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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.

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.

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.

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

Isn't perjury in a serious criminal trial a felony?
So nothing happens to people who perjure themselves? Is this a common thing?
Without knowing the details, I have to wonder... any chance it was a legitimate case of mistaken identity?
"Testilying" is a fun, cute name for the crime of perjury.
Beat me to it. Was just about to write the same exact thing. If we common peasants lie on the stand they have no problem calling it what it is. If one of the anointed does it, it's called "testilying" or, my personal favorite, "misremembering". Sure, memory is pretty faulty, but not in the way these cops "misremember".
"'Joyrider' [1] is not a term I will allow in my station, constable. [...] Crime is crime, and should not be trivialised. What next? Are we to refer to grievous bodily harm [2] as 'fun-punching'? Assault with a deadly weapon as 'a laugh and a stab'?"

Standards for comedy were much lower in the mid-'90s. [3]

[1] UK slang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyride_(crime)

[2] UK actual crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievous_bodily_harm

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqa6H2T4aS0&t=3m33s

Seriously. Rock solid evidence that directly contradicts your sworn testimony? That's perjury. That's a crime.
It should be considered worse than perjury.
It's a good name, though, I hope it sticks.

Perjury can remain the term for the crime in general, and testilying can refer to the specific form of police officers systematically perjuring themselves for corrupt or otherwise dubious purposes.

It's worse; it's a specific subset of perjury. It's lying under oath by someone in authority, who presumes greater moral weight during testifying. And that testimony is often used to get people to plea bargain when they are innocent.

It should have an outsized punishment.

Funny that they are taking a dump on street level cops but don't seem too concerned about the perjury of high level officials who they publish endless editorials supporting.
I have first hand experience when I tried to drive away from the police because I knew I had a warrant for my arrest. They started shooting and said I tried to run them over. There were five separate police reports with the same story. I had eye witnesses, but they were addicts like myself. So you plead guilty and go to jail.
That's truly unfortunate. But it doesn't surprise me one bit. This is how they operate. They love trumping up charges any way they can ("stop resisting!") because the more "serious" crime they stop they better they look and then they are able to get promotions. Was there any dashcam or other video evidence available? I assume not or else I imagine it would have been used.
If that was the case, you have have been charged with Attempted Murder on a LEO and I'm quite surprised your not still in prison right now, unless it happened like 15 years ago.

It's a very serious charge to attempt any sort of violence against a Law Enforcement Officer (LEO), and at least where I'm from, prosecutors like giving the max sentence for cases such as those.

This is perhaps the single biggest thorn in my sister-in-law's life. She is a public defender in Marin County.

I feel if we could make the number of times an officer was found to testify to something that was shown to be a lie, was submittable as evidence in rebuttal to all of their testimony, it would quickly make bad officers unable to participate in the justice system.

I would hope that an officer that cannot make arrests because their testimony will always be stained in court will find themselves out of a job.

If you're wondering how California deals with this...poorly.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-sheriff-brady-list-201712...

"California is among 22 states that keep officer discipline from the public, but it is the only one that blocks prosecutors from seeing entire police personnel files."

The institution of police needs to be abolished and replaced wholesale by something better. Measures meant to temper the systemic problems in the institution put in place by the Obama administration have been ripped out[1] by the white supremacist[2] sitting in the Attorney General's seat.

Their actions are counterproductive to the preservation of an integrated, fair civil society.

1. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-announces-...

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/...

I had 6 or so different police officers testify against me during trial. Everyone of them told a different story, and the stories told did not corroborate with the evidence.

Even so, I received the stiffest possible penalty, 6mos jail and thousands in fees. The judge said his conviction was based on the fact that he "thought I was lying".

My life has been severely impacted by this wrongful conviction.

This issue runs deeper than lying police. When the DA and court system are in on it too, there is no hope.

Unfortunately, this problem is not entirely unknown in Germany, too. I have no idea how common it is, but there was one well-publicized case where somebody got beaten up by the police at a demonstration. The police claimed the man had insulted and attacked the officers and then resisted arrest. Video evidence the police had went missing mysteriously, but then volunteers started sending in the videos of the incident they had recorded, and the Chaos Computer Club (at least I think it was them) correlated all the recordings. The resulting video clearly told a very different story from the one the police had told. And I doubt this is an "isolated incident". When you cannot police officers to tell the truth about how they use the power given to them by the state, how can you trust them at all?

And just to be clear, my mother is a retired police officer, married to another retired police officers, so I have met my share of police officers, and all the ones I have met were decent people who valued honesty highly. But that makes the fact the police as a whole is willing to tolerate such behavior all the more troubling.

I don't understand why lying in court by cops is not being treated as one of the worst offenses they could make. Cops are entrusted with the use of potentially lethal force so they should be held to the highest standard. There is no excuse for lying.

It's the same for judges taking bribes. If you can't trust the legal system then a democratic state can't work properly.

Really it's simple - a cop found guilty of perjury should never ever be allowed to be a cop again
I expect some controversy for this observation, but jobs that come with power over other people (like being a police officer) seem to attract a disproportionate ratio of assholes.

I have no doubt there are good cops. But the nature of the job makes it appealing to a certain audience.

It's not "testilying" it's fucking perjury. There's nothing about this that should be made cute.
> "Remember that the utilization of SOD [information obtained from the NSA] cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD." [aka parallel construction]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130...

That is, they are instructed to testilie.

> "Kevin Richardson, the Police Department’s top internal prosecutor, said he believed so-called testilying was nearing its end. “I think it’s a problem that’s very much largely on its way out,” he said."

Very much largely?

Now, without wanting to cast aspersions on a prosecutor, is this guy lying about lying?

Mandatory "Don't talk to the police" link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

Thanks to user turc1656 for re-posting it, can't stress enough how relevant this is.

"Police lying raises the likelihood that the innocent end up in jail — and that as juries and judges come to regard the police as less credible, or as cases are dismissed when the lies are discovered, the guilty will go free."

I'm not sure why the police protect each other when there is wrongdoing. When that stuff eventually comes to light it reflects badly on the entire group. Sure, we can tell people it's just a few bad apples, but that doesn't really hold up when the group continues to support bad apples. They're being complicit.

Holy crap the US always scares me with this sort of insane stuff going on. How do regular Americans feel about this sort of thing?
The police are 100% your enemy once they start questioning you about anything. Record, record record.

Catch them in one lie, and you get off scot free. Source: been dealing with the "justice" system since I was 17, most recently last year where I recorded an agent of the court committing perjury.

Yes, nothing happens to them but most importantly, they've never been able to convict me of anything.

The scandal and crimes aren't limited to the perjurious cops, but include prosecutors who fail to prosecute this perjury (and, even worse, rely on false testimony to secure convictions).
Most companies fire about 2%-4% of their work force a year for cause. Most police departments don't.
Got thrown off the prospective jury pool in Palo Alto when I said "it depends" when the prosecutor asked me who's word I would trust between a police officer and an ordinary citizen. There was no physical evidence and it was going to be a she said/he said case. She said I must have a chip on my shoulder.
"Testilying" seems like a cutesy neologism for perjury.
Leave it to the NYT to write a long piece about the police abuse and not mention the police unions, whose vast political powers are the main force behind the fact that it is so hard to prosecute police abuse, even by a single word.
Are there bad cops? Sure.

But most police are honest. They work a dangerous job, at low pay, and with a mostly ungrateful public. These days, they are a political football with a powerful press working against them.

I'm glad cops are there. It'll be a bad day when the 'Ferguson effect' becomes amplified.

Should the enforcement of rules be stricter or less strict when applied to those responsible for enforcing the rules?
It's insane that we hold police to lower standards than everyone else rather than higher. We let them get away with lying and murder because a majority of society are what, too scared of dark-skinned people? Absolutely fucking insane. This situation will never change until there are real consequences. These officers should be fired, stripped of their benefits, and sent to jail with the criminals they probably lied to put in there. But they won't because as the article says, the "justice" system doesn't care. Justice my ass.
Why is there no baseline mentioned here? This is something that really bothers me about reporting these days. How much is 25 times? Is that a lot? I have no way of knowing. What kind of rate does that imply? How much should I discount police testimony given that information? If it's 25 out of 100, that's really bad. If it's 25 out of 100,000 - maybe it's not that pervasive a problem.
"problem"...
How do you all bypass these horrendous paywalls?