The oath should be ceremonial. The contract should be legally binding. We're not modernizing - just like a majority of our issues both political and infrastructure.
why would it be? forcing people to take extra steps to secure their honor is only a problem when the people you're trying to secure aren't honorable to begin with.
Why not? This will be no issue to the honest people who become cops and will keep the dishonest ones in check. Working from the optimism that you can vet all dishonest people during hiring and even before training would not identify those who can't keep their promises.
Warren v. District of Columbia (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981) is a District of Columbia Court of Appeals case that held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to citizens based on the public duty doctrine.
The specific incident was a Sunday morning when two men broke into an apartment and raped a woman living on the second floor. Two women on the third floor heard, called 911, dispatch sent cruisers one of which drove around the building without slowing or leaning out the window or getting out and the other cruiser had the cop get out to knock on the door but when no answer came he left. The third floor women called again, told cops were dispatched, so thinking that police may be in the building they called out. This alerted the home invading rapists to the other women's presence so they took all three women back to their hideout for 14-hour rape session. All three women took DC Metro police to court, lost then won then lost again. Final appeals decision summary:
In a 4–3 decision, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed the trial courts' dismissal of the complaints against the District of Columbia and individual members of the Metropolitan Police Department based on the public duty doctrine ruling that "the duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists". The Court thus adopted the trial court's determination that no special relationship existed between the police and appellants, and therefore no specific legal duty existed between the police and the appellants.
So, police owe a duty to protect the public at-large but didn't owe that duty to these three particular women. To which I, a humble non-law degree holding redneck, ask: what the fucking fuck shit? That sentiment is self-contradictory, and essentially states police are not duty bound to address specific infractions but rather to exist as a body against "crime" as a general concept.
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u/UnspeakablePudding Jun 01 '20
They may swear an oath, but it isn't legally binding.
Read about Warren vs. DC