testilying

English

Etymology

Blend of testifying +‎ lying. Coined by New York City police officers, appearing in print in 1994 in the report of the Mollen Commission (see 1994 quotation).

Noun

testilying (uncountable)

1. (US, law, informal, euphemistic) The act of a police officer giving false testimony (perjury).
   • [1994, Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and the Anti-Corruption Procedures of the Police Department, Committee Report, page 36:

     Several officers also told us that the practice of police falsification in connection with such arrests is so common in certain precincts that it has spawned its own word: “testilying.“]

   • 2007, Jack R. Greene, “Courtroom testimony and ‘testilying’”, in The Encyclopedia of Police Science‎^[1], volume 1, page 273:

     “Testilying,” police fabricating evidence or lying in court, is a type of police corruption.

   • 2018, Paul H. Robinson, Sarah Robinson, Shadow Vigilantes: How Distrust in the Justice System Breeds a New Kind of Lawlessness: Section III. The Subversions and Perversions of Shadow Vigilantism‎^[2]:

     Shadow vigilantism can also be seen in the conduct of officials within the system who feel morally justified in subverting the system because they see it as regularly and indifferently producing failures of justice. […] It’s also apparent in police “testilying” to subvert search and seizure technicalities (and judicial toleration of it) and in prosecutorial overcharging to compensate for past perceived justice failures.

Verb

testilying

1. present participle and gerund of testilie