Planted Evidence
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Ethics are a human-made construct, a code of conduct established by humans in a certain culture, time and place. When it comes to law enforcement, ethics, or conduct of police officers, are to be those already established by humans who invest in police officers the official capacity to see that others follow them. When police officers do not follow the established code of ethics, they are typically guilty of misconduct. The same is true for the justice system in which police officers play a vital role. As Felix Frankfurter said, “The Court’s authority—possessed of neither the purse nor the sword—ultimately rests on substantial public confidence in its moral sanctions” (Fitzhenry 196). Public confidence in police ethics and conduct has waxed and waned over the decades, but most recently many publicized incidents of police misconduct and unethical behavior have made the general public wary of law enforcement ethics and conduct in general.Before discussing various incidents of police misconduct and unethical behavior, we need a measure by which we can assess the conduct and ethics of police behavior. Since ethics are often an already established human construct, this is easy to do by looking at the code of ethics and conduct guidelines outlined in the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics. The following five guidelines for ethical conduct for police have been taken directly from the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics:
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easures by juries to determine misconduct by police. In the Simpson trial, Fuhrman’s strong racial bias was used as motive. However, experts contend that Fuhrman did not have the opportunity or motive to plant a bloody glove at Simpson’s estate and that, “There isn’t one shred of evidence that points to anyone planting any evidence in this case, let alone Mark Fuhrman” (Mark 1). Nevertheless, jurors felt motive and opportunity had been established despite a lack of evidence and Simpson went free.
The above scenario shows the intertwined relationship between law enforcement conduct and the justice system. Further, the fact that ethics and codes of conduct are man-made constructs makes providing officers with a recognized set of ethical standards difficult. For example, the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics also proscribes that an officer must keep their private lives “unsullied.” The term is vague and begs definition in the modern world. Often, vague terminology like this sets up a double-standard for police officers when it comes to interpreting ethics, which are basically value judgements made by others. What many individuals do in their private lives might be viewed as misconduct by a law enforcement officer, “The status
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Code Ethics, Justice Department, Frankfurter Courts, Legal Consortium, Evidence Ethics, President Clinton, Fuhrman Evidence, Police Academies, Fuhrman Mark, Frederic Whitehurst, law enforcement, police officers, code ethics, police misconduct, police departments, enforcement code, enforcement code ethics, law enforcement code, unethical behavior, law enforcement officer, enforcement officer, crime lab, ethics conduct, police misconduct unethical, misconduct unethical behavior,
Approximate Word count = 2014
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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