[mikeash]

I wonder if there should be a rule that if the police are called out for something, they can't leverage their presence to nab somebody for a crime of lesser severity. If they get called out for domestic abuse and see a freshly-murdered body, obviously they should take care of that. But if they get called out for domestic abuse and find a minor violation of an occupancy permit, maybe they should be required to ignore it.

[thaumasiotes]

This doesn't work very well as a remedy for the problem "civil servants [judges/police/etc.] at low levels don't know what's legal and what's not". Police officers are even routinely given immunity for violating laws they weren't supposed to have known.

[mikeash]

Presumably they'd at least know about that rule, which would then prevent them from busting people for trivial crap when they show up for something serious, whether or not that trivial crap is legitimate.

As for the bigger problem, if we started holding civil servants liable for damages caused by failing to do their jobs correctly, it might help.