All four officers involved in Floyd’s death have been charged, but prosecution alone won’t prevent the next killing.
, prosecutors relied on police testimony to win trials, and those trial wins were essential to earning promotions within the office. Prosecutors described an overt pressure to comply with a police culture of “silence and violence” that all but dictated that prosecutors operate with “blinders” on. This meant that questioning an officer’s version of events, whether there was a dead suspect or just a missing bag of drugs, was seen as a sign of “disrespect” to the officer.
This perverse incentive structure normalized police perjury and created the conditions upon which police misconduct could thrive in small and big ways. These practices stacked the deck in favor of the state in run-of-the-mill prosecutions and often violated the law—both state and constitutional.
Despite the power that police exert over prosecutors, however, prosecutors are not exactly potted plants either. The law gives prosecutors vast discretion to criminally charge and otherwise decide the course of criminal cases. But when police are the ones committing crimes, prosecutors often deploy that power to cover for and effectively encourage the criminality, rather than to combat it and seek justice. After all, prosecutors know where their bread is buttered.
This occurs in overt ways, like charging Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend in order to whitewash a murderous no-knock warrant. But it also takes more mundane forms. Failing to disclose a witness statement that contradicts a favorite officer; dropping charges that involve police misconduct, before a judge can hold the officer accountable in open court; evenagainst police reform.
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