In general if a criminal goes free despite having evidence against him just because the evidence was not obtained legally ... it sounds rather wrong to me.
> In general if a criminal goes free despite having evidence against him just because the evidence was not obtained legally ... it sounds rather wrong to me.
Then you are terribly shortsighted. It is "innocent until proven" guilty" for many very good reasons. We have only the word of the government that this man is guilty.
The government has ALL the cards and power, the innocent need protection from it more than we need to punish the guilty.
The accused aren't geniuses; the fact that the government didn't build a solid case against him with physical evidence, wiretaps, keyloggers, etc. means he really wasn't that important. The fact that they have such a high profile suspect and can't make the case against him without a fishing expedition makes me VERY suspicious.
The fact that they are willing to drop the case makes me wonder how much of what they have is induced, entrapped, or outright fabricated.
I'm not talking about _this_ particular case. (I'm not sure that accessing a dubious website is in itself a crime; obviously the police accessed the site too).
Presumably the police _can_ prove it, but the court simply refuses to even _see_ the evidence.
> Presumably the police _can_ prove it, but the court simply refuses to even _see_ the evidence.
Then you are required to assume that the police CANNOT prove it.
I have several system administrator friends who have actually dealt with CP on their systems. Every single time it was discovered to have been planted by the FBI attempting to fish for pervs.
So, yeah, I'm gonna give the accused a whopping benefit of the doubt. CP is such a hot button issue and so amazingly rare that I always assume that the government or its agents are up to something nefarious first and that someone is a despicable human being second.
Perhaps my Bayesian prior is wrong, but I kinda doubt it.
That would encourage police to gather evidence illegally all the time, because it works. Which is consider a worse state of affairs than guilty people going free.
Just imagine undercover police walking into every home that left their door unlocked and having a snoop around. They could do that and get some convictions out of it.
No. That does not follow at all. What it means is that the undercover police illegally collecting evidence is convicted, _and_ the child pornographer is convicted.
It's still evidence, just less credible evidence. Hopefully the prosecutor has other evidence as well.
It could also be the case that it's evidence that was collected by someone who didn't commit the crime, but would currently be excluded by the fruit of the poisoned tree doctrine.
The credibility of the police is usually not the main basis of assessing evidence. It's not really that often that the authenticity of evidence is called into question at all. But sure, it could happend.
We are talking about them breaking the law. The reason there credibility usually isn't questioned is because they know that if they do that the evidence will be rejected so they are compelled to be honest. Once that is out why wouldn't they be questioned they are proving a willingness to do something illegal to get a conviction. Manufacturing evidence isn't unbelievable at that point.
Yeah, meanwhile, you're going to have cases where you sent someone to prison(or perhaps killed them) and have absolutely no reason to believe the verdict was undeserved. Everyone thinks that the court cases will go like this.
Judge: Did you obtain this evidence illegally?
Prosecution: Yes we did, your honor.
Judge: Okay, trial on that starts Monday.
No...you'll have to legally make it so the exclusionary rule is not a defense...i.e, the number of times that this is even brought up will inevitably diminish to 0. Admittedly, it does exist, but the legal system tries it damnest to remove gray areas. At the very least, you will need a legal test to prove that the evidence was not manufactured. You know of any?
I think it's part of a general principle of making evidence be "clean". A huge paper trail, specific needs to define how the evidence was gotten, etc. All of these make it much harder to do things like forge evidence.
Evidence gotten through illegal means also get a lot of doubt just by default. Imagine a police officer paying somebody to steal evidence for them. The person now how has an incentive to forge evidence.
An important detail of this system is that evidence brought to the table cannot be trusted without a transparent system. Defendants will almost always contest evidence, but this system makes that argument hold a lot less water.
(There's still the issue that police might not be interested in collecting evidence that goes against a prosecutor's case. Don't know how that's solved)
Then I would encourage to get yourself over to your local community college and learn why things are the way they are in the legal system. You'll spend a fair amount of time talking about the different schools of thought on law in what law is and is supposed to do. First of all, you need a conviction or a confession to call him a criminal. This, or any other case, has nothing to do with any _one_ person or party. It has everything to do with _everyone_ else. You're not seeing the lasting consequences beyond The People v. Random Pedo. To be honest, society doesn't really need your input on how law should work if your only criteria to strip someone of their freedom or to execute them is whether or not one has been accused. You'd function more appropriately in 17th century colonial Massachusetts. The exclusionary rule in this country has only existed in its (mostly) current form since 1920, but has been a legal concept for many centuries. The main question to be answered in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States involved the applications of 4th amendment. In general, if our system of law allows for derivatives which are illegal obtained then you have no need for the 4th amendment protection. I shouldn't need to tell you what happens when militarized drug agencies execute a no-knock warrant on the wrong house. I shouldn't need to tell you what happens when a sheriff beats the shit out of a guy they picked up off the street to force a confession. I shouldn't need to tell you how this could be used to destroy the life or credibility of a political opponent, or to shutup a media organization. I shouldn't have to tell you that this would be a grand method for imprisoning more minorities on the basis of race, or that this would all but ensure a fair trial is impossible. But...your argument is about _legitimate_ evidence obtained illegally. I may have to tell you that if your solution were to be implemented then you'll need to tell the rest of us how we go about prosecuting the prosecution. Who's going to bring that lawsuit against them? And you may have to tell the rest of us what the legal test is to ensure that illegally obtained evidence is also not _manufactured_ evidence, because insofar as I am aware, no such legal test exists.
It's called the Rule of Law, as in it's the Law that Rules this land. Nobody is supposed to be above it, despite evidence to the contrary in US politics.
Then you are terribly shortsighted. It is "innocent until proven" guilty" for many very good reasons. We have only the word of the government that this man is guilty.
The government has ALL the cards and power, the innocent need protection from it more than we need to punish the guilty.
The accused aren't geniuses; the fact that the government didn't build a solid case against him with physical evidence, wiretaps, keyloggers, etc. means he really wasn't that important. The fact that they have such a high profile suspect and can't make the case against him without a fishing expedition makes me VERY suspicious.
The fact that they are willing to drop the case makes me wonder how much of what they have is induced, entrapped, or outright fabricated.