Hearsay is not allowed where the rules of evidence apply (at trial or in a testimonial deposition). An affidavit for a warrant is not such an instance. Many affidavits for warrants rely on hearsay to furnish probable cause (as when the police or state’s attorney seeks a warrant on the basis of an anonymous informant’s report). However, the reliability of the hearsay statement has to be explained.
By “duty,” I assume you mean “good policy.” That is, you do not mean to suggest that a police department that seeks to obtain a warrant on the basis of information gathered through a Ouija board session has violated any legal restriction (now, a magistrate who issues one, on the other hand …). Now, routine violations of what most voters consider good policy can often lead to such unhappy outcomes as losing an election for Police Chief, or Mayor (if that’s who’s doing the appointing), or State’s Attorney. And these are perceived as just as bad outcomes as losing a lawsuit. But there is no legal duty to refrain from seeking a warrant on the basis of bogus psychic visions.
Assuming that this is an instance where warrants were not required (open fields), do the police have a legal duty to refrain from investigating (since the intermediary of a warrant application to a magistrate is not present)? No, I don’t think so. But again, this is the sort of blundering police work that effects extra-legal bad outcomes (like being fired as Chief of Police). (See our penultimate Commissioner of Internal Revenue, for instance.)
But the psychic didn’t claim to witness a crime. She claimed the invisible spirit of the victims witnessed a crime. I don’t think the police have any duty to investigate her claim beyond interviewing her to satisfy what should have been their initial conclusion, namely that she was nucking futz.
So what did the police find in Gridley’s back yard?
And if the answer is that they didn’t search it, then why the Hell not? They had a lot more probable cause for going there than to the other folks’ place. As the old saw goes, the police have a name for someone who claims to be able to tell them reliable information about the circumstances of a crime with no understandable explanation: They call that person a “suspect”.
The police involvement is demonstrably crazy. I mean, “a duty to investigate?” What if I told them I’d been told my a gopher stolen jewels were stashed in your (the hypothetical you) liver? Would they “have to” cut your liver open just in case I was an accomplice to the gopher?
No, this story fails the common sense test resoundingly and embarrassingly. Especially considering that with actual evidence the police often fail to act or fail to follow up (it’s happened in my own experience).
My apologies if I was too subtle in my previous post. My point was that you can’t simply say that a person can’t know anything about a murder because they’re delusional. Plenty of murders are committed by delusional people. A psychic can witness a crime - if they committed the crime.
Well like I said, It’s a tough one, and I’m not sure I could put a finger on exactly what they should do.
But for an imperfect analogy, if my 6 year old kid came in and said “Abraham Lincoln started some rags on fire in the garage” My first thought would not be to scientifically explain how Lincoln was dead and could not have done anything of the sort. My first thought would be “get my ass to the garage, now!”
There is a point at which a BS attribution doesn’t mean the claim should be dismissed.
I could see running a cadaver dog, and an overflight with a helicopter [to check for disturbed area indicating something might be buried there] and possibly requesting permission to search the house.
As to finding blood on the porch - I would hate to luminol our back deck - we had a pair of feral dogs get into a fight and rip a chicken in half. [one of our chickens was a houdini and would frequently escape the coop and end up on the porch scrounging cat kibble, a pair of feral dogs chased her up onto the porch, both grabbed at her and were playing keep away when I shot them] so even despite really scrubbing the heck out of the deck and back wall, there has got to be wicked blood spatter evidence there. In our bathroom and kitchen it would look like an abatoire, as both mrAru and I have bleed thanks to random injuries being dealt with. And the back of my old IH scout has blood spatter from hauling an injured ewe to the large animal vet in town.
You can’t take blood spatter to indicate humans or foul play all the time - there are lots of legitimate reasons for bloodspatter that do not involve murder or mayhem.
Yea, that bothers me to. She told them upfront that she was acting on “visions”. Putting aside whether the police acted appropriately to that information, I don’t think its fair to find her liable for what happened. She doesn’t seem to be a con-artist (there isn’t really any way she could’ve profited out of this) or a lonely attention seeker (she tried to stay anonymous). It seems plausible she really thought she had visions and was trying to help. So far as I can tell, she didn’t lie about the level of evidence she had.
Interesting, but in this case the house was searched, so presumably the cops had a warrant. (and apparently left in rough shape, at least according to the couple).
Every possible explanation except “dumb people believe in psychics and cops are almost universally dumb people” being bandied about to avoid stating the obvious, eh?
Wonder what the cops would do if they starting getting phone calls about mass graves in the backyards of county officials? Or maybe the Sheriff? Or maybe their fellow cops’ yards? Like one or two a day. Bet the contrast would be illuminating.
They did have a warrant (based on the blood discussed above). It’s just as likely that the family would have consented to the search, though. Innocent people often cooperate with police thinking their cooperation will demonstrate that they have nothing to hide.
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Every possible explanation except “dumb people believe in psychics and cops are almost universally dumb people” being bandied about to avoid stating the obvious, eh?
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Explanation for what? It wasn’t just cops; a judge issue a warrant based in part on the “informant”.
There is more going on in Liberty County than people realize. And those responsible for the “search” were… well… they would have been suspended from any school in the USA for bad behavior had they been that young. Several had been “let go” from Harris County PD prior to Liberty hiring them. And the judge who signed the warrant was opposing counsel to Charlton in a nasty divorce. bankson and Charlton were notified of the search by reporters while they were in Dallas. It was a drama and a disaster and a mess. Wish people could know the entire story though.
Things like this are often at the bottom of such cases.
A few years ago, we had a widely-publicized child-sex ring case here in Minnesota prosecuted by the County Attorney. Lots of wild accusations leaked to the press of satanic sex rituals, possibly buried bodies, etc. Eventually nothing came of it, charges were dropped when it was shown that the child witnesses had been coached & rewarded for telling the desired stories, etc.
The first guy accused? Just happened to be the campaign manager for the candidate who ran against that County Attorney. The ‘investigation’ expanded to include a lot of others – most of them were campaign volunteers for that candidate. Odd how that happened. Seemed to me that the County taxpayer’s money was used (a tremendous amount) to smear a political opponent.