The possibility of a police officer lying under oath is shocking, we know. But it likely happens far more often than we realize. According to some, it’s the order of the day.
Michelle Alexander, author and criminal justice critic asks, who are you more likely to believe—the inmate in the orange jumpsuit or the officer in the nicely pressed uniform? It’s this inherent bias that many cops use to their advantage.
Police officers are encouraged to catch bad guys and make arrests. But more than that, they need to make those arrests “stick”, and they do this with evidence and convincing testimony. Unfortunately, though convincing, the testimony isn’t always true.
A”good cop” is one that makes plenty of arrests and sees the defendants ultimately pay for their crime. Among his peers, a “bad” cop, on the contrary, is one that doesn’t make many arrests or, even worse, helps vindicate someone in police custody.
“Our primary job is not to help anybody, our primary job is not to assist anybody, our primary job is to get those numbers and come back with them,” said one NYPD officer in speaking with ABC. “At the end of the night you have to come back with something. You have to write somebody, you have to arrest somebody, even if the crime is not committed, the number’s there. So our choice is to come up with the number.”
This isn’t a phenomena unique to the NYPD (which has been beleaguered with allegations of quotas) or even large departments. It’s something that plagues them all.
Former San Francisco Police Commissioner Peter Keane wrote a commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle bravely discussing the epidemic of dishonesty within police culture:
“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.”
Police lie. And they often get away with it in police reports, courtroom testimonies, and in internal investigations. Illegal searches in drug cases are just one of the most common circumstances.
But despite this, and the apprehension it causes, you have rights. Whether you were wrongfully arrested and the police maintain you are guilty, or if you admit guilt and are looking for a lenient sentence—you have rights.
The criminal justice system is rife with failures and the justified mistrust of law enforcement has both grown out of these failures and caused many of them. It is a cycle of injustice.
About David Matson