WHY COPS LIE

Police officer perjury in court to justify illegal dope searches is
commonplace. One of the dirty little not-so-secret secrets of the
criminal justice system is undercover narcotics officers intentionally
lying under oath. It is a perversion of the American justice system
that strikes directly at the rule of law. Yet it is the routine way of
doing business in courtrooms everywhere in America.

Count this as one more casualty of the "war on drugs." It is simply
additional collateral damage from using the American criminal justice
system as the battlefield of that war. It stands alongside the
wasteful wreckage of hundreds of thousands of imprisoned Americans
locked up for drug use, and the destruction of Mexico as a functioning
state because of criminal cartels enriched through outlawed American
drug use. The corruption of America's police officers as the most
identifiable group of perjurers in the courts is one more item on that
list.

Why do police, whom we trust as role models of legal conduct, show
contempt for the law by systematically perjuring themselves?

The first reason is because they get away with it. They know that in a
swearing match between a drug defendant and a police officer, the
judge always rules in favor of the officer. Often in search hearings,
it is embarrassingly clear to everyone - judge, prosecutor, defense
attorney, even spectators - that the officer is lying under oath. Yet
nothing is done about it. There are rare cases in which the nature of
the testimony and the physical evidence make it absolutely impossible
to credit an officer's version and the judge must rule the search
illegal. When this happens, the judge rules hesitatingly and
grudgingly for the defense. Indeed, judges sometimes apologize to the
officer for tossing out illegally seized evidence where the cop has
just committed felony perjury in the judge's presence.

Another reason is the nature of most drug cases and the likely type of
person involved. Usually police illegally enter a home, search it and
find drugs. Like the recent scandal in San Francisco concerning the
Henry Hotel residents, the defendant is poor, uneducated, frequently a
minority, with a criminal record, and he does have drugs. Police know
that no one cares about these people.

But the main reason is that the job of these cops is chasing drugs.
Their professional advancement depends on nabbing dopers. The dominant
culture they grew up with is popular mythology glorifying rogue cops
like Popeye Doyle from the 1975 film "The French Connection." It's
reinforced by San Francisco's own sorry history of infamous undercover
narcotics officers promoted to top levels in the department despite
contempt for the law shown by bullying, brutality and perjury in
carrying out illegal searches and arrests. So the modern narcotics
officer is just following a well-worn path.

Maybe the video tape scandal from the Henry Hotel will help change
this culture. I hope so.