Robert Davis was recently fired from the Wake County Sheriff’s Office for providing false testimony. After his dishonest testimony came to light, the result of irrefutable video evidence, those cases that Davis had pending in Wake County were dismissed by our elected DA.
However, the firing of Deputy Davis and the dismissing of all of his pending cases, including over one hundred DWI charges is merely one step in the right direction. After all, Davis was a Wake County Sheriff’s Deputy for over 18 years. How is it that it is sufficient to dismiss his pending cases but is not enough to warrant investigation into those other cases in which he participated? What is the likelihood that this dishonest deputy was only dishonest in his current cases? Doesn’t justice require that we ensure all the cases in which his testimony was critical come back under review? Does it not stand to reason that innocent people have been wrongfully convicted and that we have a duty to right those injustices?
Moreover, what safeguards are we putting into place to ensure that this kind of dishonesty does not recur? How do we know that it is not more pervasive? It would seem that this case should provide the impetus to begin an investigation, not to close a chapter. It is also curious that Deputy Davis is not to be charged with perjury given his apparently dishonest sworn testimony.
We should all be concerned with Deputy Davis’ motivation to be dishonest. Many folks assume that police have no reason to lie. But people may fail to realize the pressure law enforcement officers feel to keep up their arrest statistics, to cover for other officers, to make their own conduct look better and, quite simply, to win. Clearly Davis was motivated to lie, but why? Unless we insist law enforcement shine light on the reasons why this kind of dishonesty occurs we should expect it to occur over and over again. In the alternative, it remains for us as criminal defense lawyers to police the police.
