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> An officer lying under oath in order to sway a verdict calls into question every single police report or court testimony from that officer

Are there public databases that track dishonest officers? That could be incredibly helpful to defence lawyers.



Can one be started? Sub-questions include:

1. Are public court-records complete enough to show it?

2. Is it a judgment-call whether a given record shows it?

3. How would list-makers avoid charges of defamation?

4. How do they prevent spam?


I assume such a list would have rows consisting of, at minimum:

  a. link to case's public testimony (CPT)
  b. text in CPT to officer's statement.
  c. text in CPT that contradicts the statement.
(I'd love to see an example row!)

2. Innocent until proven guilty? I'd say best to start with the clear lies first to build the list's credibility. However enough borderline cases surrounding an individual or department can also be interesting.

3. Defamation requires that the statements about the person be false. Referencing court docs about what they said should obviate that concern. Maybe the trick is to bill the db as a "list of inconsistencies" rather than outright lies.

4. I'd be more concerned about DoS attack rather than spam.


Hmm I like how your idea helps with both (3) as you said, and also with what I called "spam".

I had in mind a service where people were allowed to write in their claims of testilying -- how do you prevent it being "spammed" by every criminal with a grudge against a cop.

By asking them to cut and paste text from CPT -- which can then be electronically verified, you can cut down on the casual attempts. Of course a real attacker can get around that trivially.

Another question is where to host it. While truth is a libel defence in the US -- I am not sure that is true in other countries.


Unfortunately, I am unaware of any of those. It stands to reason that police officers speaking openly in this manner about lying under oath don't face repercussions and consequently don't get tracked much.


See this post further down the page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16634769


Not always public, but a lot of DAs have lists of officers who's testimony was not legit, and so they were meant to be kept away.


If they're an officer, they're dishonest.

Even if it may not be technically true, it's safe for the general public to assume this.


The point of such a database would be to bring to light specific cases, so actions can be taken against the officers in question.




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