Why police lie under oath
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
"An law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why you should never agree to be interviewed by the police."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
It's quite fascinating really. The police officer he has come up to speak talks about some of the tricks they use to get people to confess and they talk about word tricks they use to get convictions even of innocent people. It's pretty terrifying.
What I find interesting is how many TV shows depict suspects running their mouths to the police like they're all buddies. You're NEVER supposed to do that. Even innocent people can very easily incriminate themselves, as they show in the above video.
Speaking of Texas and executions, have you ever read about Todd Willingham?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...
Willingham was convicted of "multiple infanticide" for burning his house down with his daughters still inside. He maintained his innocence until the end, and finally found a fire investigator to review the case shortly before he was scheduled to be executed. The investigator provided conclusive evidence that he DID NOT start the fire, but the Board of Pardons and Paroles apparently didn't even read it:
“The only reasonable conclusion is that the governor’s office and the Board of Pardons and Paroles ignored scientific evidence.”
And so, sadly, he was executed.
There are so many WTFs in this case, which is probably partly why the article is so long. One thing that stood out is how the witness testimony changed from "he was frantically trying to put the fire out" to "he didn't seem to be doing much of all" after he was charged with starting the fire (the witnesses became biased). And how the fire investigators could be high school drop outs with minimal training, and how they used gut feelings and super outdated science while investigating the case. Their investigation is really what caused him to be convicted. Pretty sad story, and it seems to happen a lot like this, especially in Texas.
Her belief is that lying is like cocaine, you use it once to get through the case because you know that even though its not strictly the truth the right thing will happen, and then you use it because you really didn't prepare enough, and suddenly its not a 'big deal' in your mind, after all these are people committing crimes right? We're protecting the 'good' people from these scumbags. And you lose yourself.
Exceptionally sad.
Perjury is a serious crime and should be prosecuted as such. Cops should [be made to] understand that lying in court even in small cases carries a risk of criminal charges (in USA, up to 5 years IIRC) instead of internal disciplinary action.
I read the police report and they wrote that i wanted to sell them drugs but told them I had just taken the last of mine and recommended them to my friend.
They were rude and total dicks to everyone. In court the judge admonished them for grinding up on underage girls on their surveillance videos.
They are actually supposed to be set so that 80-90% of the people are obeying the limit (see MUTCD), but that often results in limits that are perceived as being too high by communities.
Seems to me that they should be treated as good-weather guidelines (legally; that's already more or less the case in practice), and focus on the people driving recklessly - weaving in and out of traffic, going 10mph+ faster than everyone else, tailgating, etc.
Technically speaking, some states don't, at least not hard limits. For example, in Massachusetts, on roadways under MassHighway (well, now known as the MassHighway division of MassDOT) jurisdiction, speeds are supposed to be "reasonable and proper" (MGL Chapter 90, Section 17). Exceedance of posted speed limits are "prima facie" evidence of speeding, but not conclusive evidence, so it's technically possible to exceed the posted speed limit but not break the law if you can demonstrate that your speed is "reasonable and proper" (of course if you're not a lawyer or someone willing to spend a lot of money, this argument is not likely to fly in front of a magistrate). The MassPike and MassDCR roads require strict adherence to posted limits.
There are several other states that use "reasonable and proper" similar to MA, but I'd have to look them up to give a list. For the other states, I suspect the absolute limits are in place for simplicity.
That seems unlikely.
> Why have speed limits at all then?
To reduce the frequency and severity of crashes.
To give people a baseline for safe speed. If most people's usual driving speed is "10 mph over the limit," then the effective speed limit is simply N+10 mph, where N is the number on the signs.
> tailgating
It's easy to deal with this effectively on your own. If you're being tailgated, just take your foot off the gas until you're 10mph under the limit. The tailgater will pass you at the very first opportunity. It's magic!
This advice (slow down when tailgated) is also what's advised at MSF training courses for motorcycle licenses also. It sounds counter-intuitive, but in addition prompting the tailgater to pass it also gives you more space to maneuver if things get dicey.
If most people's usual driving speed is "10 mph over the limit,"
then the effective speed limit is simply N+10 mph,
where N is the number on the signs.
In a society where everybody drives, speeds are set not so much by some kind of a law but more by the natural course of human actions.
And never mind that "speed limits" are reverse engineered from observations of the natural speed of traffic in a given area in the first place.[1]
> That seems unlikely.
It happens sometimes. A co-worker of a friend of mine was speeding in excess of 100 mph in a dodge viper and was pulled over and charged with reckless driving. However, the driver had completed the dodge viper training school so the judge ruled for him, and the officer had neglected to add any additional charges such as speeding.
My new rule is to just floor it to get other cars in between me and them.
The amusing part to me was he turned left only about a mile up so there was no real reason to stay tailgating (no off ramps up and coming). Just to note that I wasn't being a dick about things either.
Because speed kills, plain and simple. It reduces the time you have to react to any problem, increases your braking distance and increases the damage and lethality of any impact. The latter two are affected with the square of speed.
There are very, very good reasons to have a universal hard speed limit.
There are? Well then what are they?
Some speed limits were passed to help limit energy consumption - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
Probably because not everyone (and especially teenagers) has "the good sense not to be driving way faster than traffic"
I live in a small town in New Jersey where my mom works for the town.. recently there was a police 'strike' around contract negotiations, where, to prove the town should give them a raise they stopped writing tickets to show the town how much money the police department makes them. What this means to me (and I'm pretty sure is obvious) is that they stopped writing stupid 'money making' tickets and were actually... doing their job of protecting its citizens.
The worst thing about all of this is I have no idea how to fix it.
I can rant on shit like this for a long time but I'll ask one question that hopefully someone will be inclined to share their opinion.
I think one major problem (that most seem to disagree about) is the slowly creeping loss of personal freedom 'for the publics best interest' I think speed limit's are against this freedom, is it really that inconceivable to believe we can't judge what is a safe speed? (obviously reckless driving would still be a thing that police would be used for) or even smaller... Why is it a law that I must wear a seatbelt? Or even drugs.. why does any law care if I want to smoke crack?
this may have been off topic sorry.
If a society decides that it should support health or medical services with public funds then there is a line of logic that conditions based on that support (such as a seatbelt laws, drug laws, or even banning soda) should be allowed.
I don't agree with this, but if I was arguing for that side that would be how I'd frame it.
The seatbelt law is particularly weird to me considering that motorcycles are perfectly legal.
'Judy Knew Her Killer' is a good example of why even backseat passengers should wear belts - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEa8j98eR9g
On a motorbike you want the rider to separate from the bike, if a bike is rolling and the rider is attached to it they are going to get really mangled.
Although your point about not injuring other passengers within the car could be part of it.
There were moves in the EU a few years back to limit engine capacity of bikes.
When I started riding a motorcycle several years back I took a proper safety and rider training course. One of the strategies that could be employed for an imminent crash was literally referred to as a "Superman Dive". Basically, you see you're about to hit a car/truck so you put your feet on the footpegs, hands on the gas tank and jump over the vehicle you're about to hit and then do your best to roll when you hit the ground on the other side. A seatbelt would naturally prevent this.
While hitting the ground on the other side of the vehicle and then going for a roll is far from a good day, it beats going from whatever-speed-you're-at to zero instantly when you're flung into the other vehicle. Since there is no metal box around you on a motorcycle, rather than be a safety feature, a seatbelt would limit or prevent actions that could seriously reduce the chances and severity of injuries.
And lets be honest. We already have to drive regulated cars, with regulated emission, with gas that is regulated, at the speeds that are regulated, and only if we have regulated licenses. Is a seat belt really a big deal? Wearing one will probably save your life. Is that so bad?
Please, I wasn't making a value judgement, but one of consistency. We all know that laws are inconsistent and applied inconsistently, but I was surprised that I'd never considered that particular inconsistency in the seat belt debate. Now I'm curious, do you have to wear a seat belt on an ATV? If the desire is maximum safety, then why a lap belt and not a 4-point harness? Why not a motorcycle helmet!
| The legality of motorcycles is a separate issue.
Motorcycles aren't that cleanly separated: the relevant definitions of a "motor vehicle" cover cars, trucks, motorcycles, ATVs, farm vehicles, powered scooters, and, in some cases, Segways. Also see DUI laws and bicycles.
| Just because people are insane on motorcycles...
Although accidents are more brutal, it's not necessarily insane to ride a motorcycle considering their fuel economy. People do insane things in cars as well (eat, text, read, apply makeup).
As for ATVs, they should require more protection. I saw at least one claim involving loss of the foot and lower leg. It made even motorcycle accidents look relatively tame.
I probably reviewed over 60,000 accident files in my time with the company, to give some context for my impressions that motorcycles are just crazy dangerous, no matter how careful you are.
You have the most biased perspective on this as is possible :)
Edit: In reviewing that many files, most serious accidents had an element of "accident waiting to happen". Cases of "Damn, it sucks to be you. Shit happens." were very extremely in the minority. It radically changed my view of risk assessment.
If by "discretion" you're talking about officers using their judgment in the field to let offenders go without citation, I don't see why video changes anything. Law enforement would still have the discretion to charge or not charge, and if anything, the video would be helpful to supporting that officer's discretion and for training purposes as examples of the right/wrong way to do things.
Falsifying evidence is the opposite of this job. Not just not doing the job, but doing its inverse. Provably falsifying evidence even one time should be enough to be banned from ever being entrusted to carry out this role again.
Extraordinary responsibility should be balanced with extraordinary liability.
Ironic, isn't it, that prosecutors are unwilling to pursue all these potential felony convictions...
The reason? If a person is accused of lying under oath, what's to stop him from lying more during the perjury trial? He's already accused of that crime, so more lies makes little difference. This is why perjury trials are so rare.
Also, "perjury", strictly defined, means testimony that's both material to the issues and leads to a miscarriage of justice. That's a tough standard.
Can you provide a citation or point to some case law for my edification, please?
A reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perjury
Point 1 -- materiality: "Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or of falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding."
Point 2 -- resulting in a miscarriage of justice: "Perjury is considered a serious offense as it can be used to usurp the power of the courts, resulting in miscarriages of justice."
> a materially false statement (1) made with intent to deceive (2) while under oath or affirmation (3).
Necessary but not sufficient. One must still meet the materiality and miscarriage of justice tests.
And IANAL.
Not to disparage that august institution, but I think something more authoritative than a Wikipedia citation is probably warranted to establish whether the result of an action is necessary for that action to be criminal, instead of the usual Model Penal Code standard of mens rea coupled with actus reus.
EDIT: Once again, IANAL. Also, phrasing.
So it seems. In researching this, I see that the "miscarriage of justice" issue has two effects -- it often determines whether a case of perjury is pursued at all, and it affects the nature of the punishment (the sentencing phase). But it's not part of the formal definition that might lead to a determination of guilt. So I was wrong to state it the way I did earlier.
The "miscarriage of justice" issue is important, but it's not part of the definition of perjury -- it only affects whether a case is pursued by a prosecutor, and it may then influence the punishment.
Thanks for posting and correcting me.
However, I would think that "material to the issue" and "miscarriage of justice" would both apply to the potential, or particularly actual, conviction of another person based on false testimony.
Perjuring oneself while under deposition can lead to prosecution without any "miscarriage of justice" having taken place in the form of a concluded trial and judgment based upon said testimony.
The courts might also consider context, where the fact of a member of law enforcement committing perjury might be considered particularly onerous, and worrisome in that it may reflect a repeated pattern across multiple cases and potentially across multiple law enforcement officers if it reflects de facto policy and/or improper training and supervision.
Finally, effective law enforcement in this country is meant to depend upon and engender public trust -- and participation, amongst other things in the direct form of the jury. Failure to investigate and prosecute frankly criminal behavior on the part of law enforcement undermines this foundation.
Witness areas such as those described in the OP, where law enforcement ends up in certain respects being "another gang".
P.S. I might add that, with respect to the incentives that the OP article describes, it appears that the perjuring law officer may stand, directly or through their organization, to gain materially as a result of their false testimony.
Not only are they bearing false witness, they are doing so for material benefit.
Which speaks to the nature of the incentives and metrics described.
No, as far as I know and in most jurisdictions -- for it to be perjury, among the other conditions already listed, there must be a resulting miscarriage of justice. BTW IANAL.
EDIT: the "miscarriage of justice" issue often affects a prosecutor's decision to pursue a case, and it affects the sentencing phase, but it's not actually part of the formal definition. I was wrong.
> The courts might also consider context, where the fact of a member of law enforcement committing perjury might be considered particularly onerous ...
Yes, but that only applies to sentencing, not the issue of guilt. Whether the facts support a conviction of perjury is separate from the issue of an appropriate punishment after a conviction.
And IANAL -- NEC (Not Even Close) -- myself. BTW, I hope that acronyms suffice in such disclaimers. ;-)
The P.S. that I added to my grandparent, I wrote before you followed up. So, it was not in response to your response.
Beginning to feel too much like a lawyer, just writing these convolutions...
I appreciate your level-headed, and researched, responses. Admittedly, I'm going more than a bit on emotion, here.
Without being overly versed in the details of the law, I watch the contemporary results and trends in this country with a growing horror. Of course, that may reflect my own particular circumstances [1] as much or more than an objective (however defined) measure of actual circumstances.
--
[1] Including e.g. aging, competing with production environments that don't have to meet my own's level of expenses including due to regulatory and safety expenses, respect for IP, etc.
In a perjury trial, why do you need to ask anything at all? You have the documented testimony where the accused said X under oath, and you have the facts/evidence proving not X.
Its pretty common for Engineers to deconstruct social processes into algorithms, but the humanity often gets lost.
Let me try: lying under oath happens during someone else's trial, when you're bound by law to tell the truth. During your perjury trial you're protected by the 5th amendment, so the process must by necessity involve information-gathering from external sources. Whether you lie or not then becomes almost immaterial.
In that case, it would increase the roster of crimes the defendant is accused of. Not so for someone already accused of perjury.
> In a perjury trial, why do you need to ask anything at all?
In a perjury trial, the defendant's attorney might try to argue that the defendant didn't know what he said was false. Perjury requires knowing falsehoods, not inadvertent misstatements of fact. Or the attorney might try to argue that the falsehoods weren't material to the issues being tested in court. There are other defenses -- mental incompetence and others.
I agree on principle. I think it's quite corrupt and defeatist to think otherwise, but on the other hand they are just people --as fallible as anyone. Other than watchmen for the watchmen ad infinitum, I don't know that this kind of problem would ever be eradicated. (something like Google Glass for the police could work, if people allow that police work necessitate some ugliness at times (i.e. realize that sometimes drugged out people or domestic abuser need to be knocked out, for example. I mean that occasionally, there is an ugliness people might not want to admit exists but is necessary.)
I think one has to consider the human factor in this and be aware of that when designing policing solutions.
Responsibilities, privileges, and risks should be clearly presented to anyone applying for the position.
Imagine, for example, we applied the same argument to ATC controllers. "Oh they are just human, so they let the planes collide once in a while. No biggie. Maybe 10 days paid vacation" -- No way, right? There would be talks of manslaughter charges, putting better processes in place. Shorter shifts.
I can see "they are just people" excuse being used for those who are involuntarily stuck in the situation. Police works is still voluntary employment.
Also don't buy the "just a few bad cases" excuse. It is not just those few cops that are corrupt that are bad, everyone who sees, but doesn't say anything, is also part of the "spoiled bunch". I would guess most cops by now have seen their colleagues do questionable things and didn't say anything. So by this definition there are very few "good cops"
One can't honestly compare the rigor and checks for a order of magnitudes larger workforce. It's like saying the same rigor applied to space vehicles should be taken to build cars or appliances. I mean, it's possible, but not economically viable. Also, it's not the same kind of adrenalin inducing scenario (i.e you're not thinking, "is this the plane that's coming for me"? i.e. is this the guy who's going to take me down?)
>Also don't buy the "just a few bad cases" excuse.
Ok, but I never made any point about this.
I'm only saying that a system which relies on humans but does not account for their fallibility will have a weakness which needs to be acknowledged and addresed in order to be effective.
>So by this definition there are very few "good cops"
By that definition, there would be very few good people. People tend to give people they know or work with "the benefit of doubt" or even "turn a blind eye".
Would you have such an accepting stance on teachers refusing to turn in a rapist teacher? Betraying a trust must mean you lose your position immediately, but it must also cost enough to make it honestly unattractive.
By not having strong and effective punishments for this we create perverse incentives to betray others.
The silent majority can and does realize this. Proof: http://mashable.com/2013/02/01/reddit-atlanta-mall-manager-t...
I've seen this happen a number of times on reddit. Someone claims police brutality, the thread escalates to the main page, then eventually dies down with the top few posts taking a cool-headed stance. In fact, there have been times when I have found my own opinion on the less moderate side of the hivemind's consensus, and I consider myself fairly trigger-shy when it comes to criticizing the police for doing their job (possibly because I've never been on the wrong side of an arrest).
I've heard the claim repeated many times that "democratic oversight" could never work because people, in general, are too soft-hearted to understand the realities of policework. It just doesn't ring true to me: if anything, people tend to ignore violence if it has nothing to do with them.
I have to disagree. Their job is to maintain social control using violence (and the threat of it). If you take food from a store and give it to a hungry person, you'll face a man with a stick.
What happens when you watch a DVD movie? You get threatened that a man with a stick will come after you if you copy it. Similar goes if you simply have the wrong color, which once meant you were a slave... or engage in civil disobedience.
We can fantasize about how something like "police" would act in a future society, who just focus on real problems like violent drunks and child abusers. But that's not our world. We're like people under feudalism talking about how the king is a benevolent administrator of people's needs.
However, in a city like NYC I (anecdotally) find that in the overwhelming cases I've encountered the police have focused on real problems like violent drunks and child Abusers. For case in point, I was with a group moving frm a party to a bar and we (lapsing judgement) carried a few beers with us for the walk over. Definitely not violent drunks.
An undercover cop car was driving by and had (presumably) no choice but to detain us. In the end, he laughed at us and told us to pound our beers since we already got in trouble for them anyway (seriously, they laughingly told us to finish our beers off to the side while they wrote the ticket). It ended up behind a minor citation ($30) and a wink and get on with your night. Not a big deal.
I don't think it's fair to pigeonhole all or even most officers as someone who will show Up "with a stick". While I lament unreasonable open container laws, these guys handled things very profrofessionally and respectfully.
Maybe I got a skewed sample, but I, being pretty libertarian have been pretty impressed with the pragmatism and respect I've seen with the NYPD.
Not enough, IMO. The should face the same sentence the accused would have. But then, will we find enough cops and prosecutors without sins to throw the stones?
The log would go something like this:
-- Dec, 14 : Found and eliminated Ivan X.
-- Dec, 17 : Turns out that was the wrong Ivan X.
-- Dec, 20 : Found and eliminated the real Ivan X.
You know things are bad when Josef Stalin replaces you because you're overenthusiastic.
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/churchhistory220/Lecture13...
He succeeded in that.
It baffles the mind how he could have got so far. It must be in part because people didn't speak up early on, either out of fear or because they were uninformed.
Unspeakably sad how bad it got. They probably thought it wasn't possible. Perhaps too trusting?
People today can never become complacent. Never be too distracted, preoccupied or inconvenienced to speak up and stand up against oppression. Even when the oppression is from our own elected governments.
I did the followup and a cop read the police report to me over the phone. It detailed how the photographer had aggressively interfered with the police in the performance of their duties, quoting the French profanities he had uttered.
Problem: the photographer was a unilingual English-speaker from Ontario.
When they told me that, I got a little too excited about getting them to give me these exact quotes from the report. The police officer suddenly said he'd call me back. Fifteen minutes later, he called me back, opening with "aaah, actually we don't know exactly what he said."
This isn't even the most interesting case of cops lying that I know of, but you always remember your first.
Actually there have been studies showing that police lie much more than the general public. E.g. here is a summary of one such study showing that:
http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/statistics/statistics_ar...
I actually wasn't arguing that cops are more intrinsically likely to lie, only that they are more likely to lie. Although I do also believe that they are probably more intrinsically likely to lie. Why? I think you're right that of the non-police population, many would lie if they became cops due to the extrinsic incentives to lie. At the same time though, people who aren't comfortable lying about their current/past drug use are effectively banned from becoming cops. So while the study might not prove that cops are more intrinsically likely to lie per se, the fact that there is a significant disparity suggests to me that it's highly likely that part of that disparity is due to differences in who decides to be a cop. And, if it is the case that some significant portion of that disparity is due to selection factors, which seems likely, then my it would be accurate to say that they are intrinsically more likely to lie.
And ... that's pretty much the problem.
In the UK, policing is meant to be consensual, by the "people" for the people. The first police were intentionally recruited from lower classes to avoid the whole high-status issue. It's not a well-paid job. Police Dramas like "The Wire" in the US glamorise police work, where in the UK, we have "The Bill" which makes it look dull as hell...
"The Wire" shows a lot more of the police/political system trying to sweep things under the rug than anything else. There is even a large portion of one season dedicated to an officer falsifying evidence for his own personal obsession with a completely different case.
> Research shows that ordinary human beings lie a lot — multiple times a day — even when there’s no clear benefit to lying.
Years ago, I mentioned the notion of never lying in front of my girlfriend's mom, and she laughed out loud. I was shocked. Is this what most people are really like? I'm beginning to think that I don't like most people.
I'm sure it happens, I'm sure it's terrible, but I'm sure interviewing people isn't a useful means of doing anything about it. The whole premise is that people lie and are incentivized to do so, but somehow this is magically not true of the people telling you about the lies?
> The New York City Police Department is not exempt from this critique. In 2011, hundreds of drug cases were dismissed after several police officers were accused of mishandling evidence. That year, Justice Gustin L. Reichbach of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn condemned a widespread culture of lying and corruption in the department’s drug enforcement units. “I thought I was not naïve,” he said when announcing a guilty verdict involving a police detective who had planted crack cocaine on a pair of suspects. “But even this court was shocked, not only by the seeming pervasive scope of misconduct but even more distressingly by the seeming casualness by which such conduct is employed.”
The article backs up its case with: 1) Article written by a former police commissioner. 2) Quote about one actual case that apparently had some videotape proving a lie. 3) Bronx district attorney decides that the means to deal with lying is to interview the cops who are supposed to be lying about whether they are lying or not. 4) Back to former police commissioner again. 5) Passing reference to 'numerous scandals' 6) Interviews with 'numerous officers' by Urban Justice Center's Police Reform Organizing Project
The former police commissioner writing an article, the supreme court justice, the police being interviewed about their lying, the folks investigating the 'numerous scandals', and the Urban Justice Center's Police Reform Organizing Project -all- have their own agendas, but everything they say is blindly taken as fact in the same article that claims humans lie every day. If you want to mistrust cops because their funding is tied to arrests, you should probably mistrust the urban justice police reform project because their very name is tied to proving the cops are wrong. Why is one side automatically trustworthy? Solely because they support the premise?
I feel like this could be an interesting topic, but approaching it from a he-said/she-said interviewing standpoint is laughable, it should be obvious that interviewing people about lying is downright counterproductive.
And a few years ago, when an officer secretly taped his bosses deliberately fudging statistics, that was just another case of biased recording devices...chronic issue, for sure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
I wonder why the author of that piece couldn't devote 30,000 exhaustive words for the article. Another conspiracy of course.
because they can
At least in Maryland where I live, whether you trust the police less (or more) so than other witnesses is one of the half dozen standard things they ask you in voir dire, and saying yes will exclude you from serving on a jury.
Assuming that cops do actually have quotas, and that their bonus are tied to achieving these quotas, this effectively creates a for-profit police force. Which mechanically leads to aberrations like the DEA agent mentioned in the Caswell case[1] who was paid taxpayer money to find private properties for seizing. And who watches the watchmen?
Note this situation is not unique: in France, the former right wing government put a heavy emphasis on crime statistics, and since the new "left wing" interior minister seems to follow the same policies, it's probably still the case.
1: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/01/17/carmen-ortizs-sordid-rap-sh...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/why-police-...
Does that somehow not apply to the police? If a cop's performance is measured by number of arrests or convictions, and the repercussions of lying under oath is maybe a suspension with pay or worst case being fired, I do not see how this is going to change.
IMHO, law enforcement officials should be held to higher standard.
If I was a suspect or witness testifying in a trial that could result in myself or someone I know getting the death penalty or going to jail for a long time, I'd be really nervous and maybe fail the lie detector even if my answers were completely truthful.
OTOH a police officer who's used to lying to suspects (it's the main tool police have in countries where torture or police brutality isn't allowed), or a hardened psychopath criminal who doesn't see anything wrong with lying to protect his own interests, may be so cool that he/she can easily pass the lie detector.
Who cares about the customers or minorities anyway? I mean not on the paper but honestly?