141–150 of 208 posts
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No. In 2020 the police went to a magistrate judge to ask for a warrant. The judge issued the warrant. Five years later, another judge has determined that the warrant should not have been issued in the first place. That is not the fault of the police, and there is no reason to punish them for it.
The evidence can be suppressed without punishing the police.
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Couldn't they also be questioning you because 3) you are a witness? What is one to do if they have material information and a vested interest in crimes being solved and getting the right people be held responsible?
Get a lawyer, talk to that lawyer, work with that lawyer to carefully provide that information without putting yourself at risk.
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This is the basic idea of the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule was supposed to deter police misconduct (e.g., searching a house without a warrant, thereby violating the Fourth Amendment) by preventing them from using evidence they never should have had. But the deterrence rationale doesn't hold up that well when the police reasonably (and that's key) believed that they were acting…
'Your constitutional rights were violated but tough luck, nothing can be done about it because the court is extending special 'good faith' courtesy to the police that you don't get (some animals are more equal than others in court decisions/considerations when minor laws (the fourth amendment) are broken)'. And people wonder why American's are apathetic to it all. A judge can just wave away constitutional violations…
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Get a lawyer, talk to that lawyer, work with that lawyer to carefully provide that information without putting yourself at risk.
Even in response to “did you see someone running that way?”?
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We all have to go to law school. How could you live in the world without breaking the law if you didn't know what the law was?
There have been many periods in US history where sets of laws were purposefully created that criminalized activities that nearly ~100% of the population engage in. The intent of those isn't to stop those activities, and there's no intent of prosecuting everyone. The intent is to be able to prosecute any individual person or someone close to them, at any arbitrary point in time. Many of today's lawmakers no longer hav…
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When I was a child, I thought police had to go to law school. How else would you enforce the law if you didn't know what the law was?
PDs have attorneys on call and prior to that they can call their sergeant if they are unsure. Even real lawyers don't know every aspect of every law on the books. What baffles me is the hypocrisy in the political party that wants more government and regulation is the same one that hates the men who enforce it.
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Fentanyl is an illegal drug. There is an Analog Acct that makes it so that close analogs to fentanyl are illegal. That was done because people were making analogs and getting away with it. Drug dealers then went to their lawyers and asked if certain formulations fell under the Analog Act. Their lawyer said no and wrote out how they were legal and didn't fall under the analog act. They sold the drugs and went to priso…
Right, I see. There's still the difference of having official permission according to the legal system, such as the search warrant being a mechanism codified in law, or the mechanism to get a license as an apothecary to operate a pharmacy If there is no such license you can apply for, I'm not sure there exists a system by which you can be indemnified from criminal prosecution for doing such sales (or possession or wh…
The drug dealers were ex-marines that received debilitating injuries fighting in Afghanistan, became addicted to pain pills when they came home, and because of their injuries were unable to work. So they were selling drugs. Then the analog act came around, which made a large amount of closely related drugs illegal. They were drug dealers, and should be in prison. Someone died from these weird compounds they were bringing in from China to try and skirt the Analog Act. But these guys in their head justified it because they were using the same compounds, and they felt they needed to subdue their pain. But these guys also didn't hide it. They had a lawyer that they ran things by. They bought cars from dealerships with their money, not trying to hide it in any way.
I don't think 'good faith' should apply to them. But also don't think 'good faith' should supersede the United States Constitution. If it applies to the prosecution side, it should apply to the defense. A judge shouldn't be able to waive away our Constitution just because it's inconvenient in a prosecution. In the US, even if something is determined unconstitutional and that determination means people should be released from prison, every single person impacted has to go to court and prove it applies to them. We should release people imprisoned unConstitutionally, but we don't, because again it's inconvenient to the legal system. There is even a time limit on those people to go to court, and if they don't in time (say because they don't know, because they aren't notified) then they are bared from bringing it up in a motion to the court.
Drugs are a hard one. I blew up my life over addiction. Many around me were to. Some were using drugs, some alcohol, some gambling, some risky sex. One interesting feature of American society is we used to give people a second chance. For old guys like me, many of the characters in westerns were criminals turned better as law men one town over. These guys would have been completely different if they were receiving adequate pain care and some sort of job opportunities when they came back from war. I think society needs that. But it also can't enable bad behavior. Interesting/complex times.
Sorry for my wall of text.
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They were allowed to gather the evidence - they had a warrant from a judge. The judge erred, not the police.
Where is it written that, if a judge tells a police officer they can do something, they are legally allowed to do it, no matter how blatantly illegal it is? I'm open to being corrected, but I have a hard time believing that, if a judge told a officer they have permission to go out an summarily execute 40 random people in the mall, it would be legal for the officer to do so. And once _anything_ can be illegal even if…
If there is a chain of command in any police department or Sheriff's Office, then the judge is not going to jump that chain and interpose herself in giving orders to a lowest-level officer who is on-the-ground and doing things.
The order's going to go to the office of their commander, who's going to evaluate it, and then it'll go through proper channels, so by the time your hypthetical "Police Officer in Summary Execution of 40 Innocent Consumers" then the order's been interdicted or validated as totally within the law as they interpret it?
How many times recently have we seen rulings from judges that establish that something is definitely illegal but the person who did is still allowed to do it or at least there's no mechanism by which they can be punished for doing it? Having laws and then picking and choosing when they'll be enforced and against whom is the same as not having laws in the first place. And before you cite the good faith exception, pass…
“That said, because the Court appears to be the first court within the Ninth Circuit to reach this conclusion and the good faith exception otherwise applies, the Court will not order any evidence suppressed.” At least the weasel words allow/recognize that the decision is made on a branch of unknown strength. The branch may snap if other judges overrule, or it may be found to be a main branch if other judges uphold th…
"courage ran out"
...
"I'm not a legal scholar,"
:/
I'd at least avoid the mind-reading.