Obviously there is nuance. I think we can all agree that perjury and falsification of official documents are both unacceptable, as are things like lying to get a judge to sign a search warrant.
But what about other kinds of dishonesty and misrepresentation?
Undercover work. Should police be allowed to misrepresent themselves as members of a criminal subculture, in order to obtain evidence and effect arrests? I think they should. Obviously there probably need to be some ethical guard rails, though.
In general, no problem with this. But, yes, safeguards are needed.
Fake attractions. There's a famous story of the US Marshals mailing some kind of sweepstakes award thing to a long list of wanted individuals, and then arresting everyone who showed up to collect. Should that kind of dishonesty be permitted to law enforcement? I think so.
As long as there is already a valid warrant, fine.
Lying during interrogation. Should the the police be allowed to encourage a confession, by telling the suspect that they already know the truth, or that their accomplice has already confessed, or things like that, even when they aren't true? I think they should.
Saying something in general and vague: "We know you did it." fine. But any references to evidence: " Your friend already said..." or "We are testing DNA now..." "We have your fingerprints...." should have to be actually true. The police should not get to present or allude to non-existant evidence in any legal proceeding, including an interrogation. It can lead to false confessions, or corners a subject into fabricating a story to exp-lain away fabricated evidence. Basically, it encourages dishonesty.
False promises to obtain cooperation. Should police be allowed to reassure suspects that they aren't in trouble, or that they aren't about to be arrested, if it will encourage the suspect to remain calm and cooperative long enough to arrest them with a minimum of fuss? I'm not sure about this one.
OK, as presented, you seem to be talking about a field tool to get someone to come outside, put down the weapon, or hand over the child etc. in order to be able to defuse an immediately volatile situation. I can see that. I'm not sure anything the subject says during this process should be used in prosecution, however.
But in terms of interrogation, absolutely not.
First, the police should not be able to offer leniency ever. That should be the domain of the prosecutors only, and the police can't speak for them.
Second, plea deals are problematic anyway. "If you cooperate, you can plead to this and get 2 years, but if you don't and you're convicted you could get 10 years" creates a risk to asserting and maintaining your innocence. One should never be discouraged from attempting to demonstrate their innocence. This is why innocent people sometimes plead guilty.
Drug-sniffing dogs. To me, this seems like the biggest scam. We've known forever that a trained animal will take cues from its handler's body language, and generate false positives pretty much on demand. Every time I see a traffic stop where they bring out a K9 to sniff for drugs so they can justify searching the vehicle? All I can think is, "it's a scam!" Drugs or no drugs, the cop can probably get their dog to "alert" whenever and wherever they want, just by shifting their feet. That said, at least sometimes they do need to find contraband more or less where the dog "alerted". So I dunno. Say you're a cop, you know the driver of the car almost certainly has felony amount of meth somewhere near the driver's seat. So you bring in the K9 unit, have them alert anywhere on the front left quarter of the car, and now you have probable cause to search for the drugs you already knew (but couldn't prove!) were there. So I guess maybe the proof is in the pudding?
Drug sniffing dogs should only be allowed in a search
after probable cause is determined. They should not be the
source of probable cause. In other words, they should be a tool for the search, not a reason for the search.
This thread is intended for policy discussion, not examples of bad behavior. We already have threads for that stuff, so if you must drag your hobby horse into this one, please have the courtesy to get it over with fast, and actually engage with the policy discussion in good faith at some point. Thanks in advance!
The police have already created an atmosphere of distrust. Deception just exacerbates that distrust. Therefore, deception should be used sparingly and only in limited circumstances.
