The  Toronto Star has conducted an extensive investigation and discovered a outrage. Cops lie. I know, shocking, right?

The first time Toronto police Det. Scott Aikman deceived the court, a judge denounced his “misleading” testimony and threw out a cocaine charge against a man.

The second time, Det. Aikman’s story explaining why he and his partner searched a minivan led to the acquittal of four suspects accused of masterminding an international credit-card data-theft ring.

Aikman “either fabricated or concealed evidence” to justify the van search, the judge said. The four suspects, charged with a total of 321 offences, walked free.

The lede is good for a laugh.  The first time?  Or the first time he got caught?  On the other hand, at least the judge didn’t sigh, shut his eyes as tightly as possible and let it happen.  In a companion article, the Star describes the problem of how lying police “thwart justice”:

Visibly nervous, papers shaking in their hands, Toronto police officers Jay Shin and Joseph Tremblay testified under oath that they stopped Delroy Mattison’s Chrysler Intrepid on the afternoon of July 18, 2011, because they saw him using a cellphone.

The officers were lying, just not very well.

In Mattison’s trunk that summer day were a stainless steel .357 Smith & Wesson revolver and 31 bullets. Mattison, who had a previous conviction for armed robbery, was on his way to a drug deal. Under the law, these officers needed a reason to stop and detain Mattison. Without one, they would never have found the gun.

The problem is they never seized a cellphone or noted the existence of one in paperwork filled out at the scene.

The message sent is significantly different than the message received.  Rarely do we find officers “visibly nervous, papers shaking in their hands.”  If only this was the case.  The cops who is nervous is either a rookie or suffering from bad sushi. The norm is clear, concise testimony presented with assurance and aplomb.  It just happens to be a complete lie, but they feel no qualms about the fabrication as they are certain they are on the side of truth and justice.  After all, the defendant is guilty and it’s their job to make sure he gets convicted. What’s another lie to make justice happen?

The irony is that we rely on oaths, as if we are still living in the Victorian era.  Police officers take an oath of office, swearing to uphold the Constitution and the laws of their jurisdiction.  On the witness stand, they swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”  And we, in our manifest naïveté, pretend that means they’re going to tell the truth.  

Because why?  They will feel just horrible for lying on the stand?  They won’t sleep that night?  They will have betrayed the higher being who guides their moral compass?  Grow up.

 A nationwide Toronto Star investigation shows judges are frequently finding that police officers lie under oath. The dishonesty comes with little consequence to the officer, particularly in provinces such as Ontario where there is no law or policy requiring a prosecutor or police force to investigate the courtroom conduct.

This is what passes for shocking news in the 51st State.

“The credibility of a police officer is sacrosanct. Our entire profession is based on the principle that police officers will act and be held to a higher level of accountability,” [Edmonton Police Chief Rod] Knecht told the Star. “Every instance of deceitful behaviour damages the collective reputation of police everywhere. Once damaged, that reputation is hard to restore.”

See how easy it is to say the right words, like sacrosanct?  By reassuring everyone that he would never, never, tolerate deceitful behavior, we can all breath a deep sigh of relief, confidant that the problem is solved.

Of course, it’s not always easy to know that a cop lied, even when some point-headed liberal judge says so.

At the Toronto force, Chief Bill Blair would not be interviewed. His spokesman, Mark Pugash, accused Star reporters of bias and said “your story cannot be taken seriously.”

“A judge can comment on anything he or she wishes. Such comment, however, does not amount to a finding of guilt,” Pugash said. “The criminal justice system works on evidence, on examination, cross-examination and decision. It does not work on throwaway comments unsupported by evidence.

“You either don’t understand, or you don’t want your readers to understand, the fundamental distinction between a judge’s comments and a judge’s rulings.”

No reason to note the curious juxtaposition of the ease with which the guilt of defendants is assumed, while a cop lying is unprovable in the absence of video from twelve separate angles plus the Pope as a witness.  But then, that’s because the credibility of cops is sacrosanct. 

To its great credit, the Star’s series raises the public consciousness of two perpetual and foundational problems with the criminal justice system, that cops lie and that nothing is done about it.  At best, the occasional defendant walks, which hardly provides much of an incentive to the police witness to tell the truth since he doesn’t suffer personally from the outcome and doesn’t change the outcome for the 100 times he got away with it.

On the bright side, this comes from Canada. It’s not like it could ever happen in the United States, where we have the best legal system ever conceived. I know this because it says so over the door. Aren’t we exceptional?

H/T Canadian Olympic curling hopeful, Ed at Blawg Review.