MICHAEL RACE

New York City police are generally better than most in training. However, by far most murder investigations have at least one police and district attorney error and often many more. The rules, procedures, and protocols are quite complex, and police are often not adequately trained. Most departments are understaffed and the caseload is much too heavy. There is huge political and public pressure on murder cases so police often make mistakes to respond rapidly for the demand for information. The way the laws are written in almost all states, the police officers are not legally responsible when they do make errors even if it results in an innocent person going to jail and the real criminal still being at large. Generally, except in a few cases, the courts will not throw a case out just because police or district attorneys do not follow required procedures, and in some departments there is a good guy vs. bad guy mentality and there is a norm of just getting the bad guys off the streets and not worrying about all the details of investigating alternative possibilities and this results sometimes in illegally hiding these from the defense. Evaluations of this kind are rarely performed, in that most departments see no advantage to uncovering and publicizing the mistakes of the past. This study is also used by many who oppose the death penalty to illustrate the large error possibility with capital cases where execution precludes uncovering the errors and mistakes.

New York City police are generally better than most in training. However, by far most murder investigations have at least one police and district attorney error and often many more. The rules, procedures, and protocols are quite complex, and police are often not adequately trained. Most departments are understaffed and the caseload is much too heavy. There is huge political and public pressure on murder cases so police often make mistakes to respond rapidly for the demand for information. The way the laws are written in almost all states, the police officers are not legally responsible when they do make errors even if it results in an innocent person going to jail and the real criminal still being at large. Generally, except in a few cases, the courts will not throw a case out just because police or district attorneys do not follow required procedures, and in some departments there is a good guy vs. bad guy mentality and there is a norm of just getting the bad guys off the streets and not worrying about all the details of investigating alternative possibilities and this results sometimes in illegally hiding these from the defense. Evaluations of this kind are rarely performed, in that most departments see no advantage to uncovering and publicizing the mistakes of the past. This study is also used by many who oppose the death penalty to illustrate the large error possibility with capital cases where execution precludes uncovering the errors and mistakes.