If there are no victims why do we have the laws in the first place? That’s my question, and it sounds like that’s your point as well. I’m not sure where I stand on some of the libertarian issues but I don’t believe it should be a crime to leave off your seatbelt if you’re an adult, for example. I don’t believe it should be a crime to smoke tobacco or to go without health insurance.
But I don’t believe that there are no victims just because nobody besides the slut and the cop were there to see each other’s indecent exposure. Or to notice the sex on public property. I think the police chief used that rationale as an excuse to not bring charges against a politically-connected officer.
There are some cases where you just have to draw a line in the sand because the OVERALL effect includes victims, even if each particular instance has no distinct “victim”.
For example, one person peeing in the pool isn’t problematic because the chlorine will take care of it. But if everybody pees in the pool we have a problem. Each person could say, “But it wasn’t specifically MY pee that made the pool dangerous; it was somebody else’s.” And how would you prove that any one person’s pee made the pool dangerous? And yet if you allow anybody to pee in the pool it will endanger others.
That’s kind of a ridiculous example because you can’t prove who peed in the pool anyway, and peeing in the pool isn’t a crime. But it illustrates how there can be GENERAL victims even when a specific victim can’t be identified. I think you recognize that, since you agree that illegally crossing the border onto non-private property is a punishable crime.
The BC forgery thing is a case in point. The courts have all said that the identity fraud, forgery, perjury, and treason of he-who-shall-not-be-named (because we don’t even know his real name) is not the business of military officers who swore to defend the US Constitution, not the business of other candidates, not the business of leaders/contributors to the DNC, and not the business of taxpayers - because none of them has an injury that is specific to them above and beyond the injury done to everybody. IOW, as long as you screw everybody equally, it’s nobody’s business that you’re screwing us all.
IMHO, Bert Lopez was screwing us all when he used the time the taxpayers paid him for and the land that the taxpayers bought in order to indecently expose himself and have sexual intercourse on public property.
That camera was there because the cops wanted to be able to catch illegal activity - probably such as trespassing, which is the wrong use of property that belongs to somebody else (and the wrong use of the property IS the injury; it is how the owner of the property is victimized). If there is a law against indecent exposure or sex on public property, then exposing yourself and/or having sex on that property is trespassing. There is automatically a victim even if nobody sees it or there is no specific person who experiences “tangible” harm from the trespass. The taxpayers of NM own that property, and the laws govern what is allowable on the property. If somebody violates the terms of the property-holder, they are trespassing.
What I am trying to point out is the double standard of this police chief. When he throws out all the speeding tickets because there were no victims then I will believe he actually believes what he’s saying in this case, and will give his argument due consideration - just as I can respect the points/arguments you’re making and recognize it as worth sorting out. What I’m saying is that if he’s going to make that claim, then he better be ready to explain why all these other “victimless” crimes are being enforced when this lone instance isn’t. Which is the same consistency you seem to be advocating for.