Well... than go ahead and start arresting everyone who says something bad about the government on the charge that it’s “Hate Speech”.
“The United States is the only country to take the position that some police misconduct must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence.”
That’s because America tends to believe in these things called “rights” for all citizens regardless of what they may have done.
Ping
A mechanism to keep LEO’s sharp, effective and on the straight and narrow. Sure, let’s get rid of that, right?
I'll believe in that when I hear that Lon Horiuchi is in prison for murder.
If this happens there will be zero incentive for law enforcement to care about any of our constitutional rights. Why bother with a search warrant at all?
How sad that our Justices are so ignorant.
Scalia has a point. Why do people doing bad things get a pass because of a LEO mistake? I understand the need to protect against police abuses but do we let the child molester, islamic terrorist, rapist or other criminal go and feel superior about it because someone errs?
It is already the law in Georgia that an officer may rely on the reports of other police departments (and transmissions on the radio) as "probable cause" for a warrant.
The key is the reasonable reliance on what appears to be accurate information.
If that becomes the law in Alabama (and nationally), it won't change Fourth Amendment law very much.
What happens if the police purposely blunder, to get someone they know or like off? This is a problem, esp in small towns. I know.
The rule is idiotic, and has in some cases led to violent criminals going free and killing/maiming/raping again. If there is police misconduct, punish the misconduct (in the case described, it was not the officers who conducted the search, but the staff responsible for the sloppy recordkeeping.
I've never thought a criminal should benefit from a technical mistake by a LEO. Reprimand or punish the LEO, but facts are facts.
It is insane that when a procedural error is made, and it can be clearly shown that it was not made intentionally or with malice or forethought, that things found after it are tossed.
Our legal system is also the only one I know of in the industrialized world with plea bargaining as well. The entire concept of plea bargaining is insane. If you can prove they have committed a crime, you charge them with the crime.. you don’t plea away the gun charge out of the gate because you’re a lazy ass prosecutor with designs on higher office, and want the automatic win to a lesser charge so you can make your tee time.
If a crime is committed against society, society has the right to demand justice. Police blunders should not preclude that. Obviously that is a broad stroke.
No. Next question?
Should criminals have evidence suppressed, or be acquited due to improper procedures by police?
Crazy as this may sound, but yes, evidence should be suppressed, and criminals acquited.
Case in point. Mr Bennie has a gun and some meth on his person. Officers screw up and grab him in a case of mistaken identity. They then bust him on a drug charge, and aggravate that with gun in possession during a crime. Mr Bennie was not engaged in activity that any reasonable person would identify as criminal at the time. Assuming that Mr Bennie did not have enough meth to be considered a distributor, nor was he uttering threats to shoot anyone, then Mr Bennie was NOT engaged in activity that could reasonably be assumed to be threatening harm to anyone else. Ergo, the cops have no reason to have any interaction with him.
Put this in a different perspective. Government agents harass citizens. They ignore the rights of habeus corpus. They break into the wrong homes and kill the inhabitants thinking they are drug dealers. They “discover” illegal weapons in the home, along with perscription narcotics where the perscription has run out. And subsequently charge the inhabitants for those crimes.
Under the viewpoint of “castle” law, as long as I am not an active, visible threat to anyone in the community, the fact that I keep a balisong knife under my pillow and a sawed off shotgun in my closet for self defense purposes is not discoverable by the police. i.e. they have no basis to even try to obtain a warrant to search my home for those things.
Similarly, almost every home in America has perscription drugs that no longer have a valid perscription that could be abused. Many people have multiple, expired perscriptions for oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, etc in their medicine cabinets. Far over the limit to be considered enough to be charged with distribution. That does not give the government the right to break into a home, arrest and charge a person with drug possession and dealing.
This is exactly the sort of thing that will occur if convictions are granted for evidence of crimes found with the use of improper policing procedures.
It is unfortunate when justice is subordinated to laws.
I think it depends on the offense.
For a non-violent misdemeanor that clearly violates the person’s rights, they should go free. The officer(s) directly involved should be reprimanded.
For a violent misdemeanor and/or felony, they should not go free. The officer(s) directly involved need to be reprimanded, and receive additional training to ensure they get probable cause properly.
Generally I believe that if you are a criminal and you’re doing something wrong, and you get caught, even if it isn’t by the book, you don’t get a free pass - if anything you discipline the officers.
If you are a citizen just living life and the cops violate your rights, you should be able to get the cops significantly disciplined and receive appropriate compensation for having your rights violated.