Letter
to the editor published in the New York Times:
Last
fall, the criminal defense clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law represented
a young black man charged with possession of a knife (recovered from his pants
pocket) after he was searched by a police officer who swore — under penalty of
perjury — that the client was blocking the entrance to a building in violation
of a disorderly conduct statute. A video obtained from an adjacent store
revealed a very different reality — just a young kid talking with friends,
never blocking anyone’s way.
Too
often, though, without a video, our clients’ accounts of the lies told by
police fall on deaf ears. Prosecutors and judges engage in cognitive dissonance
— on the one hand understanding that police lie; on the other, failing to
address the issue in any meaningful way.
Perhaps
this is because our criminal justice system relies so heavily on the assumption
of police as truth tellers. Acknowledging the problem threatens the very
foundation of an already dysfunctional system.
For
those who have experienced the corrupting effect of police lies, however, the
question remains: what will it take to break a police practice that leads to so
much injustice?
JENNIFER
BLASSER
New York, Feb. 4, 2013
New York, Feb. 4, 2013
The
writer is a clinical assistant professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.