From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu Apr 11 2002 - 12:01:10 MDT
On Thursday, April 11, 2002, at 03:43 am, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> The trouble with this is you potentially throwout freedom from
> arbitrary search and seizure and security in one's persons and effects
> if you aren't careful. Much illegal evidence is illegal precisely
> because it is a threat to this freedom. I don't think catch and
> prosecuting more crimes is worth that for a minute. It is even less
> worth it considering the very questionable and huge assortment of
> things that are now called 'crimes'.
>
> - samantha
I think Samantha is exactly right here. A little history shows that my
"proposal" is the way things used to be. As people conjectured, the
police never did seem to get around to arresting their own. The courts
therefore ruled such evidence as inadmissible as a way to keep the
police honest. They reasoned that the consistent use of unfair evidence
gathering and the consistent refusal to punish those (on the police
side) who broke the law constituted unfair search and seizure. They
declared that this was in violation.
This is a typical example of why those who don't know history are doomed
to repeat it. I "proposed" a solution that had already been tried. It
apparently had already failed in the exact way that Samantha and others
proposed. A little research on my part showed that. I now believe that
my "new" idea will not work, because it already failed in the past. I
can think of no better solution to make people follow the rules than to
deny them the fruits of their illegal efforts. This also fits in well
with some other legal tenets that criminals cannot keep the benefits of
their crimes. Police who gather evidence illegally cannot keep it or
benefit from it. Although this is a more convoluted and complicated
system, in the long run it seems to make sense and seems to work better.
Samantha, you and others have convinced me that my proposal is faulty
and will fail. I have now changed my mind after a little research.
Like many ideas, it sounded good on paper, but fails miserably in the
real world.
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