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Police tampering: how often and where
By Alan Dershowitz
[Alan M. Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard University.
His newest books are "The Advocate's Devil" (Warner Books) and
"The Abuse Excuse" (Little, Brown & Company)]
Why do so many members of the American public refuse to keep an
open mind about whether some Los Angeles police officers may have
tampered with evidence in the O.J. Simpson case? It is not as if
this would be the first time police officials have been guilty of
such misconduct. There are numerous reports of police perjury,
planting of evidence and tampering with fingerprints, blood and
ballistics.
In New York, for example, the FBI has proved that state troopers
"faked fingerprint evidence on a routine basis" between 1984 and
1992. What they did was strikingly similar to what the defense
has alleged in the Simpson case.
"They would take a suspect's fingerprints from either a police
station booking card or an object the suspect was known to have
touched, and then would claim to have found the fingerprint at
the crime scene." A special prosecutor has been appointed to
investigate "thousands of cases in all 11 state police barracks,"
and he says that he "continues to be surprised by the extent of
the corruption." But the special prosecutor is running into the
"blue wall of silence" - the code by which many police live and
under which they will lie to cover up misconduct by their brother
officers. Indeed the special prosecutor now believes that most of
the corrupt policemen will escape prosecution because some of
their colleagues "have done everything they possibly can to
frustrate the investigation."
Moreover, the special prosecutors have found that numerous police
officials, including supervisors, were involved in either the
deliberate planting of fake evidence or in the cover-up. Yet most
will escape prosecution and some who were directly involved with
the tampering will still "be working for the New York State
Police" when the investigation is completed.
Nor is such corruption limited to rural state troopers. Virtually
every large city - from Chicago, to Detroit, to New Orleans, to
Boston - has experienced epidemics of evidence planting, false
testimony, police cover-ups and the like. A few cases in point:
A judge in Detroit after listening on one day to more than a
dozen "dropsy" cases - cases in which police falsely claim that
an unlawfully searched drug suspect "dropped" the drugs on the
ground - chastised the police for not being more "creative," but
nonetheless accepted their testimony.
In Washington, D.C., the court of appeals held that "spontaneous
apologies" by the accused to the victim would be admissible even
in the absence of a Miranda warning. Following the decision,
there was an epidemic of "spontaneous apologies" that were
believed by trial judges.
In Boston, police routinely made up imaginary informants to
justify searches and seizures, and the judges believed them.
In a federal case in New York, a judge credited the testimony of
a policeman even though he was caught on tape telling an
informant that if he testified truthfully he would run him "over
with a truck" and if the informant ever said "that I said it, I'm
gonna deny it." The cop then denied saying it, and despite the
tape, the judge pretended to believe him.
In Nassau County, a policeman showed a key witness photographs of
a suspect before the witness was asked to pick the suspect out of
a lineup, and then denied that he had done so.
Police perjury is so routine among policemen that they have their
own name for it: "testilying." A recent commission appointed to
investigate police perjury in New York City, found it to be
pervasive and continuing, even after several previous commissions
had exposed the problem.
Nor is Los Angeles immune from this contagious and spreading
police disease. It is widely accepted that if the Rodney King
beating had not been captured on videotape, the police testimony
would have been decidedly different from what was seen by
millions of people around the world. Indeed, it is widely known
that some policemen carry a "spare" knife or "Saturday Night
Special" so that they can plant them on or near a suspect if they
are accused of using excessive force against an unarmed citizen.
In the Simpson case itself the first document presented to the
court included deliberate police perjury. Detective Philip
Vanatter, in seeking a search warrant, swore that O.J. Simpson's
trip to Chicago was unplanned, even though he knew it was planned
long in advance of the murders. Judge Ito generously described
this perjury as a "reckless disregard for the truth."
Such disregard characterizes much police testimony in Los Angeles
and elsewhere. The American public should keep an open mind about
alleged police misconduct in any case, especially in the face of
so many documented instances of police tampering over the years.
In light of the reality of pervasive police perjury and
tampering, the public should not so quickly assume that the O.J.
Simpson case is different.