‘Testilying’ by Police: A Stubborn Problem

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/nyregion/testilying-police-perjury-new-york.html

by anarbadalov • 8 years ago

436 306 8 years ago

nytimes.com

zerocrates• 8 years ago

"Testilying" is a fun, cute name for the crime of perjury.

mfoy_• 8 years ago

Seriously. Rock solid evidence that directly contradicts your sworn testimony? That's perjury. That's a crime.

IncRnd7• 8 years ago

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.

wl• 8 years ago

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.

philwelch• 8 years ago

Choking people to death on the street for selling loose cigarettes is a crime, too.

turc16564• 8 years ago

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".

Waterluvian2• 8 years ago

Misremembering is one of those things that can get you crucified by the FBI or other police. And they often try to make you do it. https://www.popehat.com/2017/12/04/everybody-lies-fbi-editio...

chongli• 8 years ago

It's a good name, though, I hope it sticks.

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.

adrianratnapala5• 8 years ago

This is right. Though nothing about the construction of the word "testilying" is specific to the police.

paulie_a• 8 years ago

It should be considered worse than perjury.

jopsen• 8 years ago

Because a police officer is trusted to be impartial.

twic• 8 years ago

"'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]

[1] UK slang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyride_(crime)

[2] UK actual crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievous_bodily_harm

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqa6H2T4aS0&t=3m33s

maaark• 8 years ago

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.

saas_co_de• 8 years ago

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.

SliderUp• 8 years ago

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.

It should have an outsized punishment.

JudasGoat• 8 years ago

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.

turc16564• 8 years ago

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.

jacobush2• 8 years ago

These things are not very reliable, break easily.

inetknght• 8 years ago

Why do you imagine it would have been used? Police have a strong incentive to not provide such evidence.

cubano• 8 years ago

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.

Avshalom• 8 years ago

Well that's the trick isn't it?: "plead guilty to Possession or we charge you with Attempted Murder"

darpa_escapee• 8 years ago

Excessive charges provide incentives to take a plea bargain.

StanislavPetrov• 8 years ago

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).

Analemma_4• 8 years ago

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.

AnimalMuppet• 8 years ago

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.

moate4• 8 years ago

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.

andrewla• 8 years ago

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.

jdavis703• 8 years ago

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.

0: https://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2018/03/16...

dahdum2• 8 years ago

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.

ThrustVectoring2• 8 years ago

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.

OrganicMSG2• 8 years ago

"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?

tomcam• 8 years ago

I very much largely believe he is indeed lying about lying

ghostbrainalpha2• 8 years ago

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.

OrganicMSG2• 8 years ago

People who expect to be exempted from consequences then attempt to lie about what the video represents or things that are out of frame.

Until there is a culture of routine and serious consequences for police lying in court, police will continue to lie in court.

ilkan• 8 years ago

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.

cr0sh• 8 years ago

Sounds possible - but what about faked video that looks real?

That is - deep learning NN generated aerial drone footage (or altered footage) - could certainly be done...

I'm not sure where this ends...

stefan_• 8 years ago

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.

blurbleblurble2• 8 years ago

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.

vkou• 8 years ago

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.

dragonwriter9• 8 years ago

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.

phyzome2• 8 years ago

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.

nattaylor• 8 years ago

Some people just trust cops.

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.

korethr2• 8 years ago

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.)

bitwize• 8 years ago

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.

monochromatic3• 8 years ago

Without knowing the details, I have to wonder... any chance it was a legitimate case of mistaken identity?

draw_down• 8 years ago

Definitely couldn't be our corrupt and racist justice system, just a simple misunderstanding of course

Analemma_4• 8 years ago

Funny how often black males seem to end up on the wrong end of those.

api• 8 years ago

Isn't perjury in a serious criminal trial a felony?

emodendroket4• 8 years ago

Sure, if anyone is inclined to prosecute.

ncallaway7• 8 years ago

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.

tyingq4• 8 years ago

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.

gowld4• 8 years ago

perjury is punishable by 5 years in prison. That's a suitable punishment. The problem is that the law is not enforced.

oldandtired2• 8 years ago

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.

pasbesoin• 8 years ago

For many in the "justice system", in the U.S., it's not about justice, it's about career.

coldtea4• 8 years ago

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.

_pmf_• 8 years ago

I really think false testimony should carry the punishment the accused is facing.

This conflicts with the feminine imperative.

jakobegger• 8 years ago

It would probably be sufficient if people who make false testimony would be fired and not allowed to work for law enforcement for a few years.

untog• 8 years ago

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.

mc322• 8 years ago

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.

[1]http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1477370816643734

ryacko2• 8 years ago

All testimony carries weight on the theory that the penalty (perjury) would make it unlikely.

coldtea4• 8 years ago

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.

matheusmoreira• 8 years ago

So nothing happens to people who perjure themselves? Is this a common thing?

stronglikedan2• 8 years ago

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).

pmarreck4• 8 years ago

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?

omegaworks2• 8 years ago

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.

1. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-...

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/...

ethiclub3• 8 years ago

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?

bllguo• 8 years ago

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.

omegaworks2• 8 years ago

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.

1. http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/

2. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/can-a-new-cri...

binarytide• 8 years ago

"problem"...

Taniwha2• 8 years ago

Really it's simple - a cop found guilty of perjury should never ever be allowed to be a cop again

cwkoss• 8 years ago

They should go to prison

Taniwha2• 8 years ago

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

Miner49er• 8 years ago

So should a cop who murders someone, but that doesn't even happen.

cheez7• 8 years ago

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.

sigstoat• 8 years ago

The police are 100% your enemy once they start questioning you about anything. Record, record record.

even better, stop talking to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

Catch them in one lie, and you get off scot free.

they're not leprechauns, there are no magical rules in effect.

cheez7• 8 years ago

No but you have to keep in mind the dynamics:

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.

dragonwriter9• 8 years ago

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.

cheez7• 8 years ago

You just pointed out that there are vast swaths of the population that it is likely true for and then dismissed it. Colour me confused!

sevenfive• 8 years ago

I recorded an agent of the court committing perjury.

When is perjury not transcribed anyway?

cheez7• 8 years ago

Perjury according to Google: the offense of willfully telling an untruth in a court after having taken an oath or affirmation.

"I must have misremembered" "Oh ok"

Perjury is a joke, it's something that is used against citizens not against police officers or the like.

In any case, you have to prove that someone wilfully told an untruth. That's tough.

dahdum2• 8 years ago

If you're wondering how California deals with this...poorly.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-sheriff-brady-list-201712...

"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."

darawk2• 8 years ago

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.

berbec3• 8 years ago

That does raise an interesting question:

How many innocents convicted, due to institutionalized, consequence-free perjury, is too many?

If you think 25 out of 100,000 isn't "that pervasive a problem", thank your lucky stars you're not one of those 25.

darawk2• 8 years ago

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.

dclowd99013• 8 years ago

It's not "testilying" it's fucking perjury. There's nothing about this that should be made cute.

leot• 8 years ago

Should the enforcement of rules be stricter or less strict when applied to those responsible for enforcing the rules?

mirimir• 8 years ago

"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]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130...

That is, they are instructed to testilie.

phkahler• 8 years ago

"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.

mlillie• 8 years ago

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.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/196610/americans-respect-police-...

Animats• 8 years ago

Most companies fire about 2%-4% of their work force a year for cause. Most police departments don't.

nyolfen• 8 years ago

one of the few bastions of unions left in america

javajosh2• 8 years ago

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.

ChuckMcM• 8 years ago

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.

awakeasleep• 8 years ago

http://invisible.institute is working on this in Chicago and i know there is another project working on it in NYC

Flenser2• 8 years ago

Specifically this project: https://invisible.institute/police-data/

Data here: https://github.com/invinst/chicago-police-data

javajosh2• 8 years ago

This is a policy change that I fully support. Is this a county-, city-, or state-level change? What does your sister-in-law need?

daniel_iversen• 8 years ago

Holy crap the US always scares me with this sort of insane stuff going on. How do regular Americans feel about this sort of thing?

berbec3• 8 years ago

The vast majority are glad this institutionalized perjury hasn't gotten us arrested yet.

Many are terrified of any interaction with the police.

The remaining Americans are criminals and therfore hold opinions which do not matter to the rest of the country.

slowmotiony• 8 years ago

Oh yeah, US is so bad, lying cops would never exist in Europe or Africa or Asia right?

esarbe• 8 years ago

Can't comment on Asia. But in Europe; not like this.

Especially in Germany the the police (not 'law enforcement') is held to a much higher standard.

fsloth• 8 years ago

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.

Yes, small country, homogenous culture, etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Turku_stabbing

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

scarface742• 8 years ago

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.

tyingq4• 8 years ago

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.

ncallaway7• 8 years ago

It baffles me that jobs with more power over people, tend to come with more protection for abusing that power.

The more power a job holds, the higher a standard of conduct necessary and the higher the punishment and enforcement for abuse should be.

tyingq4• 8 years ago

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.

emodendroket4• 8 years ago

"Testilying" seems like a cutesy neologism for perjury.

maxxxxx• 8 years ago

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.

ppbutt• 8 years ago

How do you all bypass these horrendous paywalls?

kakarot• 8 years ago

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.

stevenwoo• 8 years ago

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.

justin66• 8 years ago

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.

mnm1• 8 years ago

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.

merraksh• 8 years ago

Mandatory "Don't talk to the police" link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

Thanks to user turc1656 for re-posting it, can't stress enough how relevant this is.

ptr_void• 8 years ago

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.

krylon• 8 years ago

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.

ender89• 8 years ago

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.

smsm422• 8 years ago

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.

RickJWag• 8 years ago

Are there bad cops? Sure.

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.

‘Testilying’ by Police: A Stubborn Problem

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