From his Blog, Simple Justice, by New York criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield posted about instances of federal judges in New York who made actual findings that certain cops had committed perjury before them.

Instead of publicly reprimanding them, the judges seemed more concerned with preventing damage to their careers. As Mr. Greenfield points out, “welcome to the real world of criminal law.” But why would cops risk losing their job and their pension to lock up any individual criminal? Mr. Greenfield replies, “tell it to all the people that cop’s put away before. Tell it to all the judges who defaulted into finding the cop credible, because he’s a cop, or the juries who bought into the prosecutor’s argument that “there’s no reason why the cop would lie…” There’s a very good reason; that’s just what they do. It’s their job. The courts are a big joke, and they say the magic words that put the bad guys in jail. No big deal, just another day’s work.”

Mr. Greenfield posits that “if there were ramifications for getting caught lying, such as jeopardizing a cop’s career (or more importantly, his pension), they would stop. No perp is worth losing a pension. But cops testily with impunity, and everyone in the system, except the criminal defense lawyer, is there to protect that cop from the consequences of committing the crime of perjury.”

And yes, it is no different in West Virginia.

Read the post here.

– John H. Bryan, West Virginia Attorney.