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Robin K. Magee
Excerpted from: Robin K. Magee, The Myth of the Good Cop and the Inadequacy of Fourth Amendment Remedies for Black Men: Contrasting Presumptions of Innocence and Guilt, 23 Capital University Law Review 151-219, 161-189 (1994) (340 Footnotes)
The good cop paradigm is defined by a false myth of the police officer *161 as a law-abiding citizen who is chiefly, if not totally, motivated by law enforcement interests when appropriate and who can be trusted to behave within constitutional parameters. The paradigm is both explicitly and implicitly revealed in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. It is an explicit premise of the exclusionary rule and is explicitly revealed through the Supreme Court's deliberate and articulated blindness to bad cops in cases raising issues of pretext. The paradigm is less apparent but nonetheless operative in the Court's increasing deference to police judgments and its expansive allowance of discretionary authority to police. It is likewise revealed in the heightened esteem the Court assigns to police activities and decisions, which is evident in the Court's emphasis on “law enforcement” interests and the relative diminished value the Court places on magistrates' decisions.
In the first part of this section, I discuss how the good cop paradigm is revealed in the exclusionary rule cases. In the second part of this section, I discuss how the paradigm is exposed in the Court's pretextual doctrine. In the third part, I explore how the Court's deference and allowance of discretionary authority in cases fleshing out the Terry doctrine and defining administrative searches reveal a good cop paradigm. Finally, I examine how the paradigm is demonstrated through the Court's elevation of the cop to a position on par with that of judicial officers.
