Chapter 4 Flashcards
Ethics
Rules or belief systems that govern how people should behave when conducting themselves privately and in public. Essentially, ethics define what doing right or acting in correct manners means and what such behavior looks like and entails.
Question in understanding ethics: “Whose ethics” and “which is right.”
Deontological ethics: The deontological ethics does not consider consequences but instead examines one’s duty to act. The 18th Century Philosopher, Immanuel Kant, expanded and developed this area of philosophy. He posited that people should act from good intent, from a “categorical imperative” to act in certain ways.
Types of ethics
Absolute Ethics: The type of ethics where there are only two sides-good or bad, black or white. Some examples of unethical behaviors would be bribery, extortion, excessive force, and perjury. More akin to what Kant espoused – more deontological.
Relative ethics: The gray area of ethics that is not so clear-cut, such as releasing a serious offender in order to use him later as an informant. Example: You know that the suspect you have captured knows where the nuclear bomb is hidden, and you only have three hours before the bomb goes off. Do you torture the suspect? Do you threaten his children and his wife? What is ethical in this situation? Under Kant’s theory of ethics, you would never do these things, but under a relativistic theory of ethics, you might.
Utilitarianism: In ethics, is a belief that the proper course of action is that which maximizes utility, usually defined as that which maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering. The ends justify the means. Same question as above. Under a utilitarian system of ethics, you would weigh the pain and suffering of one person against the pain and suffering of thousands and you would torture the suspect to get the answer.
“Principle of double effect”: When one commits an act to achieve a good end and an inevitable but intended effect is negative, then the act might be justified because the greater good to the community outweighs the negative effect.
Noble Cause Corruption: A situation in which one commits an unethical act but for the greater good; for example, a police officer violates the Constitution in order to capture a serious offender. Corruption committed in the name of a good end, corruption committed to achieve a good end, such as an illegal search, or violating a suspect’s constitutional rights so you can prevent a serious and violent crime from happening or to protect someone else.
Ethics in policing
Police corruption: Misconduct by police officers that can involve but is not limited to illegal activities for economic gain, gratuities, favors, and so on.
The Knapp Commission investigated police corruption in the early 1970s, finding that there are two primary types of corrupt police officers: the “meat-eaters” and the “grass-eaters.”
Meat-eaters aggressively seek out situations that they can exploit for financial gain, including gambling, narcotics, and other lucrative enterprises.
Grass-eaters constitute the overwhelming majority of those officers who accept payoffs, gratuities from contractors, tow-truck operators, gamblers, and the like.
To Inform or Not to Inform - The Code of Silence: Police officers tend to not tell on fellow officers. Creation and maintenance of an internal affairs unit and prosecution of law-breaking police officers are critical to maintaining the integrity of officers.
The Law Enforcement Code of Ethics and Oath of Honor:
LECE adopted by IACP in 1957; several revisions. Covers areas like police officers’ primary responsibilities, performance of one’s duties, discretion, use of force, confidentiality, integrity, cooperation with other officers and agencies, personal/professional capabilities, and private life.
Law Enforcement Oath of Honor: shorter code.
Accepted and deviant lying:
Slippery Slope: It is the idea that a small first step can lead to more serious behaviors, such as the receipt of minor gratuities by police officers believed to eventually cause them to desire or demand receipt of items of greater value.
Accepted Lying: It includes police activities intended to apprehend or entrap suspects. All undercover work is lying.
Deviant Lying: It refers to occasions when officers commit perjury to convict suspects or are deceptive about some activity that is illegal or unacceptable to the department or public in general. This type of lying misuses the systems of justice and tips the scales, in violation of the law or the constitution.
Accepting gratuities:
Gratuities: It is the receipt of some benefit (a meal, gift, or some other favor) either for free or for a reduced price. Gratuities are commonly accepted by many police officers.
Slippery slope argument: This argument holds that once gratuities are received, police officers’ ethics are subverted, and they are open to additional breaches of their integrity.
Obligation to serve donors: When officers accept minor gifts or gratuities, they may then be obligated to provide the donors with some special service or accommodation.
Officers have no legitimate right to accept compensation in the form of a gratuity.
Greed and Temptation:
Huge temptation confront today’s police officers (ie. drug money).
Some find it impossible to overcome.
Police leaders can create an environment that will help the officer resist the temptations.
Ethics in courts
Evolving Standards of Conduct:
Roscoe Pound’s Speech: Gave a speech in 1906 concerning popular dissatisfaction with the administration of justice and stimulated thinking around rule of judicial conduct.
Model Code of Judicial Conduct: Adopted by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association in 1990. It provides a set of ethical principles and guidelines for judges.
The Judge:
Avoid conduct ruining their image in public: Judges should not only do what is just but must also avoid conduct that would create in the public’s mind a perception that their ability to carry out responsibilities with integrity, impartiality, and competence is impaired.
Judges can engage in inappropriate conduct in many ways:
Abuse of their judicial power against litigants and attorneys who appear before them;
Inappropriate sanctions and decisions;
Showing favoritism or bias;
Failure to be impartial and competent – gender and racial bias, harassment, legal incompetence;
Conflicts of interest – business, personal, social or family; and,
Bad or illegal personal conduct – sexual misconduct, financial misconduct, and statement of opinion.
Create a responding “ethical alarm system.”
Prosecutors:
Must closely guard their ethical behavior. Number 1 job of a prosecutor is not to “win the case,” but to “ensure that justice is done.”
Many instances of prosecutorial misconduct. Lying about evidence, withholding evidence from the defense, putting on witnesses he knows or strongly suspects are lying, charging the wrong persons to get a win, failing to charge someone due to bias, lying to the court, and putting politics ahead of justice.
Prosecutorial misconduct will not end until appellate courts are stricter and offer a more consistent approach.
Ethical Conduct of Federal Employees:
The Ethics Reform Act: Addresses areas of ethical concern.
The Whistleblower Protection Act: A federal law prohibiting reprisal against employees who reveal information concerning a violation of law, rules, or regulations; gross mismanagement or waste of funds; an abuse of authority and so on.
Common moral principles
Some common moral principles, Cohen:
Treat others as ends in themselves and not as mere means to winning cases.
Treat clients and other professional relations in a similar fashion.
Do not deliberately engage in behavior apt to deceive the court as to truth.
Be willing, if necessary, to make reasonable personal sacrifices of time, money, and popularity for what you believe to be a morally good cause.
Do not give money to, or accept money from, clients for wrongful purposes or in wrongful amounts.
Avoid harming others in the course of representing your client.
Be loyal to your client, and do not betray his or her confidence.
Test of common sense: Does the act make sense, or would someone look askance at it?
Test of publicity: Would you be willing to see what you did highlighted on the front page of the local newspaper?
Test of one’s best self: Will the act fit the concept of oneself at one’s best?
Test of one’s most admired personality: What would one’s parents or minister do in this situation?
Test of hurting someone else: Will it cause pain for someone?
Test of foresight: What is the long-term likely result?
Other questions that a criminal justice practitioner might ask are “Is it worth my job and career?” and “Is my decision legal?”
“The bell, the book, and the candle”: Ask yourself these questions: Do bells or warning buzzers go off as I consider my choice of actions? Does it violate any laws or codes in the statute or ordinance books? Will my decision withstand the light of day or spotlight of publicity (the candle)?
