Anyone who has ever spent time hanging around the Courthouse KNOWS cops lie. No, they don’t lie all the time, they don’t have to, there are plenty of actually, factually and provably guilty defendants, certainly most. But when they think it helpful, cops lie. The occasional innocent defendant learns it gape-jawed, but nobody else is ever really surprised. Prosecutors rely on it, defense attorneys strategize over it, the clerks knows it, the stenographers, too. All judges know it, the press knows it. Juries suspect it.
Why would cops lie? In addition to all the regular reasons anyone lies, they lie to manufacture probable cause for a search, they lie to obscure their own misbehavior, they lie to check a box, they lie to hide entrapment, they lie for the sake of getting a conviction and the approval of those around them. They lie to get to lunch on time. They lie for each other. They lie to their supervisors, they lie in writing, they lie in oral testimony before a jury right after swearing to God “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” with one hand on the Bible. The funny part is, nobody has to tell them to lie, and they certainly don’t think of themselves as liars, they are just being “good cops.”
If they are just being loyal to the uniform, doing the job, meeting expectations, where do those expectations come from? Surely, none of their mothers raised them to lie like that, these people weren’t all liars before they were cops, were they? No, they probably were not. so it can’t really be lying, only liars lie, right?
Maybe it’s not that simple. You see, it’s in their job description, but not in black and white. It is written in BLUE. Every morning, right there in the mirror, they assumes the expectations when they puts on the blue uniform. Cops call themselves the “Blue Gang” on the streets. A contract issue can lead to a walkout, called the “Blue Flu.” If you wear the uniform, it’s not lying, it’s loyalty, and we all know loyalty is a virtue… so the fault can’t be in the individual, he is pretty sure he is walking the more virtuous path, on a very tangible level. Like personal hygiene, or physical fitness, a steady gaze and a shoeshine, it comes with the uniform. And like it always seems to have, it forever will, until somebody says otherwise, and that has to come from the top, without the wink or the nod.
At least it does in many police departments, (although surely not in yours or mine). More enlightened departments recognize this only raises the anger and disgruntlement on the streets, making their job bigger, and harder. They have come to learn that it is far better to let a possibly-innocent defendant walk than constantly have to pound home the point of their authority by proving they have the ability to commit and get away with perjury.
We all get it, you have the gun. There is no need to belabor the obvious. The case a lie may “save” is not worth it just for one more symbolic opportunity to point at the gun, not when lies add up to making the job harder for everyone tomorrow.
Let the prosecutor make his political bones on the provably guilty. There's no shortage...
