From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Apr 11 2002 - 07:29:05 MDT
Hal Finney wrote:
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
>>Another faulty feedback mechanism that I advocate
>>abolishing is the idea that evidence gathered illegally has to be thrown
>>out of court. I say, go ahead and use the evidence to prosecute the
>>criminal, and then also prosecute the person who illegally gathered the
>>evidence. One crime shouldn't absolve another crime.
> The problem with this proposal is that it removes the institutional
> incentives to observe the law. If a criminal is caught and convicted as
> a result of illegally gathered evidence, it is unlikely that society will
> turn against the police agencies that made a mistake. People will tend to
> look the other way, to ignore or forgive the problem. Few juries would
> convict a policeman who overstepped the bounds of his search warrant,
> if it helped him convict a violent criminal.
and Samantha joined in with
> Either you live in a society that protects you from arbitrary
> search and seizure and other illegal means or you don't....
and went on to say that if we "victimize" the few violent
criminals we don't really gain in security (or freedom).
But many of us would agree to some moderation here, because we
in the U.S. indeed have lost a great deal of security. It's
hard to credit, but when I was a boy, people in the U.S. didn't
generally lock their doors at night. Why do we do so now?
Mainly because "it is better that a thousand guilty men go free
than one innocent man be sent to jail", and we all have a very
bad feeling about what those thousand guilty men may be doing
tonight.
When Hal writes
> Few juries would convict a policeman who overstepped the
> bounds of his search warrant, if it helped him convict
> a violent criminal.
I think that the judicial system would deter such policemen,
though not one-hundred percent. Sometimes a given cop (or
department) would be willing to face fines or imprisonment
themselves, such being their great desire to put some people
away---and yes, that's unfortunate.
Still, I agree with Harvey:
> I say, go ahead and use the evidence to prosecute the criminal
> and then also prosecute the person who illegally gathered the
> evidence. One crime shouldn't absolve another crime.
Some modern countries, notably the U.S., desperately need
to reinvigorate a public perception that crime does not pay
and that it is *very* important to society that wrongdoers
are caught and punished (technicalities be damned).
And just so that the previous sentence won't be misinterpreted,
I'm saying that the public's perception of crime and the
likelihood of punishment is important too.
Lee Corbin
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