Testilying

choi

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/ ... rjury-new-york.html

My comment:
(a) The report supplies evidence against three:
(i) the first 13 paragraphs and the last two paragraphs -- all about former defendant Kimberly Thomas and New York Police Department officer Nector Martinez. Because this is well documented in this report -- with photos and court transcript (all appearing in print also). The types pieces are pertinent portions of court transcript (prepared by an independent court reporter present in the courtroom), whose pages have (double-spaced) lines numbered for easy reference.
(ii) Paragraphs 13-18 about officer Christopher Thomas -- and a video clip in between the paragraphs. The clip might have come from a shop, a busybody who happened to be there, or less likely a government camera (which is usually at the intersections).
(iii) detective Michael Foder (2 photos in print also)

(b) testify (v; ultimately from Latin noun masculine or feminine testis witness)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/testis

Latin noun masculine testis (one testicle; plural testes) have the same Latin root. See above link.
(c) " 'Behind closed doors, we call it testilying,' a New York City police officer, Pedro Serrano, said in a recent interview, echoing a word [testilying] that officers coined at least 25 years ago. 'You take the truth and stretch it out a little bit.' "

(d) "By the time prosecutors officially dropped the case in November 2017, Ms Thomas had already appeared in court 16 times, according to a tally of appearances kept by one of her lawyers, Alexandra Conlon, of the Bronx Defenders."
(i) Court docket (written or typed a court clerk) should have a summary of each appearance -- and therefore, how many appearances.
(ii) Bronx Defenders (1987- ; a non-profit organization handling "criminal defense, family defense, immigration representation, civil legal services" according to its website)

(e) What I am interested in and curious about is why officers Nector Martinez and Christopher Thomas would lie.
(i) First of all, there were so many people (including fellow officers). What did they testify?  It is hard to testify falsely, because your colleague might be unwilling to, and even if they would, it is impossible to discuss the details of a lie (a witness could not predict in advance what a defense attorney would ask; and in all trial, criminal and civil, witnesses are sequestered -- unable to sit in the courtroom; only parties can; in criminal trial, state is the party, represented by prosecutors without police). That is what cross-examination is for, which appears in common law but not in civil law (such as European continent, Japan, China and Taiwan). Moreover, subpoenas may compel reluctant witnesses to testify. Further, "missing witness" (witness who does not show up in trial) count against the party that may benefit that witness's absence -- leaving jury to imagine what the missing witness might have testified. I know because I have tried my own criminal and civil cases, for more than two decades.
(ii) United States Supreme Court, starting from the landmark 1963 Brady v Maryland, that prosecutors must handed over all evidences (for and against) to a defendant, in a criminal case. Before trial, both parties (in criminal and civil case) have to announce in respective court filing who witnesses will be, and what evidences they will introduce (except evidences for the purpose of impeaching a witness: he lies on the stand and an opposing attorney contradicts him with an impeaching evidence, which is equivalent to a gambler's "ace in the hole"; a lot of evidences, for lack of relevance to the case, can not be introduced in a trial but can be used to impeach whoever testifies; that is why a lot of defendant in a criminal trial chooses not to testify).
(iii) I try to find the answer to my puzzlement, but fail. Because this NYT report is the first to talk about these cases.