[bitmasher9]

I think we often underestimate the intelligence of the criminal population for two main reasons.

1. The dumbest ones are most likely to be caught and have their stories told.

2. Law Enforcement often gets frustrated at chasing the smarter ones and use illegal methods catching them and the real story doesn’t come out in court.

[jermaustin1]

> the real story doesn’t come out in court.

I'm not saying this hasn't happened, but any competent criminal defense attorney (like a SMART criminal would have) would go to town on illegally obtained evidence. I'm not saying cops don't do warrantless searches/taps/etc., to gather unofficial clues, but if they can't get real evidence that stands up under scrutiny, the criminal walks.

I'm not sure if prosecution would move forward on such shaky ground in hard to prove cases.

[Schmerika]

> any competent criminal defense attorney

I don't think 'going to town on illegally obtained evidence' works as often as you believe it does [0, 1].

And think back - how many people went to jail for national and/or international scale warrantless wiretapping? How did we, as a nation, respond to Snowden's revelations?

> I'm not sure if prosecution would move forward on such shaky ground in hard to prove cases.

There are people on death row in the US even after being proven innocent and ordered to go free. Dignity in Ink [2] present similar cases every day - they're never going to run out of material.

0 - A major DOJ/GAO-era federal study found that illegal search/seizure issues accounted for about 0.4% of declined federal prosecutions and roughly 0.7% of dismissed cases after prosecution began. - https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/84544NCJRS.pdf

1 - Another study across seven jurisdictions found motions to suppress succeeded in under 1% of warrant cases, and only 1.5% of defendants went free because of successful suppression motions. - https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/search-warrants-mot...

2 - https://www.instagram.com/dignityinink

[itintheory]

Parallel construction is when they use illegally obtained evidence to construct a separate set of ostensibly legitimate evidence. Like, an illegal wiretap might lead to someone being in the right place at the right time to witness a crime.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

It is CIA. For better or worse, different rules apply.

[hylaride]

It would not surprise me to learn you sign away certain rights to sign up - arguably the way it should be for such an organization.

[kshacker]

Only if such evidence was made public

[HlessClaudesman]

Are you telling me that Luigi Manglone was not foiled by a eagle eyed McDonalds employee?!?

[mrandish]

Near as I can tell Luigi nullified all his carefully planned evasion and escape routing by deciding at the last minute he really needed a coffee from the Starbucks across the street from where he was about to shoot his victim and didn't keep his hoody up. If he'd worn a long-billed baseball cap, dark glasses, kept his hoody up and skipped Starbucks he'd probably never have been caught.

His evasion and escape plan was actually pretty good and he put a lot of effort into being hard to trace by arriving and departing NYC via bus and staying in a hostel, which makes it surprising he screwed up the easiest and most obvious things.

[wat10000]

On the other hand, smart people with criminal intent are more likely to find legal ways to profit. Why steal a hundred bucks from somebody when you can figure out how to steal a few bucks from millions and your only punishment is paying a fraction of your profit in fines.

[Ntrails]

> Law Enforcement often gets frustrated at chasing the smarter ones

and gives up, moving on to easier prey - and ideally getting them to plead to the other crimes I can't solve as part of a nice plea deal. Great for the stats.

[Tangurena2]

The really smart ones leave people wondering if a crime really happened at all. It doesn't even need to be Oceans 11/12/n++, it can be simply "are you even sure the money is missing?"