Virginia Republicans Vote Down Bill To Ban Police Use of Forged Evidence Documents During Interrogations
The bill was introduced in response to a state investigation that found police used fake forensic evidence during interrogations.
Virginia Republicans in the state's House of Delegates voted down a bill in committee last Friday that would've prohibited Virginia police from using false documents when interrogating suspects.
Delegate Jackie Glass (D–Norfolk) sponsored House Bill 1281 after former Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring revealed in January that the Virginia Beach Police Department had forged forensic science reports at least five times for use in interrogations. After an investigation by the Virginia Office of Civil Rights, the city and the department agreed to end the practice.
Glass's bill would've prohibited police from using "any document generated by law-enforcement officers or their agents that (i) contains a false statement, signature, seal, letterhead, or contact information or (ii) materially misrepresents any fact" when conducting "a custodial interrogation to secure from any person his cooperation or confession or to secure a conviction."
Republicans, who have a majority in the Virginia House and killed the bill in the Courts of Justice subcommittee, defended the practice of using fake documents, arguing that the criminal justice system should prioritize the needs of victims over defendants and that falsified evidence gives police an additional tool to coerce confessions.
"How many times has this been used to find out about a murder, find out about a rape, find out about a break in?" Del. Wren Williams (R–Patrick) said according to a report in the Daily Press. "Aren't we supposed to be using the justice system to make it just for our victims?" Madison County Attorney Clarissa Berry (I) reportedly opposed the bill because "whether or not a confession is coerced is a matter for the trial court to take up."
Ramin Fatehi, Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney, told the subcommittee that allowing police to forge documents gives police too much license. "We agree the Constitution allows the police to lie to people and sometimes this is a necessary investigative tool. But forging documents goes too far."
Although Virginia Republicans claim that allowing police to lie can help the police solve crimes, this tactic can easily be used by corrupt officers to put innocent people in prison. An infamous instance of this happened when the New York State Troop C Scandal resulted in an innocent man, John Spencer, being sent to prison for murder over completely fabricated evidence. Police lifted Spencer's fingerprints and attached them to evidence cards they claimed they found at the scene of the murder.
The Innocence Project, a legal organization that seeks to investigate and overturn wrongful convictions, rebuts the claim that these tactics are never misused. "Many of the nation's more than 360 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence involved some form of a false confession," The Innocence project says. Those false confessions are often the result of "[d]evious interrogation techniques, such as untrue statements about the presence of incriminating evidence."
Herring said in January that his office would contact those defendants whose cases were affected by the use of forged documents.
"This was an extremely troubling and potentially unconstitutional tactic that abused the name of the Commonwealth to try to coerce confessions," Herring said in a statement.
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An infamous instance of this happened when the New York State Troop C Scandal resulted in an innocent man, John Spencer, being sent to prison for murder over completely fabricated evidence.
Interesting that we zip off to New York to indict Virginia Republicans. Both sides, I guess.
There is a difference between “during interrogation” and “during trial”. What sort of forged evidence would trick you into admitting a crime you did not commit?
And even worse, they conflate false evidence presented in court and false “evidence” to get someone to confess. The interrogation document can never legally be used in court as evidence, other than to show how the confession was obtained which would help the defense. And there are lots of court decisions stating that cops cannot do anything that would induce an innocent person to confess. A false DNA report would not induce anyone to confess to rape for example if he knew he’d never met the victim. This is basically a bluff and is normally only used as a last resort because the suspect and/or the innocent party knows what he or she did and what actually happened better than the cops who were never there.
Bullshit. In a case like that, the police are basically saying to the suspect, “We are prepared to present falsified evidence against you to convict you.” A suspect could then well reason that he’s better off taking a deal, even though he knows he’s innocent. The suspect could reasonably assume the judge and jury are going to believe fake evidence from the police over the word of a defendant.
Disagree. Show me BS and I know you are bluffing. Quite a jump to say cops will present it in court. And faking evidence in court leaves you open to losing the case, getting prosecuted, going to jail… quite a different thing than challenging someone with it during an interview.
You’re completely missing the point. Probably intentionally.
The justice system should prioritize justice. Falsifying evidence is incongruent with that.
Convicting an innocent person does not do anything for a crime victim.
I’m split and, IMO, the split highlights the terribleness of the judicio-legislative system. I’m fine with the Bumfuck County PD, producing a written false statement on paper bearing the Bumfuck County PD’s letterhead and the Sheriff of Bumfuck County’s signature at the bottom. As long as everybody’s clear that it’s a false statement and anybody who presents it otherwise after arrest is at least fabricating evidence both for themselves and on behalf of the Sheriff and the rest of Bumfuck County PD. A paper with the Virginia State Crime Lab’s letterhead and some no-name Tech’s signature at the bottom? Nope.
If the Bumfuck PD can throw a cocktail napkin in front of John Smith with “To whom it may concern, I’m going to kill my wife tonight. Signed, John Smith” and he confesses, I’m not going to lose too much sleep over it. If they put the cocktail napkin in front of him, hold him for 96 hours without food and shout “Confess!” at him every other hour, the cocktail napkin isn’t the problem.
I should add in the context of my above statement. If Virginia wanted to allow the false statements and S. Carolina or Maryland wanted to ban it, that would, IMO, make the most sense. I could see how a PD in Bumfuck, VA would have a different set of problems, operational parameters, and require a different set of solutions than a PD in, say, Oakland or LA.
The problem is what typically happens is they bring in two guys and separate them. Then they say to either of them, “Look here, your buddy turned on you, and he fucked you over. Are you sure you don’t want to get ahead of this?”
This creates a situation where a person thinks they are going to jail no matter what the truth is, and so they make a false confession to try and lessen how long they are in jail.
From the article: “How many times has this been used to find out about a murder, find out about a rape, find out about a break in?”
That was a rhetorical question from a Republican, but I would love to know the answer.
I’m not opposed to such tactics in principle, however in practice they only work when confidence in the justice system is high enough that people don’t anticipate going to jail for crimes they didn’t commit. And while that may be the case for certain people or even certain PDs, its not universal
Currently, Chicago’s murder rate is, once again, abysmal. A big part of the problem is that someone will get shot and nobody saw anything. I wouldn’t begin to claim that such false testimony is the solution or even a good idea but, likewise, I wouldn’t forbid its use *in the interrogation* of any given murder. If it borders on or is outright threats/extortion (It sure would be a shame if the Latin Kings found out you knew who killed their member and you weren’t a protected witness.), I could agree it has run afoul of the law but this law, as presented, doesn’t appear to get into that.
The problem is that it requires that either A) cops always arrest the right people and just need them to confess, or B) the wrong people they arrest always know they won’t be wrongly convicted. Neither of those things are true though.
True. From the headline I got the impression that I was going to be able to 100% disagree with the republicans here. Unfortunately it is a bit more nuanced. I don’t like the fabrication of evidence one bit, especially since that evidence may end up in court. I also don’t know that I trust such manufactured evidence to be handled in a way that provides more accurate testimony.
Where I do see some value in this practice is basically tapping a folder in front of the suspect and claiming it holds a witness statement placing the person at the scene of the crime. If that amount of coercion is enough to change a suspect’s story completely then it’s possible to draw some facts out of a dearth of information
The problem is what typically happens is they bring in two guys and separate them. Then they say to either of them, “Look here, your buddy turned on you, and he fucked you over. Are you sure you don’t want to get ahead of this?”
This creates a situation where a person thinks they are going to jail no matter what the truth is, and so they make a false confession to try and lessen how long they are in jail.
What’s the alternative? Forbid them from informing one suspect when the other turns on them? Legislatively parse down to the very last indefinite article and sideways eye-glance every confession as the result of interrogation? Let people off every time an officer can’t look them square in the eye when they make a statement? As I understand it, the questions “Is it true you’re here testifying today as the result of a plea bargain?” and “Did you falsely tell the accused that his partner testified as to their guilt?” is pretty generally fair game at trial.
If you’re interested in knowing the answer to your question, I’d be interested to know the answer to the same question with ‘solely, to convict on’ in place of ‘find out about’. I think, in the case of a break in wiht broken glass and two sets of footprints whether you sentence the actual criminal the full sentence and his accomplice a lesser sentence vice versa is a bit moot and I don’t see that forbidding the police from using interrogation tactics to gain more information one way or the other substantially improves the outcome unless you’re determined to let one or both of them off.
“What’s the alternative? Forbid them from informing one suspect when the other turns on them?”
I guess I wasn’t clear- in the hypothetical situation, NEITHER person actually flipped. They both kept their mouth shut. And so then the cop walks in and says, “Sorry George. We got your boy Joe photographed entering the joint. And he rolled right over, and said you were calling all the shots. You are going to fry for this, because he has already given us everything we need to convict.”
Now George thinks, “shit. They actually have evidence of Joe being involved? Maybe he was involved! I better start tell them something before I’m made the fall guy.” He might not even “confess” to the whole thing- he just tries to provide exculpatory information that he thinks can clear him. But all too often (see the video I posted below) even innocuous information can be used by a clever prosecutor to secure a conviction.
Again, this might be effective against guilty people. But the problem is that it ends up implicating and convicting *innocent* people too.
Here is a different video from the same guy, showing how someone trying to help the police ended up getting himself convicted. My point isn’t that the cops lied in that case, just that when you open your mouth you are likely not helping yourself, even if you are innocent.
https://youtu.be/-FENubmZGj8?t=1579
Again, right, and the criteria by which you should open your mouth shouldn’t be the degree to which the system is crooked, bent, or broken, but the perfectness of the system, which is none, never.
It is still noteworthy that in some situations you may feel the need to speak to the police. For example, when a family member is missing. But the whole purpose of the police lying to you is to get you into that gray area where you may feel like this one particular time for this one particular question it is the time you ought to answer a question. That lying allows the police to fabricate exactly such a situation is more of an indictment against the practice than anything.
I guess I wasn’t clear- in the hypothetical situation, NEITHER person actually flipped. They both kept their mouth shut. And so then the cop walks in and says, “Sorry George. We got your boy Joe photographed entering the joint. And he rolled right over, and said you were calling all the shots. You are going to fry for this, because he has already given us everything we need to convict.”
“I guess I wasn’t clear” is my point and, apparently, I wasn’t clear about it. Suspect A says “I was nowhere near the scene.”, suspect B says “We were at the scene but we left an hour before the crime.” or “The victims had already been victimized by the time we got there.” Are the police allowed to go back to suspect A with the statement, “You say you weren’t there but B says you were at the scene of the crime. Who’s lying?” or is that a false statement? IMO, this falls squarely on the judiciary (and the jury), not the legislature.
innocuous information can be used by a clever prosecutor to secure a conviction
Right. So, legally render clever prosecutors incapable of using seemingly innocuous information to attain a conviction?
“or is that a false statement? IMO, this falls squarely on the judiciary (and the jury), not the legislature.”
Well, in this case, I think it is entirely appropriate for the legislature to make a law that says, “Thou shalt not Lie in an interrogation”. And the judiciary is within its rights to determine on a case by case basis whether a lie was made. Right?
And the judiciary is within its rights to determine on a case by case basis whether a lie was made. Right?
Are you suggesting judges, lawyers, and juries each in-and-of themselves can’t make a decision unless the legislature proscribes it for them? Again, it’s not like judges can’t toss evidence attained on questionable grounds, lawyers can’t expose questionable means to scrutiny, and jurors can’t even in the absence of the above exclusion and scrutiny, decide whimsically among themselves “I don’t like the way the such-and-such evidence was obtained and, without it, I have a shadow of a doubt.”
“Are you suggesting judges, lawyers, and juries each in-and-of themselves can’t make a decision unless the legislature proscribes it for them? ”
Now I think you are arguing just to be contrary for the sake of it….this is crazy town.
To be clear: The Supreme Court has unequivocally said that there is nothing *constitutionally* wrong with fabricating evidence to put in front of someone while you interrogate them, in order to gather testimony for use in a conviction. That means judges *won’t* toss this evidence on constitutional grounds. And it means judges will instruct jurors to accept this fraudulently-gained testimony.
And in case we are unclear here, just because something is wrong doesn’t mean it is unconstitutional, and just because something is constitutional doesn’t make it right.
If legislators believe it is wrong to lie to get a confession, but the courts have said it is constitutional, then the *completely* appropriate remedy is for the legislature to say “this might not be prohibited by the constitution, but we are going to prohibit it by LAW.”
So yes, this is the place for the legislature to weigh in, because they have a very crucial part in saying what the law is…you know, writing the law.
What jurors, what trial, mad.casual?
The purpose of the lying is to get a confession, a guilty plea, and no trial at all.
The alternative is requiring all government employees to tell the truth when they’re on the job, under penalty of perjury.
Yes, I know this means that nearly all elected officials will do time, but. I’m not seeing any downside.
-jcr
I disagree. If it’s a crime for us to lie to the police, it should be just as much a crime for them to lie to us. No double standards.
Glass’s bill would’ve prohibited police from using “any document generated by law-enforcement officers or their agents that (i) contains a false statement, signature, seal, letterhead, or contact information or (ii) materially misrepresents any fact” when conducting “a custodial interrogation to secure from any person his cooperation or confession or to secure a conviction.”
then
An infamous instance of this happened when the New York State Troop C Scandal resulted in an innocent man, John Spencer, being sent to prison for murder over completely fabricated evidence.
I should probably read the linked details of the New York case, but police fabricating or making up evidence during interrogation is a wildly different thing than presenting fabricated evidence before a judge and jury during trial.
A cop waving a document in front of a perp in the interrogation room and saying, “I just got this early ballistics report that says the gun we found in your trunk is the murder weapon… now, Big Tony, is there anything in your story you want to change?” is night and day from presenting that forged document in a trial.
Nice catch and in agreement with my point assertions above. Shitty policework in solid blue states should not be construed as indictments of red state law enforcement. Not that law enforcement differs from red to blue states, but that nobody, but nobody, including rabid #defundthepolice #BLM activists would say anything to the effect of “Since black cops in Chicago suck, white cops in Maine do too.” or “Since white cops in Portland suck, black cops in Atlanta do too.”
And even if I think both are wrong, presenting this as “Republicans want to be able to frame innocent people like they framed John Spencer” is pretty despicable. It’s assigning them a position they don’t have in order to discredit the position.
Literally nobody is advocating that police should be able to forge evidence and present it at trial for the jury. That’s nobody’s position, full stop. Even if you think it’s wrong to use fake evidence at interrogation, there’s no need to misrepresent the position you’re arguing against.
So, Republicans don’t want to kill old people? Huh, this changes literally everything…
Republicans don’t want to kill old people?
They wouldn’t dream of horning in on Cuomo’s act like that.
-jcr
> Republicans don’t want to kill old people
no killing needed, just make social security checks stingier and stingier and they’ll kill themselves.
The evidence need not be submitted but what about the confession?
Correction: that’s nobody’s openly stated position.
Plenty of police and prosecutors think they should be able to present fabricated evidence, and in fact do so.
Also, isn’t manipulating someone into making a false confession exactly the same as encouraging someone to lie under oath?
Yes. It’s suborning perjury.
As a matter of law, I also think any information gleaned through this sort of process should be submitted in court as coerced testimony or some such. The fake information should be made available. If the goal is to discover the truth then the process itself needs to be able to be scrutinized.
Never talk to any government agent.
How hard is that to understand?
“I am sure you really do just want to clear some things up, but let’s run it by my lawyer anyway.”
Absolutely. Never, ever talk to the police*. Ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
If you think there are ok times to talk to the police, watch that video. If you think there are STILL times to talk to the police, you are asking for trouble.
(* At least when they are asking you questions about something, even when you think they are just asking you as a potential witness.)
I watch this every couple years and it’s awesome every single time.
Q1. Am I under arrest?
Q2. Am I being detained?
Q3. Will you have my car brought around?
“How many times has this been used to find out about a murder, find out about a rape, find out about a break in?”
Look, are we going to run our country on being moral, or on being pragmatic. I don’t care how many actual rapists you got by lying, you did it through fraud. The Government should not be allowed to convince you to waive your right to silence through fraud. And that is EXACTLY what the government is doing here.
Signing a confession is signing a contract- not just attesting that something happened but also waiving a fundamental, constitutionally protected right. When someone lies to you to get you to sign a contract, we call that fraud and it makes the contract unenforceable. How is this any different from the government getting you to stay home from church because they made up a disease outbreak? Or getting you to avoid buying a gun by claiming (untruthfully) that you failed the NICS background check?
All that said, I understand that everyone is allowed to lie. Should the government be allowed to present you (knowingly) with false evidence in order to find more evidence? i.e. I tell you that your buddy ratted you out, and that leads you to divulge information about that person’s whereabouts on that night. Your testimony isn’t admissable in court, but any evidence found after that is. I could get on board that idea…maybe.
The Government should not be allowed to convince you to waive your right to silence through fraud.
Assuming you’ve watched the video you presented above, are you OK with someone being convinced to wave their 5th without fraud?
Gun purchases and church attendance are a fundamentally different argument. Rights other than the 5th are being waived with or without your consent in an explicitly non-criminal, non-custodial-interrogation context.
“are you OK with someone being convinced to wave their 5th without fraud?”
One of the things you see in that video is that generally the police get people to waive their rights through verbal fraud- telling you that they don’t have information they do have, or lying about what is or isn’t known.
But all that said, if we assume the police tell no lies and you still decide to waive your right, there is no moral problem with it.
“Gun purchases and church attendance are a fundamentally different argument. Rights other than the 5th are being waived with or without your consent in an explicitly non-criminal, non-custodial-interrogation context.”
Really? If a federal officer told you that he checked and you won’t pass a NICS check , so don’t bother trying to ever buy a gun? If he told you traffic tickets will keep you from getting the weapon- and by the way, you are a committing a federal crime filing a NICS background check knowing that you have something on your record?
To me, they are the same- a federal officer lying to you to get you to voluntarily refrain from asserting a constitutional right.
But all that said, if we assume the police tell no lies and you still decide to waive your right, there is no moral problem with it.
I didn’t ask about the morality. I asked in consistency with your own advice. If you believe the police aren’t lying to you, should you waive your 5th and/or suggest others do the same? I was going to mention it in response to your video link above but one of the things he just elides over @4:36 is “Who’s telling the truth? We’ll never know for sure.” You don’t avoid waiving the 5th because you might be the victim of a dishonest and unjust system, you avoid waiving the 5th because even in a perfectly honest and just system the truth may never be discoverable/known.
To me, they are the same- a federal officer lying to you to get you to voluntarily refrain from asserting a constitutional right.
To you maybe, but to the letter of the law, they aren’t. Unless you’re sitting in the interrogation room trying to run a background check to purchase a firearm. Otherwise, the fact that the police are walking around conducting custodial interrogations is far more offensive than them lying about it. Would you be OK with police standing at the counter of any given gun store verbally reminding everyone that it’s illegal to falsify information for an NICS check and/or purchase a handgun for someone else? Not just a sign announcing it, an officer, or several, with arresting powers. IMO, the MO that you gloss over is the crystalline distinction between a police state and a functioning government. The CDC saying “Going to Church increases your odds of catching COVID.”, even if false, is acceptable. The police standing at the door honestly saying, “We don’t know if going to Church spreads COVID but we’re here just in case.” isn’t.
“I didn’t ask about the morality.”
What do you mean? You asked if I was “OK” with people being convinced to waive their rights absent fraud. Well, there is a lot of meanings to “being ok” with something. I said, I don’t have a moral problem with it, even if it is foolish.
“Would you be OK with police standing at the counter of any given gun store verbally reminding everyone that it’s illegal to falsify information for an NICS check and/or purchase a handgun for someone else? Not just a sign announcing it, an officer, or several, with arresting powers. IMO, the MO that you gloss over is the crystalline distinction between a police state and a functioning government.”
I am saying that if we want a moral government, we should not condone that government lying to people in order to convince them to not enjoy a fundamental right. Does that make them a police state? Um…I don’t care, because it doesn’t change my point. Are there other ways (like intimidation) that a government could employ to interfere with your rights? Sure. We can talk about them too when the circumstance arises.
What do you mean? You asked if I was “OK” with people being convinced to waive their rights absent fraud. Well, there is a lot of meanings to “being ok” with something. I said, I don’t have a moral problem with it, even if it is foolish.
Assuming you watched the video you presented, does he even say the word morality once?
I am saying that if we want a moral government
I don’t want a moral government. I want a government that observes morals without enforcing them.
We can talk about them too when the circumstance arises.
So then my question to you, King James, is that time before COVID lockdowns and the fall of Hong Kong or after? Or never/until we’ve exhaustively define legally what the definition of ‘lying’ is?
“Assuming you watched the video you presented, does he even say the word morality once?”
I really don’t understand what the fuck you are arguing any more. Seriously.
The video wasn’t in any way even a partial argument, or evidence in the argument about whether or not it is morally acceptable for the government to lie to get a confession.
You…do understand that one can think something is not morally wrong and still think it is foolish…right?
“So then my question to you, King James, is that time before COVID lockdowns and the fall of Hong Kong or after? Or never/until we’ve exhaustively define legally what the definition of ‘lying’ is?”
You are arguing with windmills in your mind. Start making sense and we can talk again.
What do the tribal leaders say about this? What is the defense from the Commentariat regarding the GOP officially defending the use of fake documents to coerce tainted confessions out of subjects? What’s next, entrapments? Coercing false testimony? Is there a line beyond which Republicans will stop defending bad cops? If so, where is it? Name it.
For folks always complaining about the Tribalism shit, you, Sarc and mike sure seem to start a lot of threads aimed at sparking a tribal shit thread.
When you combine this practice with coercive plea bargaining, you basically don’t have a justice system. You just have a system incentivized by conviction rates.
Are the guilty parties, the police, ever prosecuted for these stunts?
Not as long as the supremes pretend QI is a real thing.
What’s so hard for the interrogated to say, “I’d like to talk to a lawyer.”?
More cogently, how does the police lying rather than laying out the truth of how they’re going to convict you make saying “I’d like to talk to my lawyer.” harder?
Dear God! Do you people actually expect the cops to work hard at investigations and all that analytical stuff?
“Police shouldn’t question suspects or witnesses as part of an investigation, especially in the absence of hard evidence, because then it would be too easy to get a conviction.” – Longtobefree
Go ahead, tell me I’m lying.
Deception in interrogations is wrong for many reasons, but the best reason is that it particularly hurts the innocent. If a cop says that they have evidence or a witness is implicating you, and you are innocent, then you know the evidence is fake, the witness is lying, or the cop is lying. The innocent suspect (and their lawyer if they have one) must thread the needle of faith that the person who is lying now (and trying to frame an innocent person) will suddenly tell the truth later on in the legal process. That is a hell of a risk to take and my heart breaks for anyone in that situation.
Given a Democrat wrote this, I’d assume that’s more feature than bug. So police are lied to, use that unknowlingly then have the case tossed for using the false statement in their interrogation.
Apply something like this to warrants and I’m fine, making sure there aren’t abusive conditions for interrogations, again fine; but applying no deception at all to interrogations seems dumb and over restrictive to achieve better results.
While Virginia is somewhat conservative fiscally and socially, the state is extremely liberal on constitutional due process. When Virginia Republicans don’t like the results of (conservative) constitutional due process – they simply ignore it.
Supporting the “constitutional rule of law” means you support legal “restraints” on government authority. It means you follow U.S. Supreme Court rulings, even when this constitutional due process (the means) results in outcomes you disagree with.
Virginia has very liberal track record on this front. Virginia established a “Eugenics Movement” that was later adopted by Germany leading up to War World II. Many Virginia officials refused to follow U.S. Supreme Court cases desegregating public schools and the high court ending marriage discrimination against LGBT Americans. Currently some Virginia counties are disobeying Supreme Court rulings on transgender students in public schools.
Virginia Republicans are very liberal on the constitutional rule of law. 100% of Virginia officials swore an Oath of Office to follow U.S. Supreme Court rulings. That’s the premise of a constitutional rule of law system. Disobeying court rulings is called unconstitutional “Authoritarianism” – like foreign regimes practice.
A bit of good civics instruction in school would also help: “this is what police can and cannot do; if they show you documents or evidence, don’t believe them”.
Crazy, I would hope any judge would throw out any conviction or any case in which fraud was used by law enforcement and then prosecute the fraudsters.
‘…..Take caution in your tone Commander……..You want to know about code reds and using fake documents? On the record I tell you that I discourage the practice in accordance with the NIS directive. Off the record I tell you that it’s an invaluable part of close infantry training, and interrogation, and if it happens to go on without my knowledge, so be it. I run my base and police precinct and how I run it. …’ For those who can’t ‘….handle the truth…’
I spent twenty years as a law enforcement officer. I’m an old, conservative, straight white guy. I love guns and law enforcement. I am disgusted by the willingness of many of my former brothers and sisters in law enforcement to accept the excuse that the end justifies the means. Cops cannot remain worthy of respect if they are willing to lie and cheat in order to get a confession or a conviction. For a representative of law enforcement to stand up and use victims of crime as an excuse for immoral, unethical and reprehensible behavior is despicable. Those who lie and cheat should not be considered role models regardless of their intent. They are liars and cheats, nothing else.
With all due respect to the pro-forgery folks here, I think your solution of suspects simply remaining silent is a little disingenuous. (Of course you believe being a little disingenuous is a valid tactic, so don’t take it as a dig….)
The problem is most obvious when you’re innocent and know the cop is lying. Because now you’re in the hands of a powerful unaccountable person who is proven to be without morals. If she can lie about the test results might lie about whether you “lunged” at her during the interrogation, requiring her to use force. She could even lie about whether you hanged yourself in your cell.
And you have no reason to believe she won’t lie again by presenting that document in court, because after all, you already know for a fact that she’s a liar.
And your belief that the system will eventually get it right is likely to be diminished by the fact that the system’s representative right in front of you is a liar intent on having your life destroyed in penitentiary for reasons you both know are false.
I see it as inevitable that law enforcement has to use subterfuge to investigate. That’s what working undercover is all about. As for using deceit during an interrogation, I think it should be permissible, but the nature of the deceit should be made clear to a supervising judge and a warrant should be required before this tactic is employed. It is a dirty tactic but fire has to sometimes be fought with fire.
Best policy: give your name and ask for a lawyer. Period. Nothing more.
This is an area where Republicans are out of touch with the citizens.
So? The majority of citizens seem to favor authoritarianism.
That’s why the US has a Constitution.
“Republicans [argue] that the criminal justice system should prioritize the needs of victims over defendants and that falsified evidence gives police an additional tool to coerce confessions.”
These are the people who think they know which American history books we should burn.
Of course, punishing people the state calls criminals has never been a terribly arduous task for a state. That’s why the Enlightenment invented justice, which is mostly about protecting the accused from the power of the state by making the state work really hard to get a person in a cage.
On the other hand, fat donut-munching hillbilly psychopaths with badges are great for throwing the wrong sorts of people in cages, and what good were those sorts of people doing on the streets anyway?
So your argument against this law is that it’s already a law? So basically then you should be in favor of this law and its enforcement no?
What would it hurt?
The truth is it’s clearly *not* against the law to use this unjustly and for some reason, maybe just the blind attitude towards any government regulations being bad, you decry it without a sound argument at all.
“The bill is another one example of those ubiquitous “let’s add another layer of oversight” solutions to a problem that exists because of a lack of enforcement and the absence of sufficient deterrents.”
It really isn’t. This law isn’t about fabricating forged evidence in your prosecution, but in an interrogation. For example, a police officer walks into the room with a bag full of white powder and says, “We found this cocaine in your car. By this weight, we have you charged with intent to sell and you are going to jail.”
Now in the CIS: New York world, you are guilty and you confess that you are involved in a drug gang, and you killed your buddy’s girl because she was an informant for the cops.
But in the real world, it is also possible that you are innocent and you freak out and say someone must have left it there. And they ask for a list of people who you’ve given rides to, and you mention your buddy, and his girl, and now they have “Opportunity” in her killing.
maybe just the blind attitude towards any government regulations being bad, you decry it without a sound argument at all
If you assumed all laws were perfect and perfectly enforceable in spite of the admitted necessity to stack them layers deep, I can see why you would need a sound argument to self-righteously dismiss in your own favor. You are the problem.
“I much prefer CSI: Old World Order where the police have a dead body, no leads, and can’t get the suspect who would practically confess at nothing more than the appearance of a random bag of white powder to talk because, uh, morals or, uh, justice, I guess, maybe.” – Overt
I mean, if the police found a bag of cocaine in your car, they don’t have to lie that they found a bag of cocaine in your car. If they didn’t find a bag of cocaine but a bag of baby powder, powdered sugar, or no bag at all and they book you for possession with intent, they’ve no-shit fabricated evidence which is already no-shit a crime. Either way, you’re under no greater obligation to waive the 5th for either the actual crime or the alleged “crime”.
Presenting it the way Overt has, it almost seems like if the police walked into the the interrogation room and said “I’ll make you a deal, if you pick a card out of this deck while my back is turned and I can tell you what card you picked, you’ll tell me what you know about the dead girl, OK?” the information would be inadmissible in court. Even if the guy outright confessed to the murder, because prestidigitation, even in the absence of any implication or coercion, would be inadmissible.
That goes against human nature, people want to talk, they want to explain themselves. Cops know that and use it to their advantage.
Also commonly the cop would offer them a deal, confess to a lesser charge and the higher one goes away. When confronted with a dirty cop who just fabricated evidence, it would be a hard deal to pass up since you think the cop will frame you for the higher crime.
One counterpoint. You are an educated, older, generally law-abiding citizen. You are not the person who is most likely to be dragged in front of the police even if they are innocent.
If you are a young boy from the hood who has been raised on hatred of the police from the crib, you aren’t going to trust that they haven’t made stuff up and even if they did, that their attempt to frame you won’t succeed (planted evidence does happen, punks from the hood know all about it, and everyone who gets caught claims that it was planted). If your friends do/sell drugs, then you won’t know for absolute certain that they hadn’t forgotten something or even that a passerby pushed a bag through your open window to get rid of it before getting caught.
The kid gets desperate and tells them whatever they want to hear to go down for shoplifting or possession instead of armed robbery or murder.
You seem pretty heavily invested in defending the use of false documents. Do you think it’s an especially valuable tactic? Or are you just being a libertarian who doesn’t like too many restrictions….on the police.