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Why police lie under oath

nytimes.com

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Re: Why police lie under oath

#111

Post by shiftpgdn »

Anechoic wrote: post #54
Firehed wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why have speed limits at all then? I've heard anecdotes of professional drivers getting out of massive speeding tickets because they know how to handle a vehicle at that speed (and presumably had the good sense not to be driving way faster than traffic if there even was any) and its certainly possible to get a speeding ticket when traveling under the limit if conditions do not permit. Seems to me that they should be…

Why have speed limits at all then? Technically speaking, some states don't, at least not hard limits. For example, in Massachusetts, on roadways under MassHighway (well, now known as the MassHighway division of MassDOT) jurisdiction, speeds are supposed to be "reasonable and proper" (MGL Chapter 90, Section 17). Exceedance of posted speed limits are "prima facie" evidence of speeding, but not conclusive evidence, so…

Texas is a "reasonable and prudent for the conditions" state but good luck getting that argument to fly in kangaroo traffic court.

Re: Why police lie under oath

#112

Post by ChikkaChiChi »

peteretep wrote: post #89
saalweachter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies have also shown that high status people lie more; police are high status.

> police are high status And ... that's pretty much the problem. In the UK, policing is meant to be consensual, by the "people" for the people. The first police were intentionally recruited from lower classes to avoid the whole high-status issue. It's not a well-paid job. Police Dramas like "The Wire" in the US glamorise police work, where in the UK, we have "The Bill" which makes it look dull as hell...

Point of clarification: While many US television shows glamorize police work, "The Wire" is definitely not one of them.

"The Wire" shows a lot more of the police/political system trying to sweep things under the rug than anything else. There is even a large portion of one season dedicated to an officer falsifying evidence for his own personal obsession with a completely different case.

Re: Why police lie under oath

#113

Post by lutusp »

PeterisP wrote: post #108
lutusp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers tell me that judges rarely prosecute lying under oath, they just rule against the liars. The reason? If a person is accused of lying under oath, what's to stop him from lying more during the perjury trial? He's already accused of that crime, so more lies makes little difference. This is why perjury trials are so rare. Also, "perjury", strictly defined, means testimony that's both material to the issues and le…

Regarding your "If a person is accused of lying under oath, what's to stop him from lying more during the perjury trial?" - What's to stop an accused murderer from lying more during the murder trial? Does this prevent us from handling murder trials? In a perjury trial, why do you need to ask anything at all? You have the documented testimony where the accused said X under oath, and you have the facts/evidence proving…

> What's to stop an accused murderer from lying more during the murder trial?

In that case, it would increase the roster of crimes the defendant is accused of. Not so for someone already accused of perjury.

> In a perjury trial, why do you need to ask anything at all?

In a perjury trial, the defendant's attorney might try to argue that the defendant didn't know what he said was false. Perjury requires knowing falsehoods, not inadvertent misstatements of fact. Or the attorney might try to argue that the falsehoods weren't material to the issues being tested in court. There are other defenses -- mental incompetence and others.

Re: Why police lie under oath

#114

Post by robk »

mercurial wrote: post #97

Disclaimer: my experience with US police officers is limited to being asked questions by a couple of cops at the airport and watching The Wire . Assuming that cops do actually have quotas, and that their bonus are tied to achieving these quotas, this effectively creates a for-profit police force. Which mechanically leads to aberrations like the DEA agent mentioned in the Caswell case[1] who was paid taxpayer money to…

Please don't base your judgments of real life policing on Hollywood productions.

Re: Why police lie under oath

#115

Post by jrochkind1 »

> In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so.

At least in Maryland where I live, whether you trust the police less (or more) so than other witnesses is one of the half dozen standard things they ask you in voir dire, and saying yes will exclude you from serving on a jury.

Re: Why police lie under oath

#116

Post by noarchy »

YokoZar wrote: post #91
shitlord wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why have speed limits at all then? Probably because not everyone (and especially teenagers) has "the good sense not to be driving way faster than traffic"

Then why not make that the crime, rather than speeding in and of itself?

It probably wouldn't bring in as much money to the local coffers.

Re: Why police lie under oath

#117

Post by Dylan16807 »

robk wrote: post #114
mercurial wrote: post #97

Disclaimer: my experience with US police officers is limited to being asked questions by a couple of cops at the airport and watching The Wire . Assuming that cops do actually have quotas, and that their bonus are tied to achieving these quotas, this effectively creates a for-profit police force. Which mechanically leads to aberrations like the DEA agent mentioned in the Caswell case[1] who was paid taxpayer money to…

Please don't base your judgments of real life policing on Hollywood productions.

Did you actually read the comment you replied to? It doesn't base anything at all on said productions; it was just a cute way of saying lack of exposure to US police.

Re: Why police lie under oath

#118

Post by cema »

csense wrote: post #55
Firehed wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why have speed limits at all then? I've heard anecdotes of professional drivers getting out of massive speeding tickets because they know how to handle a vehicle at that speed (and presumably had the good sense not to be driving way faster than traffic if there even was any) and its certainly possible to get a speeding ticket when traveling under the limit if conditions do not permit. Seems to me that they should be…

> professional drivers getting out of massive speeding tickets That seems unlikely. > Why have speed limits at all then? To reduce the frequency and severity of crashes. To give people a baseline for safe speed. If most people's usual driving speed is "10 mph over the limit," then the effective speed limit is simply N+10 mph, where N is the number on the signs. > tailgating It's easy to deal with this effectively on…

  If most people's usual driving speed is "10 mph over the limit," 
  then the effective speed limit is simply N+10 mph, 
  where N is the number on the signs.
A big "if". As I recall, when speed limits were raised on some of the highways in Maryland from 55 mph to 65 mph, the traffic kept going at 72 mph.

In a society where everybody drives, speeds are set not so much by some kind of a law but more by the natural course of human actions.

Re: Why police lie under oath

#119

Post by mindcrime »

brazzy wrote: post #103
Firehed wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why have speed limits at all then? I've heard anecdotes of professional drivers getting out of massive speeding tickets because they know how to handle a vehicle at that speed (and presumably had the good sense not to be driving way faster than traffic if there even was any) and its certainly possible to get a speeding ticket when traveling under the limit if conditions do not permit. Seems to me that they should be…

> Why have speed limits at all then? Because speed kills, plain and simple. It reduces the time you have to react to any problem, increases your braking distance and increases the damage and lethality of any impact. The latter two are affected with the square of speed. There are very, very good reasons to have a universal hard speed limit.

There are very, very good reasons to have a universal hard speed limit.

There are? Well then what are they?

Re: Why police lie under oath

#120

Post by ChuckMcM »

PeterisP wrote: post #106
ChuckMcM wrote: post #37

My sister in law is a public defender, she has managed to get cops that lie under oath fired. We're not talking capital crimes here, we're talking stupid traffic citations where the officer would rather lie than admit they made a bad call. Her belief is that lying is like cocaine, you use it once to get through the case because you know that even though its not strictly the truth the right thing will happen, and then…

Why managing to get them fired is considered a good result? Perjury is a serious crime and should be prosecuted as such. Cops should [be made to] understand that lying in court even in small cases carries a risk of criminal charges (in USA, up to 5 years IIRC) instead of internal disciplinary action.

Yes it is, which is why I really felt President Clinton should have resigned when he was proven to have perjured himself in the Monica Lewinsky investigation. But as we saw with him, Barry Bonds, and others, it is not effectively prosecuted. This is in part because the English language is so malleable to interpretation that 'reasonable doubt' becomes a massive impediment to conviction.
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