5 Comments so far

1. KipEsquire April 24, 2006 10:33 pm

   I’m not sure what you mean by “laughed out of court.” Witness credibility is solely a question for the jury.

   And if I remember correctly, the police must demonstrate, in a probable cause hearing based on a snitch, that either the information is credible (i.e., the story makes sense) or the informant is (i.e., he was right in the past). It can’t be based solely on the snitch’s heretofore unproven tale-weaving alone.

2. Sanjay April 25, 2006 12:45 am

   I think KipEsquire has it here, and you’re making a problem where there isn’t one.

   Yeah, prosecutors use criminals’ testimony. And they _hate_ doing it for the credibility problems you raise (in fact it’s much worse than you say it is because their witness is getting something — like, not going to jail — in exchange for saying what they want). So as you imply it should, the testimony of such a witness is usually pretty weak in a judge or jury’s eyes and often is disallowed outright. If it counts it’s because the prosecutor has had to jump some hoops to show everyone why it should. They’d much rather get testimony from the pillar-of-the-community priest who just happened to overhear the deal go down when he was in the basement feeding lame orphans and if they have that the criminal witnesses are shooed away. No problem here; cross it off your list.

3. Libertarian Jason April 25, 2006 7:00 am

   I like th efact that “giving a false statement” to police is grounds for jail time, but police are free to lie, lie, lie…in order to trick a suspect into confessing.

4. doinkicarus April 25, 2006 7:46 am

   Kip & Sanjay — that is a problem that I figured kip would bring up, and I’m afraid I don’t quite have an answer for it. My gut feeling is that there is a difference between the way that “informants” and “witnesses” are treated by the courts, but I don’t have anything other than a gut feeling to support my claim.

   To address your concern Jason, I don’t have a problem with the police lying in order to draw out a confession. Admittedly, I may be a little bit biased, because a close family member of mine is an officer, but the reasoning is something like this: Criminals lie all the time - if they did not, we would not need police officers.

   Whether there is something inherently wrong about using a lie to elucidate the truth from someone who is lying to you is something I haven’t given too much thought - I’m inclined to say now, however.

   Accordingly, if you did not commit the crime, you ought to be able to remain consistent in your story-telling, and, as the saying goes: the truth shall set you free.

5. Sanjay April 25, 2006 12:15 pm

   DI — there’s a difference between “informants” and “witnesses” but the same considerations apply to both vis a vis credibility. You are inventing a problem where there isn’t really one.

   There are issues with police methodology and there are legal checks on what they can do; there’s such a thing as entrapment. Police can “lie” in pursuit of a criminal, but there are limits to exactly what kind of lie one can tell. One can argue about how it should be fine-tuned, but again, there’s not a gross problem here. You are floating around in theory without checking it against reality.

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