JUDICIAL ATTEMPTS TO CONTROL POLICE BEHAVIOR IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

IntroductionHad judicial attempts to protect suspects by controlling illegal police behavior been successful? Gerald Z. Hallworth [1] concludes that "to rely on state Judges and Juries to control police conduct involves the assumption that, by and large, those Judges and Juries share the constitutional values implicit in the development of effective remedies for illegal police behavior in the United States of America. "It is an assumption of doubtful validity". The exclusionary rule, as he sees it, "probably has very little effect on police (non-testimonial) behavior". As talking about the Jury system, this was introduced into England during the reign of Henry III. England was not "the" cradle of the Jury system. [2] Greece and Rome knew forms of it, as did the Germanic tribes, the Scandinavians and the Normans. As one historian, Sir Francis Palgrave, stated that the Anglo-Saxons had Juries, that is to say, a Jury of Saxon witness, to determine property rights, but he believed that the Jury in criminal cases wads not known until William the conqueror. If history is any guide, the upshot of the controversy over the Jury system will be some sort of compromise. The pressures for reform are very strong, and there are some signs of such reforms in the present legal structure of the United States of America.It is generally believed that, the American people consider trial by Jury to be one of the cherished rights to be enjoyed by a free society. After all, the idea that a man's gut or innocence should not be determined solely by officials of the state, but by a group of his peers, can be traced back to antiquity. [3]Certainly it seems safe to say that in the popular view the guarantee of trial by Jury is regarded as a safeguard of liberty. As Chief Justice Taft noted in Balzac V. Porto Rico, in speaking of the Jury system, none of its greatest benefits is in the security it gives people that they, as Jurors actual or possible, being part of the judicial system of the country, can prevent its arbitrary use or abuse. [4]As the Jury system develops in America, because of the increasing length of court calendars and the resulting court congestion, and the further need for economy in this sphere of civic administration, the curtailment of the right to a jury has been gathering speed. For the improvements in the American system of jury trial can only strengthen an institution which, whatever, its current faults, continues to enjoy the support of a great many Americans.The purpose of this paper is to explore the success of judicial attempts to control illegal police behavior in USA. From the legal point of view, that is, whether there is need for any such control on police behavior. Even if we assume that there is a significant consensus that the police ought to comply with certain minimal standards of the criminal law, it seems that, even in every democratic country, the control mechanisms nevertheless are not necessary in the absence of significant violation of those standards. In this regard one authority rightly observes, that, "Some police have repeatedly violated that most rudimentary notion of decency in the past and that they are doing so today are facts that few would care to dispute"."[5] And if critics of the rule of exclusion mean to suggest that the police are sufficiently law abiding that no such rule is needed, the obvious answer is that if such were the case, the rule would present no difficulty because it would never be invoked successfully.These same observations lead a reject of the claim that while there is need for control, it should be vested within the police organization itself. The police hierarchy in too many cities in America either does not wish to exercise such control or can not do so effectively. Although it is clear that some effort must be made to control police behavior and that such control effort ought to come from outside of police departments, W.E. Burger concludes that, "there is little agreement on the best methods of exercising this control or who should bear primary responsibility for this watchdog function. …