Why do cops who lie face no consequences?
by Michael Friedman
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 11/24/2009
What happens when a police officer deliberately falsifies a police report submitted for the purpose of prosecution? Usually nothing.
An interesting exception was reported last month in a front-page Star Tribune article (10/28) about yet another lawsuit settlement paid by the City of Minneapolis. Officer Lucas Peterson submitted a fictional report justifying a false arrest which bore no relationship to a video recording of the incident. Yet, while the lawsuit settlement provided some compensation to the victim, Officer Peterson remains a Minneapolis police officer and presumably is continuing to write reports about his arrests.
Why would Minneapolis choose to keep on the payroll a police officer proven willing to use the power of his position to falsely criminalize and put behind bars an innocent party? How can any of his testimony ever again be seen as credible?
Even if assuming his next report is honest, what use to Minneapolis is a police officer whose testimony forever onward will be attacked by defense lawyers as not credible?
A further perplexity — though not to anyone who is familiar with the criminal courts — is the limited action by the prosecutor, who clearly learned when the criminal case was dismissed months before that his or her police witness was a liar. Unfortunately, every day business as usual at the criminal courts is to accept that dismissal will be the final outcome of a case in which an officer’s false report is behind the arrest.
A member of the public can be convicted of a gross misdemeanor for intentionally providing a false report of police misconduct. But a police officer who intentionally provides a false report of a citizen’s conduct rarely receives any consequence whatsoever. Prosecutors not only decline to refer the matter for investigation and possible charges; they do not even seek to alert police management.
A few years back at the Criminal Justice Institute, the primary state conference attended by most categories of criminal justice professionals, the question of prosecution responsibility emerged during a discussion about racial bias in policing. Several prosecutors in the room spoke about the political inhibitions for alerting managers at police departments or within their offices about false police testimony, carrying the perception of how it might harm their future career.
A related problem is that many did not have confidence in their police chiefs following through, although one defense attorney in the room disagreed. She was married to a small city’s police chief and insisted her husband would want such information to protect the overall credibility of all the officers in the department.
Short of wrongful use of lethal force, the category of police misconduct most deserving of a zero-tolerance policy from the employer’s (City’s) perspective should be willful falsification of a report that could be used for prosecution. Incidents of excessive force are often heat-of-the-moment mistakes that will not necessarily be replicated.
But an officer who comfortably lies with the goal of wrongly putting someone behind bars is not making a mistake under the pressure of circumstances. Such corruption is exceedingly dangerous for all of us, given the tendency of juries to believe police testimony.
In different meetings, I have heard both the former Minneapolis city attorney and the former leader of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association refer to their role in society as “ministers of justice.” It is time for such ministers to earn their office not only by how many criminals they have successfully prosecuted, but by how well they have helped prevent false criminalization.
Dismissing a case in such circumstances is the right act. But it is not enough.
Michael Friedman is the executive director of the Legal Rights Center and the former chair of the Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority. This commentary previously appeared in the Minneapolis StarTribune and is reprinted with the author’s permission.
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