Eugene weekly., January 21, 2010, Page 17, Image 17

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the Springfi eld Police to confi rm this went unanswered. A KVAL news story from 2008
ran a photo of Det. Robert Conrad, and Owen says it appears to be the same man, but
KVAL did not give permission for the photo to run with this story, citing an adversarial
relationship in the past with the police (though you can check it out for yourself at http://
wkly.ws/6r).
“Who is going to trust law enforcement if it is known that they commonly lie to your
face? That tactic might be legal, but it is not ultimately effective,” Owen says.
Unfortunately for Owen and the rest of us, attorney Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties
Defense Center says that police offi cer lying “happens all the time.”
The most textbook example of this, she says, is that “controlled buy,” where the offi cer,
pretending to buy or sell drugs, is asked “You’re not a cop, right?” or “You’re not wearing a
wire, right?” Contrary to the beliefs of anyone from sex workers to small time drug buyers
to pretty much everyone else EW asked, offi cers don’t have to answer truthfully — if they
did, undercover operations would never work, and Law and Order would have a lot fewer
episodes. “The cop can legally say ‘I’d never do that. I hate pigs,’ in order to investigate
that crime,” Regan says.
“Police offi cers are even allowed to partake, if necessary,” she says, “Smoke it, snort it,
do whatever they need to do to remain undercover.”
Activists, she says, also run into the lying cop situation. Though in Owen’s case, the
group was followed and fi lmed by a possible plainclothes offi cer, Regan says a bigger
problem is when the cops try to stir up the protest. “You’ve got cops on the street at protests
acting as agent-provocateurs, attempting to incite the crowd to do things that the crowd
would not do otherwise.”
For instance an agent-provocateur might say, “Let’s go break this window,” Regan says.
“Then a bunch of youngsters are running after some guy to break a window and it turns out
that was a police offi cer looking to shut down the protest or escalate their response.”
Technically offi cers can’t “entrap” a citizen; however, according to American
Jurisprudence, “Deception is necessary at times to accomplish the mission of police
offi cers and does not by itself violate constitutional principles.”
Entrapment, however, Regan says, is diffi cult to prove. “You have to prove that the
person basically had no propensity to do what he was entrapped into doing to begin with.”
So those kids at the protest inspired to break windows by the agent-provocateur would
have to prove that they would never had done that were it not for the cop egging them
on. “Entrapment is viewed as a very diffi cult defense to assert,” Regan says.
CHEATER PANTS
Once offi cers have a suspect under arrest, they are still allowed to lie in order to get a
conviction, according to case law. Regan says the classic situation is when an offi cer arrests
several people, gets them in separate rooms and lies to them. Thought that was just bad cop
drama on TV? Nope. Regan says this is something Eugene’s criminal defense attorneys
see all the time.
“Police are allowed to say anything at all in order to further their investigation,” she says.
If he has information, but not enough to make the case, she says, an offi cer will tell each
of the suspects that the information came from the other one, and the suspect thinks “Oh
shit, well no one would know that except my co-conspirator. They rolled on me, so I’m
going to roll on them!”
Threatening things, she says, is another tactic. “A really common one I see is the police
fi nd a little tiny marijuana garden and say ‘I’m going to take your kids away.’”
Regan says the police don’t have the power to take someone’s children away, and “Just
the simple fact that someone is growing marijuana doesn’t render them unfi t parents so that
their parental rights are terminated.”
“Of course it’s a powerful threat,” she says, when the parent being threatened is terrifi ed
of losing her children.
Regan says that another one Eugene criminal attorneys see, especially with juveniles,
is telling them: “If you tell us what you know, then you won’t go to jail,” or “If you tell us
what you know, we won’t charge you with everything,” or “We won’t charge you with a
felony.”
“Absolutely false,” she says. It’s not the cops who decide on the charges in the end, it’s
the prosecutors and the district attorney.
Any promise a police offi cer makes to you is completely non-binding, Regan warns. She
says often there are no witnesses to the promise, and the offi cer can make false promises in
the course of the investigation in order to further that investigation.
Offi cers can also lie to suspects and tell them they found their fi ngerprints at the
crime scene. What the offi cer cannot do is actually plant fi ngerprints at the scene; that’s
entrapment and tampering with evidence, and thus illegal.
TELL IT TO THE JUDGE
Court cases have gone back and forth on the offi cer-lying issue. Basically, when
it comes to a confession, the courts draw a line between two kinds of lying: lies that
relate to the suspect’s connection to the crime, such as “We found your fi ngerprints,”
LOOSE WITH THE TRUTH
versus lies that mess with a suspect’s ability to rationally choose to confess.
Former Eugene activist Josh Schlossberg says he has run up against instances
In other words, telling you that your fi ngerprints were at the crime scene
where local cops have taken liberties with honesty. He fi led a complaint against
would only persuade you to confess if you knew that there was a possibility
offi cer Bill Solesbee, Police Chief Pete Kerns and the City of Eugene on Jan. 14,
that was true. A rational, non-guilty person wouldn’t be persuaded by that, the
alleging that not only was he injured when Solesbee threw him to the ground
reasoning goes. A person of normal intelligence wouldn’t admit to a crime he
during an arrest, but that the arrest was false and violated Schlossberg’s civil
or she didn’t commit.
liberties. Schlossberg says
Telling a mother she
Solesbee falsely accused him
will lose her children if she
of breaking the law and used that
doesn’t confess, as in the case
lie to arrest him.
Lynumn v. Illinois, could be construed
Schlossberg was in front of Umpqua
as coercive, and in that case the lying was
Bank handing out pamphlets calling attention
found to be illegal. A mother’s fear could lead
to board chairman Allyn Ford’s practices of using
her to make the irrational decision to confess to a
aerial pesticide spraying on land logged by his company,
crime she didn’t commit.
Roseburg Forest Products, Schlossberg says, when he was
One of leading precedent-setting cases on letting
approached by Offi cer Solesbee. He says he told the offi cer he
offi cers legally lie, Frazier v. Cupp, a murder case, took place in
had a video camera and was recording the interaction. Solesbee
Oregon. A police offi cer lied to a suspect during an interrogation,
JEOPARDIZE CASES.’
told Schlossberg, he alleges, that he could not have his table
telling him his cousin had already confessed and sympathetically
on the sidewalk and that he could not remain stationary on
implied the victim had it coming for making homosexual
the sidewalk, falsely telling him that he could not stay on
advances on the suspect. At one point, the suspect expressed
the sidewalk without a permit. “You don’t have a permit to
interest in getting a lawyer, and the offi cer told him, “You
do this; you can’t do this,” Solesbee said, according to the
can’t be in any more trouble than you are in now,” and the
complaint.
interrogation continued.
— MELINDA
The offi cer then asked if Schlossberg was recording
The suspect appealed the murder conviction. As part
KLETZOCK,
the conversation; Schlossberg said he was and alleges the
of his appeal, he said his confession was involuntary,
offi cer then said, “Gimme that, that’s evidence. Gimme
but the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that the offi cer’s
Eugene Police
that,” then charged him and grabbed the camera. Up until
misrepresentations were not enough to make the
then Schlossberg was videotaping the interaction.
confession inadmissible.
Solesbee knocked Schlossberg to the ground, put
Finally, there’s “testilying” — when offi cers lie
his knee on his neck and arrested him, according to the
in court. That is illegal, but it happens, as does
complaint. Schlossberg says he had several injuries at the time and suffers neck pain to
falsifying police reports. A 1990s study of New York police offi cers, called the
this day.
Mollen Commission, found that when offi cers illegally stopped and searched a car because
Schlossberg says, “He lied. He said I was surreptitiously videotaping, when it was right
they believed it had drugs or guns, the offi cers would lie in their police reports and under
there in front of my chest. He said I resisted arrest. I did nothing. I didn’t move.”
oath that the car had actually run a red light or some other violation and that they just
Schlossberg was charged with two misdemeanors, “intercepting communications” and
happened to see the drugs or gun when they pulled it over.
“resisting arrest,” and he spent fi ve hours at Lane County Jail. The charges were later
The Mollen Commission also found that the police had no interest in fi xing the corruption
dropped.
and that “no one seemed to care.”
Schlossberg says Solesbee recognized him as one of the witnesses who spoke out
So in a world where the police can and do lie, what should you do if you’re accused of a
against the Tasing of Ian Van Ornum in 2008, which Solesbee participated in, and believes
crime you didn’t commit? Here are a couple of things EW gleaned from this investigation:
Solesbee targeted him in retaliation.
Remember, asking “Are you a cop?” is not going to get you a real answer whether you’re
Schlossberg fi led a complaint with the police auditor, but EPD Chief Pete Kerns later
buying pot or plotting a treesit. If you’re a protester, have someone record your event.
exonerated offi cer Solesbee. Schlossberg’s lawsuit alleges that Solesbee falsifi ed police
It’s legal to videotape the cops, as long as they know it’s happening. If you’re arrested,
reports and attempted to fi le unwarranted charges against him.
stay calm and wait until you have an attorney present to talk. It’s not illegal to invoke the
“My paranoid fantasies are not all that far off. They do this regularly and they get away
Fifth Amendment. Remember, this much about cop shows is true: You have the right to
ew
with it,” Schlossberg says.
remain silent.
‘WE DO NOT
DISCUSS INTERVIEW TACTICS
BECAUSE THAT MIGHT
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EUGENE WEEKLY JANUARY 21, 2010 17