[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.)