Polygraph? Forum

[Dcc617]

The AUSA here. None of this is on topic but I find your perspective to be perfectly reasonable and well informed, and interesting.

Prosecutors are, generally, shockingly incurious about the carceral system and are about a self-reflective as a beach towel. Not to shit on the other guy, but his response to a book he admittedly hasn’t read makes it clear he hasn’t read or engaged with the material. Which like, whatever, but don’t act like this is a well reasoned opinion.
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Before I was an AUSA, I came up through the state system, where I wielded plenty of power over law enforcement. I'd detail more but that would be self-doxing. I will just point out that our 50 states have diverse systems and in some of them, certain prosecutor offices wield even greater influence over cops than AUSAs do over FBI agents etc.

Dude, a lot of prosecutors won’t drop charges with the cop’s permission. Acting like it’s the norm for prosecutors to call the shots with cops is disingenuous. Also, if you’re not the actual literal DA or AG, then you’re not calling any shots, you’re a lackey. It’s very common for line prosecutors to have basically no discretion on anything.

Having said that, you're right in terms of describing the problem. Street policing is where the bulk of the systematic damage toward communities of color and of poverty occur.

Classic prosecutor passing the buck.

Also, don’t act like prosecutors aren’t complicit with police violence. All cops lie, all the time. For little stuff and big stuff. Prosecutors at the state and federal level rely on cop lies to cage people. It’s just naïveté to say otherwise.

For every bogus stop and search, there is a prosecutor fighting tooth and nail to uphold it. For every coerced confession, there’s a prosecutor saying it should still be admissible.

That’s not even getting into things like coercive plea bargaining, Brady violations, and trial taxes, all of which drive mass incarceration, among a bajillion other things prosecutors do.

We employ a system in the United States that heavily promotes police-civilian interactions only in low income areas, for reasons that don't actually make any sense. As someone who has spent plenty of time going after white collar fraud perps who drive Bugattis, I know perfectly well that for every perp committing prostitution crimes downtown there is another perp committing tax fraud, securities fraud, child porn etc. in Beverly Hills. Don't get me started ranting on domestic violence. Yet we choose to employ a heavy police physical presence only downtown? It's time to start questioning these practices and doing something about them.

First off, perp? Real cool way to talk about humans.

Also, prosecutors LOVE to act like their main chasing down white collar crime to protect the little guy. I actually think this is one of the most pernicious lies to get people to go down the prosecutor road.

Hey big shot, how many drug crimes did you prosecute on your way up the ladder? How many centuries of human caging did you inflict on the poor for crimes of poverty? Or for crimes only enforced on the poor. Federal prosecutors are basically only doing drugs, guns, and child porn. At the state level, holy shit, only something like 4% of prosecuted crimes are crimes of violence. I do a felony call now where I see 70% possession of guns, 15% cannabis (in a legal cannabis state), 10% other drugs or like property crime, and 5% violent.

We’re well past time to start questioning. We know mass incarceration doesn’t work. We know the police state doesn’t work. Well, it works to protect capital and maintain a racial heirarchy, but that’s it.

But with all this agreement let's remember what we're disagreeing about: you or a poster objected to anyone joining our "fascist law enforcement regime" (paraphrasing). I still disagree with this. Professionals with law degrees have tremendous power in the law enforcement community. Not necessarily quite as much as a police chief, but in different respects it's not clear who wields more power. And in terms of the DOJ specifically, don't forget one other important fact about federal power: We can criminally charge bad cops, and that decision to do so carries huge implications at the state and local levels when we make it.

HAHAHAHA. You did not straight-faced just say that prosecutors hold cops accountable. That is just the biggest goddamned lie on the planet. Cops, every single day, attack people, sexually assault people, steal from people, lie everywhere, and do straight up murder on camera. There’s accountability for literally 1 in a 100,000.

I represented a child under 13 in a detention hearing the other day and I’m still upset about it. A prosecutor was stridently insisting that the 12 year old posed a urgent threat to the community and needed to be caged for all of our protection.

If you’re thinking of being a prosecutor, you should go in with full knowledge that you’re going to hurt a lot of people (mostly black/brown and poor) and devastate communities for prestige and a paycheck.

[Anonymous User]

Also, don’t act like prosecutors aren’t complicit with police violence. All cops lie, all the time. For little stuff and big stuff. Prosecutors at the state and federal level rely on cop lies to cage people. It’s just naïveté to say otherwise.

For every bogus stop and search, there is a prosecutor fighting tooth and nail to uphold it. For every coerced confession, there’s a prosecutor saying it should still be admissible.

The not well-reasoned other poster here. This is just kind of simplistic. When your examples of cops lying are "bogus stops and search" and "coerced confessions," I can't comment on state cases, but you don't describe the reality of federal prosecution. Federal agents don't need to do these things because there are plenty of people committing acts that at some point (enough) people decided should be illegal, and the feds have enough resources to conduct legal investigations. If a stop is bogus or a confession is coerced, my office won't take the case.

Now, that said, if by "bogus" and "coerced" you mean "what the law allows but not a practice I agree with," that's fine and fair enough and all, but the rhetoric you're using makes it sound like you think cops and prosecutors are violating the law left, right, and center. To most people, "bogus" and "coerced" mean "against the law," but if you just mean "legal and illegal things I disagree with," you're lumping together dissimilar things. Planting evidence and lying about it is qualitatively different from arguing over whether particular facts add up to reasonable suspicion/probable cause under current law. You're free to think both are equally a problem, but unless you're only interested in preaching to the choir, talking about those things without acknowledging their differences isn't going to get you to the solutions you need.

Frankly, where lying comes up all the time in the federal context is CIs/undercovers (which you haven't even mentioned). But societally, we've decided this kind of lying is okay, and perfectly legal (as long as it doesn't result in entrapment). This isn't even going to register as lying to lots of people. So when you rant about cops lying and you talk about stops and confessions, it's really easy for someone not already like-minded just to ignore what you say because it sounds like you're just talking about bad people being bad, not problems baked into the literal law.

That’s not even getting into things like coercive plea bargaining, Brady violations, and trial taxes, all of which drive mass incarceration, among a bajillion other things prosecutors do.

This again doesn't distinguish btw things that are legal (even if you wish they weren't) and things that everyone agrees are illegal. No one thinks that Brady violations are okay. Discovery shit like this gives me and people in my office nightmares. That doesn't mean they don't happen sometimes, but talking about them in the same breath as coercive plea bargaining and trial taxes isn't helping you because the latter are a lot more morally complicated (and usually a lot more damaging. Plea bargains and trial taxes affect pretty much every criminal defendant, way more than Brady violations, even though the latter make better news stories). The problem is that Brady violations can be cast as evil cops and evil prosecutors doing evil things at the individual level, whereas the more structural problems can't.

And wrt your point about line prosecutors not having discretion - you're right. Line prosecutors don't have any say over trial taxes, which at least in the federal system are baked into the sentencing regime, and don't have much say over "coercive" plea bargaining, although what coercive means and how that actually plays out also varies a ton by jurisdiction (which, arguably, is part of the problem, fair enough).

The thing is, your rhetoric comes across as excoriating evil individuals for taking part in this system when it's the system that's the problem. And you're never going to be able to change the system by just trying to shame individuals for their choice to enter it, because there are always going to be people who want to go into prosecution to help protect people from genuinely bad stuff. (Paul Butler said that's why he started as aa prosecutor.)

My tl; dr here is that your underlying arguments may have merit but you're shit at describing them in a way that leads to any productive conversation or dissuades anyone. If you just want to take the opportunity to display your bona fides by ranting, go off, I guess.

[CanadianWolf]

Also, don’t act like prosecutors aren’t complicit with police violence. All cops lie, all the time. For little stuff and big stuff. Prosecutors at the state and federal level rely on cop lies to cage people. It’s just naïveté to say otherwise.

For every bogus stop and search, there is a prosecutor fighting tooth and nail to uphold it. For every coerced confession, there’s a prosecutor saying it should still be admissible.

The not well-reasoned other poster here. This is just kind of simplistic. When your examples of cops lying are "bogus stops and search" and "coerced confessions," I can't comment on state cases, but you don't describe the reality of federal prosecution. Federal agents don't need to do these things because there are plenty of people committing acts that at some point (enough) people decided should be illegal, and the feds have enough resources to conduct legal investigations. If a stop is bogus or a confession is coerced, my office won't take the case.

Now, that said, if by "bogus" and "coerced" you mean "what the law allows but not a practice I agree with," that's fine and fair enough and all, but the rhetoric you're using makes it sound like you think cops and prosecutors are violating the law left, right, and center. To most people, "bogus" and "coerced" mean "against the law," but if you just mean "legal and illegal things I disagree with," you're lumping together dissimilar things. Planting evidence and lying about it is qualitatively different from arguing over whether particular facts add up to reasonable suspicion/probable cause under current law. You're free to think both are equally a problem, but unless you're only interested in preaching to the choir, talking about those things without acknowledging their differences isn't going to get you to the solutions you need.

Frankly, where lying comes up all the time in the federal context is CIs/undercovers (which you haven't even mentioned). But societally, we've decided this kind of lying is okay, and perfectly legal (as long as it doesn't result in entrapment). This isn't even going to register as lying to lots of people. So when you rant about cops lying and you talk about stops and confessions, it's really easy for someone not already like-minded just to ignore what you say because it sounds like you're just talking about bad people being bad, not problems baked into the literal law.

That’s not even getting into things like coercive plea bargaining, Brady violations, and trial taxes, all of which drive mass incarceration, among a bajillion other things prosecutors do.

This again doesn't distinguish btw things that are legal (even if you wish they weren't) and things that everyone agrees are illegal. No one thinks that Brady violations are okay. Discovery shit like this gives me and people in my office nightmares. That doesn't mean they don't happen sometimes, but talking about them in the same breath as coercive plea bargaining and trial taxes isn't helping you because the latter are a lot more morally complicated (and usually a lot more damaging. Plea bargains and trial taxes affect pretty much every criminal defendant, way more than Brady violations, even though the latter make better news stories). The problem is that Brady violations can be cast as evil cops and evil prosecutors doing evil things at the individual level, whereas the more structural problems can't.

And wrt your point about line prosecutors not having discretion - you're right. Line prosecutors don't have any say over trial taxes, which at least in the federal system are baked into the sentencing regime, and don't have much say over "coercive" plea bargaining, although what coercive means and how that actually plays out also varies a ton by jurisdiction (which, arguably, is part of the problem, fair enough).

The thing is, your rhetoric comes across as excoriating evil individuals for taking part in this system when it's the system that's the problem. And you're never going to be able to change the system by just trying to shame individuals for their choice to enter it, because there are always going to be people who want to go into prosecution to help protect people from genuinely bad stuff. (Paul Butler said that's why he started as aa prosecutor.)

My tl; dr here is that your underlying arguments may have merit but you're shit at describing them in a way that leads to any productive conversation or dissuades anyone. If you just want to take the opportunity to display your bona fides by ranting, go off, I guess.

Is it your position that the Federal Criminal justice system is an example of integrity and honesty ?

If so, then you need more experience.

[Anonymous User]

Also, don’t act like prosecutors aren’t complicit with police violence. All cops lie, all the time. For little stuff and big stuff. Prosecutors at the state and federal level rely on cop lies to cage people. It’s just naïveté to say otherwise.

For every bogus stop and search, there is a prosecutor fighting tooth and nail to uphold it. For every coerced confession, there’s a prosecutor saying it should still be admissible.

The not well-reasoned other poster here. This is just kind of simplistic. When your examples of cops lying are "bogus stops and search" and "coerced confessions," I can't comment on state cases, but you don't describe the reality of federal prosecution. Federal agents don't need to do these things because there are plenty of people committing acts that at some point (enough) people decided should be illegal, and the feds have enough resources to conduct legal investigations. If a stop is bogus or a confession is coerced, my office won't take the case.

Now, that said, if by "bogus" and "coerced" you mean "what the law allows but not a practice I agree with," that's fine and fair enough and all, but the rhetoric you're using makes it sound like you think cops and prosecutors are violating the law left, right, and center. To most people, "bogus" and "coerced" mean "against the law," but if you just mean "legal and illegal things I disagree with," you're lumping together dissimilar things. Planting evidence and lying about it is qualitatively different from arguing over whether particular facts add up to reasonable suspicion/probable cause under current law. You're free to think both are equally a problem, but unless you're only interested in preaching to the choir, talking about those things without acknowledging their differences isn't going to get you to the solutions you need.

Frankly, where lying comes up all the time in the federal context is CIs/undercovers (which you haven't even mentioned). But societally, we've decided this kind of lying is okay, and perfectly legal (as long as it doesn't result in entrapment). This isn't even going to register as lying to lots of people. So when you rant about cops lying and you talk about stops and confessions, it's really easy for someone not already like-minded just to ignore what you say because it sounds like you're just talking about bad people being bad, not problems baked into the literal law.

That’s not even getting into things like coercive plea bargaining, Brady violations, and trial taxes, all of which drive mass incarceration, among a bajillion other things prosecutors do.

This again doesn't distinguish btw things that are legal (even if you wish they weren't) and things that everyone agrees are illegal. No one thinks that Brady violations are okay. Discovery shit like this gives me and people in my office nightmares. That doesn't mean they don't happen sometimes, but talking about them in the same breath as coercive plea bargaining and trial taxes isn't helping you because the latter are a lot more morally complicated (and usually a lot more damaging. Plea bargains and trial taxes affect pretty much every criminal defendant, way more than Brady violations, even though the latter make better news stories). The problem is that Brady violations can be cast as evil cops and evil prosecutors doing evil things at the individual level, whereas the more structural problems can't.

And wrt your point about line prosecutors not having discretion - you're right. Line prosecutors don't have any say over trial taxes, which at least in the federal system are baked into the sentencing regime, and don't have much say over "coercive" plea bargaining, although what coercive means and how that actually plays out also varies a ton by jurisdiction (which, arguably, is part of the problem, fair enough).

The thing is, your rhetoric comes across as excoriating evil individuals for taking part in this system when it's the system that's the problem. And you're never going to be able to change the system by just trying to shame individuals for their choice to enter it, because there are always going to be people who want to go into prosecution to help protect people from genuinely bad stuff. (Paul Butler said that's why he started as aa prosecutor.)

My tl; dr here is that your underlying arguments may have merit but you're shit at describing them in a way that leads to any productive conversation or dissuades anyone. If you just want to take the opportunity to display your bona fides by ranting, go off, I guess.

Is it your position that the Federal Criminal justice system is an example of integrity and honesty ?

If so, then you need more experience.

No, my point was that the problems with the federal criminal justice system are more fundamental to the way it’s designed than to individual actors behaving badly. I genuinely don’t think (based on 10 years’ experience) that corrupt federal agents and prosecutors, though I’m sure they exist, are enough of a problem to provide a worthwhile basis for criticism/reform of the federal criminal justice system. The problems with federal criminal justice are structural, and people who work in the federal criminal justice system (including me) support it with the work that we do.

The problems with the federal system aren’t that agents/prosecutors are scuttling about scheming how to exceed the limits of the constitution; it’s that the system works as intended. I don’t mean to claim there isn’t any corruption in the system, just that that’s not actually really the issue. You could get rid of all the “bad apples” in the federal system and it would still operate as designed.

(That’s probably true at the state level too but local policing presents a different situation and different set of problems than federal law enforcement does.)

[CanadianWolf]

10 years experience ? You are very uniformed and unaware.

[Anonymous User]

AUSA here and this thread has become a total waste of space.

If you want to just emotionally rant about the universe being unjust and everything going to crap, by all means, indulge, as a few of you have been doing.

For anyone still here who has a law degree and a sense of ethics, I will once again repeat that a career within the justice system needs people from diverse backgrounds, holding diverse viewpoints, so please consider it. If you haven't before, you would probably be shocked at how much of this already exists within the DOJ, but we need to continue pushing in this direction.

[Anonymous User]

10 years experience ? You are very uniformed and unaware.

And you’re not at all interested in engaging with anything I have to say, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[CanadianWolf]

AUSA here and this thread has become a total waste of space.

If you want to just emotionally rant about the universe being unjust and everything going to crap, by all means, indulge, as a few of you have been doing.

For anyone still here who has a law degree and a sense of ethics, I will once again repeat that a career within the justice system needs people from diverse backgrounds, holding diverse viewpoints, so please consider it. If you haven't before, you would probably be shocked at how much of this already exists within the DOJ, but we need to continue pushing in this direction.

Will you be passing a collection plate now that you are done with your sermon ?

[CanadianWolf]

10 years experience ? You are very uniformed and unaware.

And you’re not at all interested in engaging with anything I have to say, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry, but your points are not clear.

If you state your position in a clear & concise manner, I will respond if there is an issue to discuss.

[Anonymous User]

Polygraphs are as accurate as tying rocks to someone’s feet and seeing if they float. Complete nonsense. They’re so bad that they’re not admissible in court, and they admit bite mark evidence in court.

Don’t admit to anything ever, since the real trick for for polygraphs is to make people confess.

Also, don’t be law enforcement, they’re the goons using this bs stuff. Also they’re fascists.

As an AUSA, I think polygraphs are pretty much bullshit too. The problem is that we don't have better methods to reduce the risk of espionage and betrayal. Read up on the fascinating stories of traitors like Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames to see how difficult it is to figure out who these little bastards are.

As for law enforcement being goons and fascists, you're not really improving the system if you have a healthy skepticism of law enforcement but refuse to consider a career within it. What's the point of criticizing it if you demand that the population of people in charge of it remains exactly the same?

I would say at least 50% of prosecutors say they joined to change the system from within. However, none of them do. They end up pulling the exact same horrible shit as all the other prosecutors.

A good starting point for understanding this is Chokehold or Let's Get Free, both by Paul Butler. It's definitely on the moderate side of prosecutor criticism. That is largely because Paul Butler is a former federal prosecutor who wanted to change the system but realized it was impossible to do as a prosecutor.

Paul Butler was my crim professor in law school. Brilliant man - but I wouldn't describe him as moderate. He's an abolitionist.