Originally Posted by
T-the-B
Thanks. This helps my understanding quite a bit. I do have yet more questions if your patience has not yet been exhausted. :-)
In engineering (especially for holders of a PE certificate) one can consult documented standards of practice and the medical professions have published standards of care. Pilots have proficiency requirements and examination standards they must meet. Is there any sort of uniform, documented standard to guide LE personnel in forming RS or PC? If yes, is it something recognized by all LEOs, does each jurisdiction set its own standards or is it just a matter of "what I could sell the judge"? Second, if a standard exists, what repercussions are there for failing to meet them? A medical professional, pilot or engineer can have his license yanked for egregious failure to uphold professional standards even if no laws are broken. Can an LEO suffer a similar fate? If so, how does this happen?
No there is no standard. There are things you can use because they have be used before, were demonstrated to be fact, and have been tested in court such as the smell of marijuana coming from a car is PC. A standard would be impossible to create and maintain because the criminal element is able to adapt to law enforcement tactics.
There is a part of the law that says if the officer is acting in good faith, not acting out of malice, not making stuff up to gain PC etc. The officer is OK legally. That doesn't mean if he is always wrong(not very good at his job) that he won't have problems. He will have problems with his boss and the prosecutor will more than likely stop taking his cases.
The officer who is found to not be acting in good faith such as acting with malice, making stuff up to gain PC etc. He is going to have many legal problems. He could be prosecuted for perjury. He would lose his certification. Even, if he didn't lose his cert his career is pretty much over. He can no longer effectively testify in court because the prosecutor must reveal to the defense attorney in any future cases that the officer was found to lie or fabricate information. This is referred to as Giglio information and it came out of a court case called Giglio v. United States. This is why officer's do not have the proclivity to lie unlike what many of the general public believe. There is way to much to lose.
FB