What's your point?
The right to refuse to testify, codified as the Fifth Amendment in the United States and section 13 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (and various sections of other nations' Constitutional documents) only exists during court proceedings, and embodies the same principles as the legal right to refuse to make statements which exists prior to court proceedings. You're not making a point by bringing it under discussion, unless you're interpreting it as somehow bolstering your case that all officers of the law are inherently fascists in pursuit of innocent people to harass. Hint: it doesn't.
- In many jurisdictions, and certainly in all of Canada, incidents involving serious injury and police are now immediately investigated by a separate unit from the moment they happen. This makes it difficult for any sort of cover-up to occur.
- In all incidents, officers take notes on what has occurred from their perspective. In the case of excessive force proceedings against police, those notes are admitted as evidence and the victim has the direct ability to challenge the events as the officer has described them through their own testimony.
- It is extremely difficult to testify contrary to video evidence, and virtually all police cruisers are equipped with cameras.
- Physical evidence of injury is admitted at trial, and experts can and will usually be called to give evidence over the types of injuries sustained. It isn't terribly difficult to tell the difference between injuries suffered as part of unlawful resistance to which an officer has responded with force, or a beating in which the officer used excessive force.
- Officers who lie under oath during testimony risk prosecution, conviction, and loss of their career.
- Judges do not inherently take the word of a police officer over the word of anyone else. It comes down to credibility of the witnesses; officers can be made to look non-credible just as easily as anyone else.
Prosecutions for excessive force and/or assault are fairly rare among police, largely because prosecutors will only proceed if they have sufficient evidence to gain a conviction. In many cases, the charges are simply not founded. In many others, police are charged internally under the Police Act (or its jurisdictional equivalent) and are subject to disciplinary hearings which can impose fines, loss of job, and refer the matter for criminal prosecution should the situation warrant it.
I don't have unwavering confidence in the justice system - it is created and administered by human beings and contains flaws. That said, it generally operates fairly well and the people who work within it are genuinely trying to help - including police officers. I do have unwavering confidence that the problem individuals within the system are few in number, and are completely non-representative of the greater law enforcement community.
For the record, I've worked as an active member of Canadian federal law enforcement in two separate agencies for four years. In that time, I have met hundreds of other law enforcement officers from more than a dozen different agencies. Are a lot of us cynics, who frequently see the worst in people? Absolutely. Do I know a single person who has ethically or legally violated their oaths in the performance of their duties? Absolutely not. The vast majority of law enforcement officers are hardworking, underpaid individuals who do what they do because they are passionate about making a difference despite the public scorn they frequently receive. As a group, these people deserve your respect and appreciation, not scorn and ignorant paranoid delusions.
Legally speaking, there are absolutely circumstances under which a person should exercise their rights to silence and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, but it's not because law enforcement officials are corrupt/evil/Nazis/whatever - it's because those rights exist to protect yourself from an imperfect legal system that requires checks and balances. This does not mean you should never talk to the police. That stance is, frankly, ignorant.
First of all I need to apologize for one thing - There was no reason for me to claim you having unwavering confidence in the justice system, need to put that out there. Next, the reason I brought those two quotes up was in order to offer some perspective for the people who do the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" bit in one form or another.
I think we're talking past one another here. Or maybe it's me mixing things up. As I knew the fifth amendment, it related to dealing with the police in all circumstances, but you're saying that this is unrelated to the fifth amendment? If you're right that the fifth amendment only applies in court, and the right to remain silent is indeed a separate one, then that's my mistake.
Regarding your list:
1 - There are two ways it is done in Denmark - Complaining directly to the police, obviously a bad idea. And the second is complaining to the attourney general. To put this last option into perspective, over 500 complaints were sent to his office, regarding police misconduct during police suppression of protests(yes, all protests were deemed illegal and suppressed by police) during the COP15 conference. They were ignored.
1 - That's where they first get the opportunity to fake the story, or skew details, and blame it later on an innocent mistake on their part, should they be called on it by the victim, or a witness. That's another reason not to talk to them: As you say, they're human just like everyone else, and they can easily make a mistake like that. I'd rather make their job as hard as I can, because their job is to build up a case against me, no matter how friendly they might seem. In other words, they're not on my side.
2 - Granted, but not all police encounters happen infront of a squad car, or within it. And a camera being present is no guarantee they won't do it, it's only a slight motivational factor as witnessed in the following case where officers rear ended a car that had stopped suddenly, police charged the driver with all kinds of stuff, even though the driver was maintaining a safe distance, and did nothing wrong. You can see the police's own video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh8lLjtFU9c3 - As you said, such lawsuits are rarely won, or filed. Violent behavior on the part of the police doesn't neccesarily leave any evidence. When I say police brutality, I use that as an umbrella term for all unneccesary physical violence and intimidation employed against a suspect. Few police officers are stupid enough to beat someone so it actually leaves bruises, apart from the NYPD of course, but I digress. The point is, they just need to make it "light" for accusations of brutality to bounce right off of them.
4 - Historically, though, what usually happens is that they're given paid "administrative leave", or assigned a desk job. There have even been incidents where, after an officer's actions are put in question, it is found out that they have already faced similar charges, of which they were acquitted. It's like they have a fixed amount of days of grace - The first beating we can overlook, the second we can claim we deciplined you for/or dismiss it outright depending on the evidence, but the third... We'll have to rely on the judge for that, if it even to court.
5 - As far as I've seen, the supposed criminal is always the one viewed with scorn, whether by the judge or the jury.
I still maintain that cops, by large, are not accountable for their actions given the examples I've cited. Isolated examples one might claim, but they're indicative of a larger sickness. Even when wrongdoing is found, they are either rarely, minimally, or just not at all punished, and the only solace the victim can seek is monetary compensation, like the prosecution of the murderers of Amadou Diallo - His mother got 3 million dollars in compensation, even though the murderers were acquitted of second-degree murder and reckless endangerment.
