Last week, in a provocative op-ed in the New York Times, Michelle Alexander, known widely as the author of “The New Jim Crow” which deals with the issue of the mass incarceration of large numbers of African-Americans, particularly on minor drug possession charges, weighs in on the issue of police officers lying under oath.
This is not a small issue, as she explains, because each year thousands of people plead guilty to crimes “because they know that the odds of a jury’s believing their word over a police officer’s are slim to none.”
“As a juror, whom are you likely to believe: the alleged criminal in an orange jumpsuit or two well-groomed police officers in uniforms who just swore to God they’re telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but?” she points out and adds, “As one of my colleagues recently put it, ‘Everyone knows you have to be crazy to accuse the police of lying.’ “
The key question she asks is are police officers “necessarily more trustworthy than alleged criminals?”
She writes, “I think not.”
That certainly goes a bit further than I would like to believe. I think most police officers are more trustworthy than alleged criminals. HOWEVER, I believe it is a mistake for a juror to assume that this will be the case.
Ms. Alexander writes, “Not just because the police have a special inclination toward confabulation, but because, disturbingly, they have an incentive to lie. In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so.”
In the end, this probably closer to where I come down. I think, in general, police officers are more trustworthy than most alleged criminals, but I think jurors need to have a healthy skepticism about everyone’s testimony.
Ms. Alexander continues: “That may sound harsh, but numerous law enforcement officials have put the matter more bluntly.”
She quotes Peter Keane, a former San Francisco Police commissioner, wrote an article in the San Francisco Chronicle decrying a police culture that treats lying as the norm: “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.”
She adds, “The New York City Police Department is not exempt from this critique. In 2011, hundreds of drug cases were dismissed after several police officers were accused of mishandling evidence.”
She writes, “That year, Justice Gustin L. Reichbach of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn condemned a widespread culture of lying and corruption in the department’s drug enforcement units.”
“I thought I was not naïve,” he said when announcing a guilty verdict involving a police detective who had planted crack cocaine on a pair of suspects. “But even this court was shocked, not only by the seeming pervasive scope of misconduct but even more distressingly by the seeming casualness by which such conduct is employed.”
“Remarkably, New York City officers have been found to engage in patterns of deceit in cases involving charges as minor as trespass,” Michelle Alexander reports. “In September it was reported that the Bronx district attorney’s office was so alarmed by police lying that it decided to stop prosecuting people who were stopped and arrested for trespassing at public housing projects, unless prosecutors first interviewed the arresting officer to ensure the arrest was actually warranted.”
” Jeannette Rucker, the chief of arraignments for the Bronx district attorney, explained in a letter that it had become apparent that the police were arresting people even when there was convincing evidence that they were innocent,” Ms. Alexander reports. “To justify the arrests, Ms. Rucker claimed, police officers provided false written statements, and in depositions, the arresting officers gave false testimony.”
Michelle Alexander notes that Mr. Keane, in the Chronicle article, offers two reasons why police lie as often as he believes they do.
The first is because they get away with it.
Police officers “know that in a swearing match between a drug defendant and a police officer, the judge always rules in favor of the officer.”
Furthermore, police are rarely sanctioned. “At worst, the case will be dismissed, but the officer is free to continue business as usual,” Ms. Alexander writes.
Second, “Criminal defendants are typically poor and uneducated, often belong to a racial minority, and often have a criminal record.”
“Police know that no one cares about these people,” Mr. Keane explained.
Michelle Alexander believes there is more to the story than just this. It gets to cash for convictions, but again, like Cruz Reynoso, she does not use the term.
She writes, “Police departments have been rewarded in recent years for the sheer numbers of stops, searches and arrests.”
She continues, “In the war on drugs, federal grant programs like the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program have encouraged state and local law enforcement agencies to boost drug arrests in order to compete for millions of dollars in funding. Agencies receive cash rewards for arresting high numbers of people for drug offenses, no matter how minor the offenses or how weak the evidence.”
“Law enforcement has increasingly become a numbers game,” she writes. “And as it has, police officers’ tendency to regard procedural rules as optional and to lie and distort the facts has grown as well. Numerous scandals involving police officers lying or planting drugs – in Tulia, Tex. and Oakland, Calif., for example – have been linked to federally funded drug task forces eager to keep the cash rolling in.”
Of course, cash for convictions does not just apply to drug arrests.
“The pressure to boost arrest numbers is not limited to drug law enforcement,” she writes. “Even where no clear financial incentives exist, the ‘get tough’ movement has warped police culture to such a degree that police chiefs and individual officers feel pressured to meet stop-and-frisk or arrest quotas in order to prove their ‘productivity.’ “
Of course the police departments, just like DA’s offices, deny the financial incentive.
Writes Ms. Alexander, “For the record, the New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, denies that his department has arrest quotas. Such denials are mandatory, given that quotas are illegal under state law.”
But she disagrees.
“As the Urban Justice Center’s Police Reform Organizing Project has documented, numerous officers have contradicted Mr. Kelly.”
She cites a 2010 case where a New York City police officer named Adil Polanco told a local ABC News reporter that “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.”
He continued: “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.”
“Exposing police lying is difficult largely because it is rare for the police to admit their own lies or to acknowledge the lies of other officers. This reluctance derives partly from the code of silence that governs police practice and from the ways in which the system of mass incarceration is structured to reward dishonesty,” she writes. “But it’s also because police officers are human.”
Indeed, she notes, “Research shows that ordinary human beings lie a lot – multiple times a day – even when there’s no clear benefit to lying. Generally, humans lie about relatively minor things like “I lost your phone number; that’s why I didn’t call” or “No, really, you don’t look fat.” But humans can also be persuaded to lie about far more important matters, especially if the lie will enhance or protect their reputation or standing in a group.”
“The natural tendency to lie makes quota systems and financial incentives that reward the police for the sheer numbers of people stopped, frisked or arrested especially dangerous. One lie can destroy a life, resulting in the loss of employment, a prison term and relegation to permanent second-class status,” Ms. Alexander writes. “The fact that our legal system has become so tolerant of police lying indicates how corrupted our criminal justice system has become by declarations of war, ‘get tough’ mantras, and a seemingly insatiable appetite for locking up and locking out the poorest and darkest among us.”
Ms. Alexander concludes, “I’m not crazy for thinking so.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
A police officer in a town in Solano County lied to me while questioning me about a friend. I caught her in the lie. I called her on it. I then had to go to a therapist to try to help myself recover. Since my own father was an officer, that woman took away something priceless. She took away my respect for the badge. I now try to read anything positive that I can find about the police. I am also thinking about doing some kind of volunteer work for the police in the town where I moved. It is very difficult to have my loving image of my dad & his friends and their profession destroyed. I tell myself, almost daily, that there are probably many good cops out there doing a good job. I pray a lot, too. I am also writing a memoir but I need to get some kind of proper perspective to end it on a positive note. Any constructive suggestions on this website are welcome.
David
[quote]That certainly goes a bit further than I would like to believe. I think most police officers are more trustworthy than alleged criminals. [/quote]
What makes you believe that “most police officers are more trustworthy than alleged criminals” ?
Alleged criminals are by definition “innocent” so why would you assume that a police officer as an individual human being is any more trustworthy than any other “innocent” human being ?
This sounds to me like a much more subtle and insidious, and therefore more dangerous version of the idea that “the police wouldn’t have arrested the defendant if they weren’t guilty”.
The way that I see this is that the accused and the police officer, both being human beings, are equally as likely to lie if they see it as advantageous to themselves in any way. I do not see this as cynical. It is how most of us have been raised and continue to live unquestioningly. Our culture believes that a “white lie” is ok.
And what is a “white lie” but most typically something that gets us off the hook for something uncomfortable that we have done or supposedly protects someone else’s feelings when in fact it is only preventing us from having to deal with an uncomfortable truth.
JimmysDaughter
[quote]Since my own father was an officer, that woman took away something priceless. She took away my respect for the badge.[/quote]
Once trust is destroyed, it is very difficult to regain. I am going to share a recent event and my reaction to see if it helps in any way to provide a different perspective for you.
I recently was lied to by a very prominent individual in the Davis public community. I knew of the lie because I had had several direct conversations with the individual about whom the lie was directed.
This caused me to lose respect for the individual telling the lie, however, it did not cause me to lose respect for the position of that individual within our community. I have no doubt that the individual telling me the lie has the best interest of the city of Davis at heart. I do not doubt that this individual feels that the ends justify the means. However, I am also clear that a lie, no matter how small or how well intentioned erodes trust. However, each lie is unique to the individual conveying it ( or individuals in the case of conspiracy ) and I do not see this as any reflection on other individuals who happen to hold the same position or profession within our society.
I think it is critically important for ourselves as individuals and for our society as a whole to judge the words and actions of individuals as those of that particular individual only, and not prejudge how others in the same situation might think or act.
An interesting accumulation of assertions supported by quoting other people’s similar opinions that sworn police officers as a rule are bigger liars when testifying under oath than alleged criminals. As presented, this collection of claims of massive perjury rests on descriptions of why it would make sense for all police to constantly lie rather than providing any evidence evenly that it’s routinely done let alone as a matter of nationwide, general practice.
This broad brush, unsupported indictment is used to enable the Vanguard to “shop local” and repeat its charge that the Yolo DA is motivated by “cash for convictions” rather than the more logical conclusion that state programs to combat targeted crimes are successful at prosecuting criminals.
David, please provide links to the articles you’ve used to build your statement, “Police Lie Under Oath?” Do they cite more than the couple cases noted here? Think about how we’d react to collecting several undocumented op-eds to conclude that people of color as a rule are law breakers (?) because, you know, they need the money more that others do, most of their crimes go unsolved and unpunished, etc.
without providing any evidence…that it’s routinely done
[quote]David, please provide links to the articles you’ve used to build your statement, “Police Lie Under Oath?” [/quote]
I didn’t, they were all generated by Michelle Alexander ([url]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/why-police-officers-lie-under-oath.html?_r=0[/url])in her op-ed from the NY Times last Sunday.
JustSaying
[quote]This broad brush, unsupported indictment is used to enable the Vanguard to “shop local” and repeat its charge that the Yolo DA is motivated by “cash for convictions” rather than the more logical conclusion that state programs to combat targeted crimes are successful at prosecuting criminals.
[/quote]
In this particular case, it would appear to be you that is making the unsupported indictment. From your comment, it would appear that you totally discounted the first paragraph in which David clearly attributes most of the comments to Michelle Alexandar’s op-ed and then proceeds to discuss where he differs from her opinions. I fail to see how Ms. Alexandar’s opinion, with which David is in partial disagreement, could be “used to enable the Vanguard to “shop local” …..
medwoman, Thank you. That is good advice.
JimmysDaughter wrote:
> Since my own father was an officer, that
> woman took away something priceless. She
> took away my respect for the badge.
I’m sorry to hear that one bad cop “took away your respect for the badge”. It is important to remember that there are people who lie in EVERY profession (sadly even a large numbers of priests, rabbis and mullahs). Most of us are even lied to from time to time by family members (many times it wasn’t just due to “other people smoking” at a concert that made a kids jacket smell like pot)…
Then medwoman wrote:
> Once trust is destroyed, it is very difficult to regain.
And it should be… But is important not to destroy your trust in many people because one person lies (or ALL cops just because one cop lies).
I think that it is sad that often the people who cry “racism” the loudest when someone is robed by three black guys says “all black guys are criminals” are often the people writing articles that have proof that three cops have lied and say that “all cops are liars” (or lying cops are filling the jails with innocent people of color)…
If we look at the fact that officers rarely if ever rat out a fellow officer for abusive conduct, then we see a culture in which lying is expected and usually rewarded.
City attorneys and County counsels encourage lying because they’re trying to avoid damage awards for police brutality. They’ve been known to offer to recommend a prosecutor for the next available judicial appointment if the prosecutor gets a conviction anyway they can.
We expect officers to be smarter and more capable than the average person, but there aren’t that many above average people.
How many people actually grow up wanting to drive around and give people tickets?
Compounding that problem, classes at the police academy are often skipped in favor of activities which are more fun. An academy instructor who taught a “soft” class, communication, explained that
classes like his are skipped completely or get only a few minutes time, because target practice is the most fun activity. The other fun activity at the Academy is driving practice – going around the cones in the parking lot with the squad car as fast as possible.
Officers too often graduate from the academy lacking the most fundamental skills that the Academy was designed to teach them.
Most judges were prosecutors and have a prejudice against defendants. It would be nice to believe they’ve left the prosecutorial mindset behind when elevated to the bench, but it’s easy to see in court, and in written rulings, the bias is still there.
As to prosecutors, they’re too often looking for advancement by getting convictions one way or another: threatening witnesses with criminal charges, or visa problems, or simply paying cash under the table, or finding a job for the witness’ family member. Whatever works.
Dorner, the former LAPD officer who is now the subject of a manhunt,
ratted out his training officer for brutality to a suspect. He was
then fired. His naive trust in law enforcement was crushed and
his reputation destroyed, so much so that he’s had a terrible psychological breakdown.
Lying breaks the social contract of civilized society. If we all have to spend all our time and energy guarding against others’ dishonesty, there’s not much time left for productive activity.
Jimmy’s Daughter: My father-in-law, whom we had great respect for,
who never missed a Sunday at church, or Wednesday at church choir practice, confided in his old age, as his health and mental faculties deteriorated, that for most of his career in LAPD’s internal affairs division, he had helped cover up misconduct: “everything was covered up, whether it was large or small, we covered it up.” I.e, he went to court over and over again and lied under oath.
This has been very hard to accept from a man we loved and respected.
I hope your father was not called upon to do those things. He may
for example have been a detective who made his own decisions about whether a crime was committed or not. He may have been careful about who his partner was and avoided partnering with anyone violent.
Some officers do stay well away from trouble in the dept.
David–I agree your point about the pressure to boost numbers (of arrests & convictions) may be a very important one; and could help lead to false convictions or plea bargains for innocent defendants. Has this pressure to boost numbers increased in recent times; over the last decade or two? I wonder if it is part of the modern trend to evaluate performance of public institutions in terms of quantifiable performance parameters (i.e. number or arrests and/or convictions). There is a genuine conundrum here; because we (the general public) legitimately want to encourage our public institutions to be more efficient with their resources (and with taxpayers money) on the one hand; but on the other hand pressure to generate better numbers can also lead to abuses by police or prosecutors or judges. I don’t have an answer to this, it would just seem to be one of those difficult conundrums.
Re: dishonest tactics by prosecutors: I suspect comparably serious types of dishonest tactics are also used by defense lawyers in our adversarial system. Not that abuses by prosecuctors can be justified by pointing to abuses by defense lawyers; but I think in terms of swaying public opinion you would make more headway by addressing abuses both by the prosecutors side and the defendant’s side; not one side alone; and I would agree that we need to endeavor to clean up abuses by both sides.
Eagle Eye, Thank you very much for your comments. They were helpful.
Recent news articles report the L.A.P.D. are reneging on their promise to pay one million dollars for help with the capture and conviction of Christopher Dorner. There were three citizens who helped the police find him. On a technicality,(he died in his hideout; he wasn’t convicted)those citizens who helped the police will not get the reward. So, in a way, the police lied again. I wonder why they keep lying.