Akademik

(test.tuh.LY.ing)

pp.

Lying under oath, especially by a police officer, to help get a conviction.

Two years after a judge voided his murder conviction in the 1994 slaying of a 9-year-old boy on Halloween night, Johnson is filing a lawsuit against the city and the three Boston police homicide detectives who handled his case.

The suit, to be filed today in federal court, charges the officers with conspiring to bury evidence that could have cleared Johnson. With his parents present, the teenager had asserted his innocence in 45 minutes of interviews with police, but police and prosecutors maintained throughout the first of two trials that the statements didn't exist, according to the suit.

The lawsuit reserves its harshest allegations for Detective William Mahoney — who is already facing disciplinary action for his testimony in the high-profile case — and for the city, which the lawsuit says has tolerated a pattern of "testilying" by police officers.

— Francie Latour, "Wrongfully convicted ex-prisoner faults Hub police in suit," The Boston Globe, April 19, 2002

New York City police officers often make false arrests, tamper with evidence and commit perjury on the witness stand, according to a draft report of the mayoral commission investigating police corruption.

The practice — by officers either legitimately interested in clearing the streets of criminals or simply eager to inflate statistics — has at times been condoned by superiors, the report says. And it is prevalent enough in the department that it has its own nickname: "testilying." "Perjury is perhaps the most widespread form of police wrongdoing facing today's criminal justice system," the draft report says.

— Joe Sexton, "New York Police Often Lie Under Oath, Report Says," The New York Times, April 22, 1994