a two-front war—against criminals in the street and against ‘liberal’ rules of law in court. All's fair in this war, including the use of perjury to subvert ‘liberal’ rules of law that might free those who ‘ought’ to be jailed * * * It is a peculiarity of our legal system that the police have unique opportunities (and unique temptations) to give false testimony. When the Supreme Court lays down a rule to govern the conduct of the police, the rule does not enforce itself. Some further proceeding * * * is almost always necessary to determine what actually happened. In Mapp v. Ohio, for example, the Supreme Court laid down the rule that evidence obtained by the police through an unreasonable search and seizure may not be used in a state criminal prosecution. But before applying the rule to any particular case, a hearing must be held to establish the facts. Then the judge decides whether those facts constitute an unreasonable search and seizure.

* * * The difficulty arises when one stands back from the particular case and looks at a series of cases. It then becomes apparent that policemen are committing perjury at least in some of them, and perhaps in nearly all of them. Narcotics prosecutions in New York City can be so viewed. Before Mapp, the policeman typically testified that he stopped the defendant for little or no reason, searched him, and found narcotics on his person. This had the ring of truth. It was an illegal search (not based upon ‘probable cause’), but the evidence was admissible because Mapp had not yet been decided. Since it made no difference, the policeman testified truthfully. After the decision in Mapp, it made a great deal of difference.

For the first few months, New York policemen continued to tell the truth about the circumstances of their searches, with the result that evidence was suppressed. Then the police made the great discovery that if the defendant drops the narcotics on the ground, after which the policeman arrests him, the search is reasonable and the evidence is admissible. Spend a few hours in the New York City Criminal Court nowadays, and you will hear case after case in which a policeman testifies that the defendant dropped the narcotics on the ground, whereupon the policeman arrested him. Usually the very language of the testimony is identical from the case to another. This is now known among defense lawyers and prosecutors as ‘dropsy’ testimony. The judge has no reason to disbelieve it in any particular case, and of course the judge must decide each case on its own evidence, without regard to the testimony in other cases. Surely, though, not in every case was the defendant unlucky enough to drop his narcotics at the feet of a policeman. It follows that at least in some of these cases the police are lying.

People v. McMurty, 64 Misc.2d 63, 314 N.Y.S.2d 194, 195–96 (N.Y.Crim.Ct.1970) (Younger, J.). “Dropsy” in 1970 has evolved into “consent” in 2010. The more things change the more they stay the same.

The profusion of consent cases requires trial judges, the gatekeepers of the Fourth Amendment, to critically evaluate the testimony given at hearings. Cases like this one call into question the fairness of some trial court proceedings. On the pages of the record, the story told by the police is unbelievable—an anonymous informant gives incriminating information; police surveillance uncovers no criminal conduct; the defendant is “nonchalantly” and “casually” approached by the police on the street; the defendant cooperatively leads the police back to his apartment to obtain his identification and invites the police inside, where a detective sees contraband in plain view, a fact certainly known to the defendant when he issued the invitation; after his arrest, the defendant tells the police about all the hidden drugs in the apartment.

Yet, as an appellate court, we must defer to the express finding of credibility made by the trial court. We were not there. We did not see the witnesses testify. If believed, the detectives' testimony supports the court's ruling. This case demonstrates the importance of an independent judiciary. This case involves the search of a person's home, but were the factors bearing on the voluntariness of the consent scrutinized “with special care?” Without an unbiased and objective evaluation of testimony, judges devolve into rubber stamps for law enforcement. The judge may have punctiliously performed the duties of his office in this case, but, when considering the large number of “consent” cases that have come before us, the finding of “consent” in so many curious circumstances is a cause for concern.”

Ruiz v. State, 50 So.3d 1229, 1231-1233 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011).

[gatorev12]

Read the article yesterday--thanks for posting it.

I'm sure LD can give us all a lengthy account of his firsthand experience in dealing with police perjury--since every criminal lawyer ranging from prosecutors to defense attorneys know it's a very real problem endemic to police culture and almost all acknowledge it in some way. (edit: he was on it and beat me to the punch!)

As a corollary to the article, I'd add that one reason cops often lie so much is inherently self-serving: their unshakable belief that they're "right" and/or "the good guys." Oftentimes when police stop a suspect, they know the probable cause for such a stop is flimsy at best, but something--instinct or otherwise--something tells them that this guy is a "bad guy." They can't prove it based on the evidence at hand, but they *know* it to be true. So they manipulate the facts a little, lie about the events that took place--or even actively plant evidence--so they can justify their "instinct." Particularly if the suspect had any criminal activity in the past, it only exists to strengthen the officer's "instinct": the cop rationalizes his interference by thinking, "this guy's a gangbanger, he would have been busted sooner or later anyway and at least he's off the streets now."

[tegator80]

Read the article yesterday--thanks for posting it.

I'm sure LD can give us all a lengthy account of his firsthand experience in dealing with police perjury--since every criminal lawyer ranging from prosecutors to defense attorneys know it's a very real problem endemic to police culture and almost all acknowledge it in some way. (edit: he was on it and beat me to the punch!)

As a corollary to the article, I'd add that one reason cops often lie so much is inherently self-serving: their unshakable belief that they're "right" and/or "the good guys." Oftentimes when police stop a suspect, they know the probable cause for such a stop is flimsy at best, but something--instinct or otherwise--something tells them that this guy is a "bad guy." They can't prove it based on the evidence at hand, but they *know* it to be true. So they manipulate the facts a little, lie about the events that took place--or even actively plant evidence--so they can justify their "instinct." Particularly if the suspect had any criminal activity in the past, it only exists to strengthen the officer's "instinct": the cop rationalizes his interference by thinking, "this guy's a gangbanger, he would have been busted sooner or later anyway and at least he's off the streets now."

I agree with this premise. I would also add that these are people who are motivated to be police officers and not just an average cross section of society. They believe they are doing good and when things don't go according to plan then getting creative gets the job done. Creative testimony feeds this aspect of their psyches.

[Swampmaster]

police "reports," testimony---rubber stamped by the DA and accepted by the courts without question.

[gatordee]

And it will only get worse.

[G8trGr8t]

only as long as the idiots in the jury box allow it to

[Burke]

About a year ago, a local circuit judge caused a sensation when he said publicly that cops lie all the time.i