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LAPD Perjury Case Should Make Us All More Critical of Police Testimony

By Neil Shous, Esq.

Three LAPD officers were charged with perjury Tuesday based on a videotape that surfaced contradicting their testimony about seeing a suspect toss a baggie of cocaine. The video also appears to depict the officers agreeing to "doctor" their police report to implicate the suspect wrongly. No one knows the extent to which police lie in their reports and testimony. But thousands of people get convicted each year based on uncorroborated police testimony. Prosecutors, judges and juries often accept officers' stories uncritically, assuming their word should always be believed over that of criminal suspects. Had a hidden camera not captured the truth in this case, the defendant likely would have been wrongfully convicted. As it is, the judge dismissed the case after the video surfaced at trial...continue to full post

Full post as published by California Criminal Defense Blog on October 07, 2009 (boomark / email).