Police Perjury – “Testilying” – Perpetuates Institutional Racism, Violence, and Corruption
Published: November 9, 2020
This information is based on research by Chicago Appleseed Intern Cinque Carson – visit our Community Resources page to download an informational presentation and access a one-pager on “testilying.”
“Testilying” (a euphemism for police perjury) is a widespread injustice in the legal system that almost always goes unaddressed. Data from Bowling Green State University shows that, as of 2014, about 6.3% of cases where police were arrested involved allegations of false reports or statements; about 25% of those cases also involved acts of police violence. While the actual frequency of “testilying” is hard to measure, because officers are rarely caught or disciplined, the issue is likely even more pervasive in Chicago. In 2016, it was estimated that at least 1-in-5 Chicago Police Officers lied routinely. According to Loevy & Loevy:
A survey of prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys in Chicago conclude[d] that cops commit police perjury on the witness stand about 20% of the time. Almost all of the police officers questioned in another study admit that fellow officers commit perjury – sometimes rarely, sometimes routinely, but most everyone is doing it. Yet, cops are almost never called out on police perjury, much less disciplined, fired, or prosecuted.
Police Perjury – All. The. Time.
Loevy & Loevy (January 2020)
When Chicago Police Officers abuse their immense power by falsifying information, they are knowingly increasing the likelihood that an innocent person may be convicted; that victims of unconstitutional acts are unjustly prosecuted; that longer sentences are given to people based on inaccurate evidence; and that guilty individuals go free – either because they are not caught or because their cases are dismissed when police perjury is discovered.
Why do police lie and get away with it?
Police lie on the witness stand for a variety of reasons. Some are focused on self-preservation – avoiding discipline – after they’ve committed an unconstitutional act or crime while others may lie to justify their actions. “The idea is that the ends justify the means – that their actions were ultimately for a good cause,” according to criminologist Philip Stinson.
Chicago Police’s well-documented “code of silence” has resulted in decades of violence and compounding trauma for Chicagoans – specifically Black Chicagoans. Recently, after Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke murdered teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014, several CPD officers who witnessed the incident filed false reports stating Van Dyke “acted in self-defense while retreating from a criminal who lunged at him with a knife.” The only evidence proving that these officers lied was the dashboard camera footage of the event, which was almost not released to the public. State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s Office prosecuted them, but the officers were ultimately acquitted of their actions. Still, the subsequent US Department of Justice (DOJ) Investigation of the Chicago Police Department in 2017 confirmed, clearly: “a code of silence exists, and officers and community members know it.”
Investigative fact-finding into police misconduct and attempts to hold officers accountable are also frustrated by police officers’ code of silence. The City, police officers, and leadership within CPD and its police officer union acknowledge that a code of silence among Chicago police officers exists, extending to lying and affirmative efforts to conceal evidence.
“Code of Silence” (pg. 75) – Investigation of the Chicago Police Department
US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division & US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois (January 13, 2017)
How can we stop it?
In Chicago, just 10% of officers account for over 30% of all complaints against CPD, and those with ten or more filed against them generate 64% of all complaints. With those odds, we can assume that the Cook County State’s Attorney, Circuit Court Judges, and the Chicago Police Department have the power to identify, track, and ultimately correct the various issues that perpetuate and stem from “testilying.” Unfortunately, prosecutors’ offices across the country have also been known to follow the “code of silence” by ignoring – and even intentionally covering up – police lies. In 2019, The Appeal reported that prosecutors in all five NYC boroughs “consistently fail to document…signs of officer dishonesty” and that “a review of numerous cases suggest internal systems to track police misconduct are haphazard at best, and intentionally negligent at worst.”
To end testilying, Levine said, “I would entirely change incentive structures.” Officers would be rewarded for reporting on their colleagues’ lies and scrutinized when their stories do not line up…Prosecutors would be rewarded for rooting out unconstitutional behavior. Officers who lie, and prosecutors who tolerate them, would be terminated immediately.
The Police Lie. All the Time. Can Anything Stop Them?
Mark Joseph Stone, Slate (August 4, 2020)
According to Invisible Institute’s Citizens Police Data Project, only 10 official complaints have been lodged against Chicago police officers specifically for police perjury between 1988 and 2018, and of those, only one is recorded as sustained. In 2015, Salon reported that the former Cook County State’s Attorney, Anita Alvarez, had “quietly overruled” a recommendation to prosecute two officers who admitted lying to suppress evidence from the defense of someone they arrested; a response from Alvarez’s Office stated: “We face a reality here in Cook County…that it is extremely difficult to convince judges or juries to convict police officers of misconduct in the line of duty.”
Regardless, police perjury is a difficult phenomenon to alleviate because of the pervasiveness of lying (i.e. “code of silence”) in the general culture of policing. According to the DOJ: “One CPD sergeant told us that, ‘if someone comes forward as a whistleblower in the Department, they are dead on the street.‘” Law enforcement professionals – brass and beat cops alike – punishing colleagues for speaking out against corruption, violence, and racism continues to be the norm. In September of 2020, Block Club Chicago quoted a former CPD officer: “There is nowhere in the department where [anyone] can go and say ‘this is what happened’ without losing their job, possibly even their life.” Police perjury will continue to be an issue as long as this predatory culture and the policies that support it exist.
Now what?
The frequency of “testilying” is hard to measure because it is rarely acknowledged. Along with fellow members of the Coalition for Police Contracts Accountability, the Chicago Council of Lawyers published a series of reports in 2019 examining how the “code of silence” is perpetuated, in part, by CPD’s collective bargaining agreements with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge 7 and the Illinois Police Benevolent and Protective Association (PBPA). Historically, union contracts have effectively made the “code of silence” official policy, “making it too hard to identify police misconduct and too easy for police officers to lie about it and hide it.”
Now, Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers are addressing the issue in the context of the legal system by examining police perjury.
Our Criminal Justice Advisory Committee and our Civil Liberties & Police Accountability Committee have come together to fact-find, research, and demand concrete remedies to address this pervasive issue. If you’re interested in joining with the Committees’ work around “testilying” or learning about what Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers are doing in the fight for fair, equitable, and accessible courts, click here.