¶ … law enforcement agencies have often struggled with officer dishonesty and the impact such an action leaves not just in the criminal justice system, but more specifically in court proceedings. When an officer lies, their credibility may be threatened due to their previous dishonest comportment. Agencies must, on a continued basis, disclose information to prosecutors concerning the issue of officer dishonesty if the officer in question must testify against a defendant. That defendant must also be made aware of the instance of officer dishonesty and if this is not done, the agencies and officers may be held accountable as well as potentially lead to dismissal of charges against the defendant. An example of this was seen in Brady v. Maryland.
The landmark case of Brady v. Maryland demonstrated the effects of withholding information or evidence in case proceedings by the decision of the prosecutors to not submit Boblit's confession as evidence. As a result of the court ruling, the 'Brady disclosure' came into effect and requires prosecution must disclose what can be identified as 'material exculpatory evidence' to the defendant. This kind of evidence includes physical evidence, witnesses or statements that could impeach a prosecution witness' credibility.
Police officers that have been dishonest are nicknamed 'Brady Cops' because of 'Brady disclosure'. They are given this name because if any of those cops were to serve as witness in a court proceeding, the prosecutor would have to let the defense know the police officer was dishonest at one point. This not only creates conflict among police officers and prosecutors, but in how law enforcement manages dishonest police officers. Therefore, should someone catch a police officer lying, then the best decision would be dismissal. Messing with court proceedings is just one bad moment in a series of moments that can happen once a police officer has been recognized as dishonest.
Police officers should be terminated because dishonesty leads to distrust and misinformation among police officers as they, under the collective knowledge doctrine, rely on valid information offered to them by other officers. If that information is based on a lie, then it can cause a ripple effect among those involved in collecting the information. For example, supervisors have access to the collected information, and must render decisions based on...
Ethics in Law Enforcement "Sometimes [police officers] may, and sometimes may not, lie when conducting custodial interrogations. Investigative and interrogatory lying are each justified on utilitarian crime control grounds. Police are never supposed to lie as witnesses in the courtroom, although they may lie for utilitarian reasons similar to those permitting deception & #8230;" (Skolnick, et al., 1992) Is it ethical for law enforcement officers to use deception during the interrogation process?
Alleged Crimes -- Civil Action The four alleged crimes in this scenario are: a) an alleged armed robbery and assault on a woman at 2:00 A.M. in a high-crime area; b) an individual refused to comply with an officer's commands; c) that individual was found to be in possession of illegal substances (possibly cocaine); and d) providing false information from the woman who alleged she was robbed and assaulted. Review of the
Officer Accountability A police officer's proven dishonesty is not a minor matter. Ignoring or covering up that dishonesty, if discovered, could be devastating to the police department's credibility. Furthermore, due to Due Process laws in the United States, his/her dishonesty could affect the outcome of past cases in which he/she testified and future cases in which he/she may testify. Finally, the prosecution is required to hand that information to defendants' attorneys.
One police officer for example referred to the chaos as a "holocaust," far removed from the real world (Shankman et al., 2010). Alpert and Smith (2001, p. 483) note that a survey of the public showed a general perception that the police is frequently excessively violent in their contact with the public. According to the authors, the targets of reported abuse are generally lower class males, with a common factor
These individuals are at risk of either confessing to crimes they did not commit or otherwise compromising their rights by virtue of inappropriate police interrogation techniques (Gudjonsson, 2003), a fact that has increasingly been recognized by the courts in their evaluation of the constitutionality of the interrogation methods that were used by police during their confinement preparatory for trial (Kinports, 2007). Conclusion Taken together, the research indicated that police interrogation remains
Officer Misconduct Disclosing Officer Untruthfulness to the Defense: Is a Liar's Squad Coming to Your Town? Officer misconduct scenario Police officers must not simply be held to the same standards as members of the public. They must be held to a higher standard. This is illustrated in the following scenario: a police officers is found to have searched for pornographic materials on a work computer and when initially confronted about this violation of
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