A police officer shoots and kills a civilian. The shooting is captured by the officer’s body camera. Within hours, the media and activist groups demand that the police video of the shooting be publicly released, unless the police and prosecutors are hiding something. The police union maintains that the video should never be released, as a matter of protecting the officer. Should the prosecutor, who ultimately must decide whether the officer gets charged with a crime, release the video?
Law enforcement and the media have devoted considerable time to this question. Some argue that the videos must always be produced immediately in the name of transparency. Others believe that they should never be released. Prosecutors and law enforcement across the United States have no uniform practice. But ethical rules for prosecutors already provide the answer, which is straightforward—though you wouldn’t know it from listening to the public debate that tends to surround these episodes.
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