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Comment by blurbleblurble | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

On the other hand, it's horrific to me that my fate can be decided by people who have no formal education in law and can be swayed toward a guilty verdict by the prosecutors even in the absence of evidence - if they "feel" someone is guilty then they vote that way. That is insane to me personally. Yes, a judge might have a bias - but their decisions have to be based in the law and either you broke a law or you haven't - they can't go "well, there is no evidence, but I feel like you're guilty, so off to prison with you!" - a jury of peers can absolutely do that(the judge can overrule them for gross negligence of their duties but that doesn't happen very often).

AFAIK you can waive your right to a jury trial and simply appear before a judge in most jurisdictions.

In general through, judges have a strong bias towards the prosecution. DAs and judges are often extremely friendly since they work with each other every day. I would say that if you're innocent or your case has any extenuating circumstances, you almost always have a better shot with a jury than a judge.

Juries also allow for jury nullification, which allows for unjust laws to be ignored.

I dearly wish that jury trials were available in all cases. I recently went through a non-criminal case where justice was decidedly not served. The judge, of course, claimed he "had to follow the law" but his interpretation of the law contradicted the plain-text reading of the relevant statute. I had no choice but to suck it up unless I wanted to drop the rest of my life savings on an appeal. I feel pretty confident a jury would have seen things very differently.

> a judge ... can't go "well, there is no evidence, but I feel like you're guilty, so off to prison with you!" - a jury of peers can absolutely do that

The defence can ask a judge to throw out a case on the grounds that there is no evidence on which a jury could reasonably convict.

>> On the other hand, it's horrific to me that my fate can be decided by people who have no formal education in law

I think you're assuming quite a bit on the education, knowledge, and experience of the law on the part of the judge. There is no guarantee that the judge you get knows anything about the law pertaining to your case.

>> but their decisions have to be based in the law and either you broke a law or you haven't

And yet, judges are reversed all the time on appeal based on the idea that the judge got the law wrong.

Plus I'm fairly certain the judge has a great deal more power in the courtroom than the jury. A judge can certainly put you in jail for a period of time just because they feel like it.

An angry and easily manipulable lynch mob arbitrarily deciding my fate? That feels more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.

But more seriously, the jury system also has serious flaws. I'd guess its bias towards existing norms. Bias against minorities in the jury pool. And its hard enough for us not accidentally trap into social media echo chambers. I doubt i'd notice attempts to personally manipulate me by a well funded defense (even without FB-like info about me). At the same time, a public defender wont have the resources to even try.

Guess "no free lunch" applies to legal systems as well. So far we haven't found an optimal system, at least.

> An angry and easily manipulable lynch mob arbitrarily deciding my fate? That feels more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.

You mean a bunch of random people who have no vested interest in the trial's outcome, and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you in a premeditated fashion, vs. someone in a clear, long-term position of power that makes for an easy target of bribery, blackmail, or corrupt nepotism? You would seriously prefer that?

Centralization of power should generally not be preferred.

> You mean a bunch of random people who have no vested interest in the trial's outcome, and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you in a premeditated fashion

This is not how juries are formed. The parties can refuse jurors and you can refuse yourself if you are chosen.

I fail to see how this negates anything in that passage that you quoted. In what way can the jury be stacked for or against you, premeditatively?

There's loads of scenarios like that. All white jury against a black defendant comes to mind(or all black against white or any other combination you can think of). There's also plenty of research showing that juries are more likely to be sympathetic if you are attractive or someone they can identify with, with unattractive people/people from other social classes getting worse verdicts for the same crime.

That's not to say that judges do not exhibit such biases, but once again - they should be trained specifically against that. There is no such training or expectation on the juries. And yes, of course juries are asked "do you have any bias against this person" but I don't believe for a second that actually works.

Nothing you've listed is premeditated. Jury candidate selection is random, so premeditation is literally impossible unless the candidate selection process itself is compromised.

Certainly you can introduce bias in the jury vetting process, but that's what your defense attorney is for.

Well in that case judge selection also can't be premeditated since you get a random judge, no?

A small number of judges in a given region to corrupt or coerce, but still doable. Can't say the same for jury candidate selection.

Furthermore, your defense attorney has the opportunity to filter out jurors that have bias against their client. Not so for judges.

randomly selected how? By the order a $9 an hour secretary enters stuff into an excel spreadsheet? In some places yes. Even if it is random(normal case)...random selection of which old rich jaded PHD holding white guy you get? In many places yes.

In the UK system juries are selected randomly, and there is essentially no selection*

Nothing like the American system, where the lawyers can go through 250 candidates to choose 12 jurors, letting them choose the race, gender, education and class composition of the jury.

*Challenges are possible, such as if the random selection procedure wasn't followed properly or if a juror knows people involved, but it's very unusual.

Lawyers in America do not choose jurors.

They exclude jurors.

Big difference.

Each side -- depending on the state and level of court -- gets a certain number of premptory challenges; that is, they can exclude N jurors without giving a reason.

After that, the only way to exclude a juror is to prove to the Judge that the juror is biased.

I guess as a programmer it makes far far far more sense to me that the person deciding my fate is a professional who has to follow a rule book, rather than a bunch of random people who act on their own emotions and who don't have to know anything about the law. If the prosecution presents them with an emotional argument that makes them feel I am guilty, they will vote that way - and I'd hope the judge can't be swayed that easily.

That's a hilariously naive view of judges. Judges totally have emotional and political motivations, and a huge amount of discretion. It's less "following a rule book" and more "trying to squeeze this scenario to fit the box I think it belongs in". If you think adjudication is anything like running a computer program you're dead wrong.

One of my favorite lines about judges is: "it's the responsibility of every person to know the law, except trial judges, who simply have to consider the arguments presented and have appellate courts to set them straight"

You realize that some judges are elected by the general public right? If they won their election on a hang 'em high, and let god sort 'em out kind of platform then guess what they're gonna do? Hang 'em high. Because if they don't they'll loose their job next election. They can literally loose their job for caring too much about whether the accused is actually guilty. This is one of the reasons why we have a problem with over aggressive prosecutors and police, because they, and/or their bosses, are basically politicians who often have much stronger incentives to appear tough than to be fair or effective. If you want to think of it in programming terms, imagine working at a place that does performance reviews and promotions based on LOC generated. That is the judicial system in some states.

> who have no vested interest[..], and so can't be gamed or stacked for or against you

But that is not true. An attorney will try that, while someone on a jury might not even be aware his believe in a nuclear family is used to paint the victim as a slut. Being aware of your own biases and noticing others trying to abuse them will require education and training. Random citizens won't have the time for that. A professional judge (should) take that time.

Do you take you medical advice from random citizens as well, since it is harder for the pharmacy industry to influence them? I'd want to avoid corruption. Transparency helps, but comes with its own issues... if at all possible. I do want a system that avoids centralized power as much as possible but still lets trained experts do the job. There's got to be a better balance.

> An attorney will try that, while someone on a jury might not even be aware his believe in a nuclear family is used to paint the victim as a slut. Being aware of your own biases and noticing others trying to abuse them will require education and training.

So? That's what the jury selection process is for. Your defense should exclude jurors with such obvious biases.

> Do you take you medical advice from random citizens as well, since it is harder for the pharmacy industry to influence them?

Except I'm not beholden to only a single doctor. You are beholden to a single judge, and you don't get a say which judge tries you.

It depends where you live. I've sat on a jury in a wealthy urban area in the UK, and I'm happy to say my fellow jurors had excellent critical thinking skills. Each of us had different expertise which we could contribute.

The system worked exactly as intended. Because jurors are paid almost no money to be there, I had a strong feeling that I didn't want to live with the guilt of sending a person to prison unless they were completely guilty and completely deserving of it.

While a judge will usually act fairly, a jury has a selfish incentive to actively look for ways to avoid sending someone to prison.

I don't think juries are a good solution everywhere. The UK does not have the remnants of racial segregation that the US does; racialism is endemic in US thought patterns. Additionally, the average person where I live is university educated. For that reason, I feel that every defendant should be given the option of a bench trial.

What makes you think a jury is by definition "angry and easily manipulable"? This says a lot more about your view of humanity and yourself than it does jury trials.

Yes, i do believe individual humans are way less perfect agents than some free will devotees make them out to be. Making good decisions is expensive... requires both time and prior knowledge/influences. Something someone forced to do jury duty is unlikely to bring. They spend their resources to be experts in other fields.

Btw, if you wanted to go into the free will vs formed by society thing: The reason parents tell their children to "work hard" and "be responsible for them self" is this being an effective influence. Such is necessary by society to provide for people to become better individuals. I know it sounds contradictory at first.

But your argument is also applicable to judges. There's nothing in legal training that makes people magically superior to "normies", incapable of error and so on.

Meanwhile someone forced to do jury duty is gonna spend the time there whether they like it or not, so there's also no motivation to _not_ try to make good decisions. It won't save any time.

> more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.

Roy Moore was a judge. Think of that. Ousted from the bench, twice, for defying court orders, ignoring the law, and displaying a lack of impartiality. This guys thinking was basically "I don't have to follow the rules, because God tells me what's right." And he was a judge for a number of years.

Now look at this video of a recent trump judicial nominee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-zvNnFjk3Q

He couldn't even answer basic legal questions, and admits to have never tried a case in court. I believe he dropped out of the process. But others have gone on to be judges, with only slightly better credentials.

So having a judge decide is no guarantee of a fair outcome. Juries exist for a reason. They aren't perfect, and nothing ever will be.

Yeah, the US judge selection process seems especially bad. Here in germany the issue of partisan judges comes up rarely, at least. I wonder why. Maybe that has to do with the highly partisan US politics, thanks to the US FPTP voting system practically allowing only 2 opposing parties. Hell, don't you even elect some judges in the same way?!

Also seems like we have a somewhat high bar that should filter the worst people... you need a 4 year legal education and after that have an up to 5 year trial period til you got a life long position.

> That feels more terrifying than some trained and experience arbitrator with respectable work history, to me.

Except when the arbitrator has a grudge against you (maybe personally, maybe more generically - racially, ethnically, etc., maybe he just read a hit piece in the newsletter and is prejudiced against cases like yours). You can have a chance to sway the mob, but you have no chance against the professional who is out to get you.

To understand American system one has to understand that a lot of things there are designed not to produce best outcome in optimal cases, but to reduce harm in sub-optimal cases. It is meant not to solve cases with maximum ease, but to reduce the incidence of abuse. Of course, since people with power - aka the police, prosecutors judiciary, etc. - are not very interested in reducing their own powers they are actively working to undermine this design. Thus plea bargains, testilying, qualified immunity, blue wall of silence, etc.

Jury selection does absolutely everything possible to weed out jurors who wouldn't be impartial. Also the jury doesn't decide the punishment, the jury only determines if the prosecution has proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

I've done jury duty and can see there are some flaws in the UK system. Nonetheless I would far rather face a jury trial than any of the alternatives.

Good comment, but confused about the "first of all" lead in. I felt like I already acknowledged this was a US unique problem, and specifically called out the UK system as superior.

Unfortunately more countries are copying it - my country, Uruguay, just adopted it, and it is awful.

perjury is punishable by 5 years in prison. That's a suitable punishment. The problem is that the law is not enforced.

Totally agree on enforcement, and probably agree on the term of the punishment.

In the vast majority of nonviolent cases I think we as a society tend to be overly punitive with the criminal justice system.

Maybe I'm making the same emotional overreaction here.

> The problem is that the law is not enforced.

I've started to think that prosecutorial discretion is one of the main problems in Western societies. It yields all kinds of injustices, and overly vague and expansive laws that essentially result in every citizen breaking a few laws a day.

If prosecutors didn't have a choice on whether to prosecute a case, the law would ultimately be a lot more reasonable because old and unjust laws would more readily be stricken from the books, and there would be no possibility of favouritism.

>overly vague and expansive laws that essentially result in every citizen breaking a few laws a day.

I've had the idea that the current system we have, which is basically you're not breaking the law unless someone is watching, isn't going to play nice with constant surveillance.

Currently, if a law isn't enforced, it's de-facto not the law.

Just imagine if computers in people's cars were phoning home to police. How many speeding fines would be issued daily? Failure to (completely) stop at a stop sign? Reckless driving? Look at how China is currently testing the waters with shaming j-walkers[0]. Just wait until this is fully institutionalized.

[0] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/china-deploys-ai-camer...

This debate is already well underway in the context of speed cameras, which can automatically issue a ticket to every single driver who is even 1mph over the speed limit. Many communities are limiting their use, for example by restricting their placement to only streets immediately outside schools.

>I've started to think that prosecutorial discretion is one of the main problems in Western societies. It yields all kinds of injustices, and overly vague and expansive laws that essentially result in every citizen breaking a few laws a day. >If prosecutors didn't have a choice on whether to prosecute a case, the law would ultimately be a lot more reasonable because old and unjust laws would more readily be stricken from the books, and there would be no possibility of favouritism.

It is not "Western societies", in some Roman/Civil Law countries, as an example Italy, prosecution is not discretional, it is "mandatory" for crimes (whether this is effectively enforced in the same way and everywhere is another thing).

At one point in Anglo-American legal history it was possible to bring a private prosecution. Although on the balance it is probably for the best that doesn’t exist anymore in general, perhaps it out to be revived for cases of public misconduct where the public prosecutors have a conflict of interest.

That is the biblical adage of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". If you look very closely into the background of this, one of the express conditions for this applying is that you lied to get someone else punished. You then faced the exact same punishment.

So for law enforcement, any lies or withholding of evidence to ensure conviction would automatically mean that the penalty being asked for is applied to all of those law enforcement and prosecutors involved. There would be no "free passes" given to law enforcement or prosecutors.

This, of course, will not happen any time soon in most jurisdictions.

For many in the "justice system", in the U.S., it's not about justice, it's about career.

>I really think false testimony should carry the punishment the accused is facing.

One problem with that is that e.g. someone who testified that they show OJ killing the woman would have gotten the "punishment the accused is facing" when OJ was found innocent.

So this has the potential to put an innocent man (testifying correctly, but where the accused for BS reasons is free of charges) to jail just as a false testimony now has the potential to do so.

OJ was not found innocent. Our criminal justice system largely does not find people innocent. It merely finds people "not guilty".

I realize that distinction may seem pedantic, but I think it's actually quite relevant in this case.

It's not sufficient that someone testified about what they saw, and have the case decided the other way. To start a perjury case against the witness, I would still demand all of the strictures of due process that apply to a criminal defense case.

That is, you would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the witness was _lying_ about what they saw. It would absolutely _not_ be sufficient evidence just to have a "not guilty" ruling. You would need to prove that they _could not have seen_ the testimony they provided.

Absolutely, this standard would make _some_ prosecutions against police for perjury hard or impossible. However, there are a number of cases that I believe could meet this evidentiary standard that are simply not pursued by the prosecutors office.

> You would need to prove that they _could not have seen_ the testimony they provided.

A problem with this is that people giving false eyewitness testimony often believe they genuinely did see the thing they could not have seen and are telling the truth. So, a system like this would have the potential to punish as "liars" people who simply fell victim to what seem to be built-in foibles of the human memory system.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-...

https://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.h...

(Note I'm not doubting that some witnesses really are consciously lying. The problem would be the potential to sweep up the innocent with the guilty, if the standard used is "what they said they saw is impossible, therefore they are lying." Additional factors showing they were consciously lying would be needed.)

We already have sorted through this problem as a society.

The standard for perjury is not "their testimony was inaccurate, or was false". The standard for perjury is "they _knowingly_ made false testimony".

My complaint is not about changing the standard for perjury. My complaint is that prosecutors often avoid a perjury charge towards police, even when there is the evidence to support a perjury charge.

The burden for finding someone not guilty is that there exists some kind of doubt as to their guilt.

In order for anyone to be found guilty of giving false testimony the burden would be likewise. It would require that it be shown without a doubt that they lied.

>It would require that it be shown without a doubt that they lied.

Well, if the accused is considered non guilty of what they said they saw them do, then doesn't that "prove" that they lied? (as much "without a doubt" as the other person is innocent).

> Well, if the accused is considered non guilty of what they said they saw them do, then doesn't that "prove" that they lied?

No. It absolutely doesn't prove that they lied. That's simply not what "not guilty" means in the criminal justice system.

It would prove that there was insufficient cause to find the other party guilty. Proof that the party had lied could include. The officer admitting including to others in public or private that he had lied or that the facts were different in a substantive way from what he had previously testified.

Video that contradicts officers testimony.

Physical evidence that proves the testimony was a lie.

All of the above would have to be sufficiently different from reality that would suggest that its impossible to consider the possibility that the officer misremembered.

Example fake scenario:

I heard violent screaming coming from inside the home so I had to break down the door and search for the person in need of help and I just happened to find drugs.

Contradicted by video from the ring door bell which recorded the officer just walking up and kicking the door down so he could conduct an illegal search.

For real examples see the article. None of the listed scenarios suggest any reasonable party could think that the police officer misremembered.

I get your point, but that video as described would not contradict anything of the testimony.

Yes I believe OJ was guilty but I also believe that most of America didn't know what the L.A. jury inherently knew - that the cops were corrupt and that they had reason to believe that they were lying.

Mark Furhman was definitely a liar and just a few months later the Rampart scandal happened.

> I really think false testimony should carry the punishment the accused is facing.

This conflicts with the feminine imperative.

It would probably be sufficient if people who make false testimony would be fired and not allowed to work for law enforcement for a few years.

> I really think false testimony should carry the punishment the accused is facing.

Theoretically a sound idea, but people misremember things. It is possible to give false testimony without actively lying, and difficult to prove conclusively whether someone is actively deceiving or misremembering.

This seems like exactly the sort of a thing that the courts deal with on a daily basis.

This is why body cams should be mandatory, also for the police officer's benefits - videos can't "misremember". Also police officers should be held to higher standards than the general population when it comes to giving testimony.

100% true. It's why Canadian judges generally don't convict on testimony unless there were dozens of witnesses and little chance of mistaken identity (the person stayed at the scene the entire time, etc).

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.

> 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.

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.

How is that not perjury?

Maybe it's chaotic good.

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.

Aren't jurors sworn to tell the truth when making such statements?

In my experience yes, they are.

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?

That's not what they said. They said that Jurors swore to tell the truth. Not sure how you interpreted it that way.

The chain as i saw it:

Jurors are asked if they will treat the word of law enforcement as always true. Jurors are disqualified if they don't say yes. Jurors are sworn, as you say, to tell the truth. Presumable jurors get punished if they end up acting counter to their previous word?

Thus, jurors that end up on the bench are forced by law to act as if every word by law enforcement is true, even if it contradicts physical reality. No?

During jury selection, the prosecutor and the defense attorney get to interview each potential juror. Both the prosecutor and the defense can eliminate potential jurors based on their answers. I believe they are allowed an unlimited number of challenges "for cause" and a limited number of challenges without cause.

If a juror stated that they believed that the word of law enforcement were always true, the defense attorney would almost certainly challenge them for cause, as that is clear bias, and they would not be selected for the jury.

In practice it's a balancing act, where the prosecution wants jurors who trust law enforcement and the defense wants jurors who are skeptical of law enforcement.

It is illegal to punish a juror for the decision they make during a trial. This is often referred to as "jury nullification" (or rather, is an important part of jury nullification).

> Jurors are asked if they will treat the word of law enforcement as always true. Jurors are disqualified if they don't say yes.

Realistically, jurors will instead be challenged for cause by the defense if they do say yes to that question.

They might be challenged by the prosecution if they indicate a bias against police testimony (either for cause or as a peremptory challenge, depending on the details and the prosecutor and the judge.)

He didn’t say always true. He said same weight.

Remember you’re reading a thread of some folks on the internet that come from a similar background and seem to have opinions absolutely inconsistent with reality IMO, based on my experience.

Both sides look for jurors who have bias where they will come with a pre-shared opinion. The last jury I was on included a former US Attorney, an insurance investigator and a NAACP regional director. We were asked to answer questions honestly and nobody had access to our process.

I’ve been on 3 juries, and in 2/3 we partially or fully acquitted a defendant based on many factors. Frankly, in each case I walked away with an appreciation that the system can work.

> Thus, jurors that end up on the bench are forced by law to act as if every word by law enforcement is true, even if it contradicts physical reality. No?

No. If that were the case, there would be no need for evidence, a judge, a jury, or a trial. "Just ask the cops" is not how this system works.

No, jurors have to swear to tell the truth when answering questions during jury selection. However, in practice if you express any reservations about police testimony you will very likely be struck from the jury by the DA.

My own limited experience on a jury is that, because of the way jurors are selected, they tend to be fairly deferential to authority (especially the judge's authority). Arguing for jury nullification or any similar concept is at a minimum going to freak your fellow jurors out, and I wouldn't be surprised if in practice they might ask the judge to kick you off the jury and use one of the alternates (regardless of whatever the legality of the situation calls for).

The USA is a strange place. Thanks for the explanation.

What's strange about anything the parent said?

As far as i understand it a jury is supposed to be composed of one's "peers", but the people the parent describes strike me as way off the american norm.

That is not the meaning of the word peer in this case. The concept of a jury of peers differs from the King being the jury. It refers to citizens as peers not people with red hair, the same skin color, or socioeconomic background as peers.

> However, in practice if you express any reservations about police testimony you will very likely be struck from the jury by the DA

That's not my experience, and mere reservations about the credibility of police wouldn't usually justify a challenge for cause, and prosecutors have a finite number of peremptory challenges. (Now if you say cops are all liars and everything they say must be disregarded, sure, that’ll probably get you tossed.)

If you want to nullify just don't say so say you believe the party is innocent you can't be replaced by an alternate because you disagree.

I have very worried feelings about anyone who can answer "yes" to a question like "will you treat the word of X as always true?", regardless of the value of X.

The bare minimum I'd need would be "yes, so long as they're not contradicted by less inherently unreliable evidence than that which relies on human memory".

Just say "yes, provided that they aren't contradicted by more reliable evidence". The only thing you left out is that your definition of "more reliable evidence" is very broad.

Nope. Tell the truth.

In my experience, the defense asked specific questions related to this exact topic and sought out jurors who agreed that police testimony is not guaranteed to be factual. I have to assume this is common. They had no problem filling the juror box with jurors approved by both sides.

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.

That question came up the last time I was called for jury duty. But it was the people who affirmed that they believe police are always truthful who were excluded.

Rightly so. Otherwise there would be no point in all this evidence, trial and jury business.

Presumably excluded by the defense, and not the prosecution.

You don't need to lie, but you need to be careful not to frame your realistic skepticism as bias. Then, if you do make the jury, you need to be incredibly tactful so that the prosecutor doesn't get the trial thrown out on the basis that, e.g., you're biased simply because you don't take police testimonies as ground truth.

The risk here is that there are people fighting to get out of prison for things they're not guilty of. If you have realistic expectations that police and their representative prosecutors can and do lie, please exercise caution.

Exactly. Saying "I will evaluate the officer's statements along with the other evidence produced to determine if his/her statements are factual" is not going to get you kicked off a jury.

If you say "You shouldn't believe anything a cop testifies to" will get you booted pretty quickly.

> Saying "I will evaluate the officer's statements along with the other evidence produced to determine if his/her statements are factual" is not going to get you kicked off a jury.

If you say this you won't be selected. Engineers and Scientists routinely get denied because of the application of logic.

I got to jury selection last time I was on jury duty and the prosecuting attorney straight up asked the prospective jurors, "would you believe the testimony of a policeman above the testimony of the plaintiff?"

And guess which answer got people dismissed?

I don’t like guessing. It only reinforces bias. Please complete your anecdote.

I had the opposite experience. There were a few folks that were trying to get dismissed with statements like that and ended up on the jury.

Remember the prosecution have a limited number of dismissals and statements like that are desired by the defense.

>Saying "I will evaluate the officer's statements along with the other evidence produced to determine if his/her statements are factual" is not going to get you kicked off a jury.

You'd be surprised. The DAs/lawyers on the other side can see right through this, and don't want it. They want someone that is more likely to show blind trust to the law side.

> you're biased simply because you don't take police testimonies as ground truth

If the system considers police testimony as ground truth, why bother with judge and jury?

Ahh, the Cardassian system of Jurisprudence and Justice.

Most defendants don't.

The majority of cases are settled by plea bargains, which don’t have a jury and minimal involvement by a judge. Many proposed reforms of the criminal justice system try to address this exact fact.

Having been through voir dire, sat on a jury and been asked to hold the power to take a man's freedom, I don't consider it ethical to lie during voir dire. The whole premise of the trial is that the jury is impartial. To knowingly lie is to deliberately corrupt that. I wouldn't want to be tried by jurors that were wilfully dishonest; I cannot then in good conscience lie, or countenance my fellow jurors lying, imagined purity of motive be damned.

"The whole premise of the trial is that the jury is impartial."

There's no such thing as impartial. Unless you either have no emotions or have omniscient knowledge of everything (robot or God, basically), you'll always view a set of facts through an emotional lens that's been tinged by your past experiences, which are a tiny subset of everyone's past experiences. Part of the reason we put multiple people on a jury is to average out those differences.

Then again, I brought up unconscious bias and implicit association tests last time I was called for jury duty, and was excused by a very impatient and skeptical sounding judge. Questioning the whole premise of the legal system doesn't go over very well with the legal system.

It's meant to be impartial /to the accused/. It's not meant to be completely agnostic of the whole judicial system, and in some cases doing the right thing may require not fully disclosing your knowledge of that judicial system. Example: Potential jurors will be dismissed (or at least, so I've read) if they admit to knowledge of jury nullification, despite it being a legitimate part of the jury's powers.

It is a part of the jury's power, but more as a side-effect of other decisions.

The criminal justice system _does not think_ jury nullification is a legitimate use of the powers of a juror. Rather, the criminal justice system more views it as something of an unfortunate trade-off.

Juries (And indirectly, the Supreme Court) are the only part of the criminal justice system in the US Constitution. Juries are the core of the system. Everything else is minor details.

The Constitution and centuries of common law tradition thinks it is a legitimate use of the powers of a juror. Since those are the ultimate source of law in this country, the criminal justice system is wrong.

The Constitution is not the one making the decision on who is sitting on any particular jury.

> I wouldn't want to be tried by jurors that were wilfully dishonest

Why not? That's often by far the best case scenario.

There’s a lot of implicit privilege baked into that statement.

Is there? Are minorities treated better by criminal justice systems without juries?

I’m not saying our system is perfect but where’s the better alternative?

Someone who has been selected for the belief that police are more reliable that others is clearly not impartial. It's right in the dictionary definition of the word impartial: "treating or affecting all equally".

It is unethical to tell people that it is ethical to lie. The end doesn't justify the means.

The end often justifies the means if you can't think of cases where this is true you have limited imagination.

Repeating an assertion doesn't add correctness, regardless of the strength of your imagination.

While principals are important practically good people spend a lot of time applying the principal that one should do what has the most utility for all. This is to say looking at the forseeable ends and picking the means.

You are making the same statement again without a single proof or example to show why lying is ethical, moral, and correct. Repetition doesn't add correctness.

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.

"Ok. Should we believe the report or the testimony?"

> juror picks one

"But a police officer produced [the other one]! We should trust it!"

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.

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-...) 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-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.

> You are (paradoxically and incredibly frustratingly) not allowed to use outside knowledge to inform your decision

From what I understand (I'm not from US), you are told this by the judge, but in fact you can (and are allowed by law) to use anything you want to form your decision.

You're not allowed by law to disregard the jury instructions. It's a practical effect of keeping jury proceedings secret.

People do it anyway, and it's highly unlikely that they'll be found out, but the problem is it's a double-edged sword: in this case, justice might have demanded it; on the other hand, a Klansman could use the same approach to get another member off the hook for an obvious murder conviction.

Yes, you are told this by the judge, but I wasn't aware at the time that you can still use whatever you want to form your decision.

If I could do it again I would have hung the jury. Let's just say the system in place makes it veeerrryyy difficult to do so... which is of course a perverse incentive.

I'm still kicking myself (this is years later) because normally I'm a person who sticks my neck out for my own principles, and that time I succumbed. I won't make the same mistake again.

Wait, what happened? Did you give in and vote to convict?

Yes. :/ Sorry if that was unclear. I still feel bad about it and this is years later. It was a traumatic experience for me, eleven against me... Don't do what I did. Always stick to your principles (and your education, and your wisdom) when they are tested.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

All testimony carries weight on the theory that the penalty (perjury) would make it unlikely.

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.

The ability of grand juries to permit private prosecutions have since been abolished, and is crucial to recent abuses of state power.

>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.

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

Sure, if anyone is inclined to prosecute.

Which, given that the DA is likely to need that same cop to testify in dozens or hundreds more cases... probably not.

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.

> 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-philadelph...

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

An obligation to prosecute crimes seems like a difficult idea to work, but at the least it shouldn't be entirely up to the same prosecutors who rely on the police to do their jobs.

> An obligation to prosecute crimes seems like a difficult idea to work

I think it would be a very disruptive idea at first, because prosecutorial discretion has been so deeply ingrained in our legal system.

I'm not sure sure that it's ultimately a terrible idea though. There are so many laws that we all unknowingly break a few per day. A paranoid person might even suggest it's intentional so as to always have some leverage whenever it's needed.

Without discretion, there's no possibility of leverage against honest citizens. Proposing such expansive laws would be met with much more forceful citizen opposition, and lead to the repeal of the existing ones. And the police wouldn't get the free pass they now enjoy for false testimony.

But the short-term effect of taking away discretion would be a slew of cases everybody knows shouldn't be pursued. And it's not clear to me how it would be enforced.

No doubt some logistical issues would need to be sorted out, like say, grace periods until a law is reviewed. Enforcement via an internal prosecutors office might be possible.

I can't claim to have all the details figured out, but it's not an absurd possibility off the bat. The scope and deliberate impenetrability of the law is a serious problem that I think will only grow worse over time.

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

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).

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

Definitely couldn't be our corrupt and racist justice system, just a simple misunderstanding of course

Our justice system is imperfect, but "corrupt and racist" is a stretch. And all I did was ask a (reasonable!) question.

Racism in the justice system isn’t even close to arguable. It’s proven. We have plenty of data.

It is corrupt and racist. How you could think otherwise in America blows my mind.

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.

Almost all your comments are dead.

Funny how often black males seem to end up on the wrong end of those.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect

People of every race have trouble identifying people who are of some other race.

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