[dragonwriter]

> You can view government as an imperfect tool that attempts to achieve the goal of justice, or your can view government as the definition of justice.

You could also view "justice" in such a way that the claim that a victim of crime "deserves justices" is, to the extent that it is meaningful, completely inapplicable to the concept of criminal punishment.

> It's a question of whether to judge an imperfect tool based on its mechanism or whether to judge it based on how well it achieves the tasks we use it for.

No, even agreeing that government should be viewed as an imperfect tool for achieving justice, its a question of what "justice" means, and whether it can ever be consistent with violating the agreement by which persons are, under the guise of acting in the name of government, granted power over others.

Some would view such violations as, themselves, inherently and fundamentally unjust.

[fluidcruft]

In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice.

> Some would view such violations as, themselves, inherently and fundamentally unjust

Exactly. Which is why the government should be held accountable to the victims of that abuse, not accountable to itself.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice.

By signalling to police that whatever sketchy things they did to obtain the knowledge won't be available to help them achieve their goal.

Example, police use defective probable cause to search a motorist's vehicle; and I don't just mean search, but really search, as in pull the carpets up, remove interior panels, remove all of the contents of the trunk, break down the tires and look inside; it is destructive. Although the car may be re-assembled, they never are returned to their pre-tossing state. The only thing preventing this from happening more often is the amount of labor involved in tearing the car up. Police (Feds sometimes do) don't have to pay for damaging someone's property when they do this. They don't even have to put it back together. Same goes for your home.

[dragonwriter]

> Which is why the government should be held accountable to the victims of that abuse

The exclusionary rule holds the government accountable to victims of abuse, by removing the value that the government sought to gain by the abuse and the expense of the victim (it is imperfect, of course, in that it fails where the abuse was targeted at some use other than criminal prosecution.)

Any mechanism that fails to prevent the government from getting what it seeks by the abuse fails to hold the government accountable to the victim of the abuse.

[fluidcruft]

That argument rests on the asserted non-existence of alternate mechanisms to hold the government accountable when they abuse the general public. Believe it or not letting criminals walk free is actually not the only available mechanism for addressing government abuse. It's just the mechanism our government has chosen for itself.

[cjslep]

> In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice.

Because not ignoring that knowledge enables the propagating of injustice. Fighting for justice is a futile effort if delivering justice also delivers one or more instances of injustice (it is a pyrrhic victory). This idea is the root of the biblical notion of "eye for an eye" (also part of a popular quote of Ghandi).

[fluidcruft]

No, this is not dichotomous-- There are at least five parties experiencing various degrees of harm: victims of crime, law enforcement, actually guilty criminals, falsely accused criminals, and the general public.

The actually hard part is divining the difference between actually guilty criminals and falsely accused criminals. That's the only valid reason for the justice system to act in this space. And that's also exactly what this extra knowledge clarifies.

We can always go full-retard with the utilitarianism. If you're going to allow injustice to happen to the few to the benefit the many, why even bother prosecute anyone for anything? Shut the farce down.

Or perhaps we could remove the bubble wrap that we allow government to hide behind and hold law enforcement directly accountable for its harm to the public and to the falsely accused. We don't have to play moral dominoes.

[cjslep]

> We can always go full-retard with the utilitarianism. If you're going to allow injustice to happen to the few to the benefit the many, why even bother prosecute anyone for anything?

That is quite a strawman coming out of nowhere! You can use Kant's Categorical Imperative for all I care to formulate my previous comment with something like:

"It is acceptable to do an unjust action in order to determine a person's possible guilt in a suspected crime."

(And I am sure the proponents of Utilitarianism were not learning disabled).

> And that's also exactly what this extra knowledge [unjust action uncovering evidence of guilt] clarifies.

Sure, but it is also a great way to damage the general public's well-being. I'm ignoring the obvious hindsight bias that is required, though that could be a separate argument. I instead would like to point out that if there is the idea of a "second class citizen" (a non-victim) whose rights are allowed to be trumped in order to bring justice for a "first class citizen" (a victim), society as a whole will shift to be one full of victims. I don't believe such a society would be healthy and cooperative. I posit instead it would be better for a society as a whole to prevent having victims in the first place (through some sort of comprehensive set of methods, e.g.: community building, decriminalization, education, better mental health solutions, etc) while maintaining equal rights. There does not exist a perfect justice system for each individual, but having the net effect across all of society being positive is a worthy goal.

> Or perhaps we could remove the bubble wrap that we allow government to hide behind and hold law enforcement directly accountable for its harm to the public and to the falsely accused.

I agree.

[fluidcruft]

I disagree about the strawman. You would deny the victims concrete existing evidence of the accused's wrong doing--solely for the purpose of protecting the general public from some potential or abstract future harm. I disagree that this denial is actually necessary for preventing the potential or abstract future harm.

[dragonwriter]

> You would deny the victims existing and concrete evidence of the accused's wrong

Insofar as it is for the victim (civil litigation by someone harmed by an unlawful act to seek redress) rather than the State (criminal process to impose criminal penalties pursued by and at the discretion of the executive branch of government), illegally obtained evidence is not excluded. The exclusionary rule only applies to evidence illegally obtained by the government which the government attempts to use in criminal prosecution. The victim is not involved.

The State represents the public as an abstract generality, not the individual victim. (Prosecutors like to pretend otherwise, but that's a manipulation technique, not reality.)