4 ms·
There is a subtlety here that helps defendants with competent lawyers. The police and prosecutors will be more than happy to show video evidence in court when
by betterunix 13y ago
There is a subtlety here that helps defendants with competent lawyers. The police and prosecutors will be more than happy to show video evidence in court when it justifies police actions -- it is pretty hard to raise doubts about the claim that a suspect charged at the police with a knife when the police have a video of it happening. When the police show up in court and claim to have forgotten to turn their cameras on, the defense gets a big boost -- "Convenient that you forgot to turn the camera on just before beating my client into a coma, yet you did not fail to turn it on in your previous 30 arrests."
- sneak 13y agoThis is over-idealistic. Most cases never go to trial, especially when faced with "perp's word against cop". GP post is correct - the absence of video is not sufficient alone. The cops will just turn the cameras off when breaking the law.
- comrade_ogilvy 13y agoI would hypothesize that it is a very rare police officer who walks around intending to break the law before they know the facts. They break the law because it turns out to be very convenient given how the situation unfolds (e.g. add a few extra baloney charges because the suspect pissed the officer off during minor misbehavior). The cameras are very convenient, too. It makes defendants cave when they see what the jury will see. If the convenience of the cameras is sufficient great (I bet honest officers will love it), the habit will be to always turn them on. Thus even the slightly wobbly officers will behave better, simply because it usually makes their job easier. What do you think will happen to police officers who both have an unusual number of gaps in their electronic record, and a lot of citizen complaints? Police chiefs want fewer headaches...