18 ms·

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 f

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 9y 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.
- dragonwriter 9y 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.
- phyzome 9y 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.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    How is that not perjury?
    - tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
      Maybe it's chaotic good.
    - phyzome 9y ago
      If perjury may save an innocent person's life, by god, I will perjure. I have great respect for most parts of our justice system. This is not one of those parts, therefore I choose civil disobedience.
  - gknoy 9y ago
    Aren't jurors sworn to tell the truth when making such statements?
    - mulmen 9y ago
      In my experience yes, they are.
      - Mithaldu 9y ago
        Wait, really? Jurors have to swear to always treat law enforcement word as true, even if this entirely contradicts physical reality? Do they get punished if they say yes to that and somehow it becomes obvious they're not doing that?
        allannienhuis 9y ago
        That's not what they said. They said that Jurors swore to tell the truth. Not sure how you interpreted it that way.
        Mithaldu 9y ago
- nattaylor 9y 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.
  - GavinMcG 9y ago
    "Ok. Should we believe the report or the testimony?" > juror picks one "But a police officer produced [the other one]! We should trust it!"
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    Thankfully you were on that jury. 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.
    - pmarreck 9y ago
      I had a bad jury experience. 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-it/ 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-misidentification/ 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.
- korethr 9y 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.)
  - C0nCave 9y ago
    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.
    - stephen_g 9y ago
      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.
  - cryoshon 9y ago
    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.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bitwize 9y 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.
monochromatic 9y ago
Without knowing the details, I have to wonder... any chance it was a legitimate case of mistaken identity?
- draw_down 9y ago
  Definitely couldn't be our corrupt and racist justice system, just a simple misunderstanding of course
  - monochromatic 9y ago
    Our justice system is imperfect, but "corrupt and racist" is a stretch. And all I did was ask a (reasonable!) question.
    - djtriptych 9y ago
      Racism in the justice system isn’t even close to arguable. It’s proven. We have plenty of data.
    - michaelmrose 9y ago
      It is corrupt and racist. How you could think otherwise in America blows my mind.
    - stronglikedan 9y ago
      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.
  - mixmastamyk 9y ago
    Almost all your comments are dead.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  Funny how often black males seem to end up on the wrong end of those.
api 9y ago
Isn't perjury in a serious criminal trial a felony?
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Sure, if anyone is inclined to prosecute.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    Which, given that the DA is likely to need that same cop to testify in dozens or hundreds more cases... probably not.
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      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.
      - filoeleven 9y ago
        > 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. https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/larry-krasner-philadelphia-da/ https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/larry-krasner-philadelph...
  - eftychis 9y ago
    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
ncallaway 9y 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.
- tyingq 9y 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.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    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.
    - nothrabannosir 9y ago
      UK has a jury. And I agree: to an outsider coming from a country without them, it’s insane. I hope I never have to face one.
      - Ntrails 9y ago
        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.
mc32 9y 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 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1477370816643734
- ryacko 9y ago
  All testimony carries weight on the theory that the penalty (perjury) would make it unlikely.
  - mc32 9y ago
    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.
    - ryacko 9y ago
      The ability of grand juries to permit private prosecutions have since been abolished, and is crucial to recent abuses of state power.
- coldtea 9y 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 9y ago
So nothing happens to people who perjure themselves? Is this a common thing?
- stronglikedan 9y 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).
pmarreck 9y 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?

vkou 9y 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.

dragonwriter 9y 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.
phyzome 9y 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.
- mulmen 9y ago
  How is that not perjury?
  - tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
    Maybe it's chaotic good.
  - phyzome 9y ago
    If perjury may save an innocent person's life, by god, I will perjure. I have great respect for most parts of our justice system. This is not one of those parts, therefore I choose civil disobedience.
- gknoy 9y ago
  Aren't jurors sworn to tell the truth when making such statements?
  - mulmen 9y ago
    In my experience yes, they are.
    - Mithaldu 9y ago
      Wait, really? Jurors have to swear to always treat law enforcement word as true, even if this entirely contradicts physical reality? Do they get punished if they say yes to that and somehow it becomes obvious they're not doing that?
      - allannienhuis 9y ago
        That's not what they said. They said that Jurors swore to tell the truth. Not sure how you interpreted it that way.
        Mithaldu 9y ago
nattaylor 9y 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.
- GavinMcG 9y ago
  "Ok. Should we believe the report or the testimony?" > juror picks one "But a police officer produced [the other one]! We should trust it!"
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  Thankfully you were on that jury. 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.
  - pmarreck 9y ago
    I had a bad jury experience. 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-it/ 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-misidentification/ 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.
korethr 9y 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.)
- C0nCave 9y ago
  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.
  - stephen_g 9y ago
    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.
- cryoshon 9y ago
  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.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

bitwize 9y 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.

monochromatic 9y ago

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

draw_down 9y ago
Definitely couldn't be our corrupt and racist justice system, just a simple misunderstanding of course
- monochromatic 9y ago
  Our justice system is imperfect, but "corrupt and racist" is a stretch. And all I did was ask a (reasonable!) question.
  - djtriptych 9y ago
    Racism in the justice system isn’t even close to arguable. It’s proven. We have plenty of data.
  - michaelmrose 9y ago
    It is corrupt and racist. How you could think otherwise in America blows my mind.
  - stronglikedan 9y ago
    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.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  Almost all your comments are dead.
Analemma_ 9y ago
Funny how often black males seem to end up on the wrong end of those.

api 9y ago

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

emodendroket 9y ago
Sure, if anyone is inclined to prosecute.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Which, given that the DA is likely to need that same cop to testify in dozens or hundreds more cases... probably not.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    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.
    - filoeleven 9y ago
      > 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. https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/larry-krasner-philadelphia-da/ https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/larry-krasner-philadelph...
- eftychis 9y ago
  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

ncallaway 9y 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.

tyingq 9y 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.
- gambiting 9y ago
  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.
  - nothrabannosir 9y ago
    UK has a jury. And I agree: to an outsider coming from a country without them, it’s insane. I hope I never have to face one.
    - Ntrails 9y ago
      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.

mc32 9y 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 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1477370816643734

ryacko 9y ago
All testimony carries weight on the theory that the penalty (perjury) would make it unlikely.
- mc32 9y ago
  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.
  - ryacko 9y ago
    The ability of grand juries to permit private prosecutions have since been abolished, and is crucial to recent abuses of state power.
coldtea 9y 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 9y ago

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

stronglikedan 9y 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).

pmarreck 9y 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?