[windexh8er]

> Aren't magistrate judges supposed to take the police's word for this?

No. They have to convince a judge who is neutral in the matter. They have to have probable cause the criminal activity has/is occurring at the stated location the warrant is requested to be issued for. And the officers are under oath for this process, yet we see very few repercussions for a breakdown in this process. The affiant is open to persecution for perjury. The officers in the Taylor case lied by listing her and two others on the warrant. [0]

It's not an adversarial process, it's one of fact based decision making. Why would the judge blindly trust or mistrust the officer? The judge should trust the facts being presented are true, but that doesn't constitute a rubber stamp. And, as stated, if said officer lies about that evidence they should be prosecuted appropriately. Facts are often questioned to ascertain validity, that clearly did not happen in her case.

[0] https://www.wave3.com/2020/05/12/breonna-taylor-shooting-war...

[tptacek]

Right, the facts presented to the judge, taken as stated, have to add up to cause for a search. Judges shouldn't ignore a paucity of factual assertions. I don't doubt that many do. But short of an adversarial process, which I don't think can work with warrants, I don't know what you can do to mitigate a police officer fabricating evidence.

[tremon]

This is becoming nothing but a semantic problem. Where lies the line between "judges shouldn't ignore a paucity of factual assertions" and "judges should be adversarial towards a warrant application"?

But to me, the more important question is "what are the ramifications for subverting the intended warrant process"? It seems that both sides here are arguing that the warrant process should be based on veracity and proportionality, and it regularly isn't. So what process oversees and corrects the rubber-stamping of warrants?

[tptacek]

In the US, the major ramification of exploiting misconduct to get warrants is that all the evidence stemming from that warrant is excluded from the trial, which is a rule we have that is not common in the rest of the world.