With the rise of professional police and the growing liaison between police and prosecution, prosecutions for official misconduct will undoubtedly continue to be rare. Nevertheless, it is well to remember that the law of homicide provides the only drastic sanction against policemen too quick on the trigger, and our police standards may well suffer from the reluctance. and ineffectiveness with which the sanction is invoked.
—Herbert Wechsler & Jerome Michael, A Rationale of the Law of Homicide: I, 37 Colum. L. Rev. 701, 727 (1937)