I’m boggled at how a law like “wait till after weekend” to begin searching for a missing person is actually still enforced? By 48 hours its a known fact that majority of missing victims are usually killed. Firstly, how has this law not been abolished after so many parents lost lives of children because of it?
But either way, at least in this american nation- leaders of world freedom, everything should be taken on a case by case basis …to a point of course. There has to be a comfortable set of legal reasoning allowed by a judge and one other person at least (can’t give judge monarchy :)) to override or immediately appeal decisions so blatantly staging miscarriages of justice.
I think of two cases all the time, so ridiculous, that makes me hate strict law. A man burns a house down and kills 2 sisters … the guy looks like a lunatic and all signs point to him- but the ambulance driver or someone in hospital room goes on stand because he heard dying victim say a name. When she said the name, it wasn’t clear or the guy later gathered different information …but on stand he said the wrong name… it felt as if the judge, who is so numbed to human emotion, wanted to prove a point to medical personnel and she said very openly that because of his foolish mistake this man was walking free …
Another case, and this has got to be THE WORST DECISION I EVER HEARD, the defendant wasn’t charged because the only witness was dead victim … and dead victim can’t point him out in court …:smack:
Middle ground area should be found and left available for RIDICULOUS obvious cases to be override because ultimate goal is prosecuting murder …not proving any points or any other personal issue - or most importantly, proper proceedings were not carried out accordingly. America, as the leader of free liberal law, should spearhead the allowance of discretion to override unimportant legal mistakes made that jeopardize the case. The lawyer could be punished for the mistakes in another way unrelated to 2 sisters dying innocently at hands of jealous freak maniac. Even the judges need a good wack in the head at times
Is the whole “48 hours” thing a law, a departmental policy or a TV trope?
I’m going to assume that the recounting of the other two stories contain enough misunderstanding of the original situation that I’m not going to comment on them until I see a cite. I will say that, in general, it is better to have laws and procedures that are codified and followed vs. following your heat of the moment judgement of justice.
This. I feel like a lot of this hate for the Judicial system comes down to not massive failures of the system or of human judgment, but simply of scare stories being passed down. Case in point: that one urban legend about a dude who sued a ladder company because he put his ladder in frozen shit, the shit melted, and the ladder slipped, injuring him (he won). That, of course, is bollocks - he sued because the ladder broke with his weight on it. There are tons of cases like this you hear about, and then when you actually take a minute to look at it, you are reminded just how dumb the internet rumor mill is.
Cites, please, for those 2 “worst decisions of all time.”
IME, when people gnash their teeth over “technicalities,” they are typically taking exception with well-known annoyances like the Bill of Rights. While I recognize the need for the judiciary to navigate ambiguous seas, I generally don’t want judges making things up as they go along serving the interests of God-knows-whose sensibilities. There is discretion that’s appropriate within the judiciary, but it shouldn’t cross a line where it’s exercised when some clear legal prohibition should prevent it. 4th Amendment violations have trashed many a guilty verdict for people that we (those not on the jury) can clearly see were guilty as sin. And that’s how it should be.
If an obvious verdict is so hard to come by, I’d suggest it’s not so obvious.
I’ve always heard the 48 hours thing was only for adults, not children. Can you provide a cite for any “lost lives of children” because the police didn’t bother looking for the first two days?
I suspect the 48 hours rule has something to do with those less kind and gently days where men would collect their pay and immediately go on a bender, and the police couldn’t be bothered to deal with all the angry wives, but that’s a separate discussion.
So, funny thing…you know what it’s called when you consider before you file and then the police consider who is missing under what circumstances before they decide if they should start looking? That’s called “discretion.” Exactly what you’re asking for.
The house fire one, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I also have the sense that neither do you, so I’m going to let that one lie for now.
The “only witness was the dead body” one? Well…yeah. So how do you know the accused did it? If there was other evidence, there’s no need for a witness in a murder trial. So what I’m hearing is that there was no witness *and *no evidence. So why should he be found guilty?
I’ve only had a couple of encounters with law enforcement (none as a suspect or defendant) and three with a court (criminal, divorce and small claims) and I have to say that to a large degree, I’m satisfied with the amount of discretion and independent thought they’ve displayed…and at times even frustrated by it. A simple case of filing a false police report (that was the domino in a chain of events that led to my car being totaled and her insurance refusing to pay for it) has dragged on for 10 months now because the judge is being so generous with her discretionary power to grant extensions and whatnots. Same with the small claims court. I find myself wishing we could just get this over with already - until suddenly I’m the one who needs to move a court date because I’ll be out of town!
I feel compelled to also call bullshit on the idea that police will wait 48 hours before investigating a missing child. I suggest the OP read up on Amber Alerts.
Please, around these parts we need citations for your anecdotes. We are perfectly willing to be outraged at egregious abuse of judicial power, but we need the actual facts of a case before we can make a decision.
Also, it is one of the underlying beliefs of the American legal system that it is better for a hundred guilty persons to go free than to punish one innocent person by mistake.
Where is this a law, exactly? It *may *be a policy of certain law enforcement agencies.
“Something happened and I don’t know what, but it was probably wrong!” How do you know the “lunatic” burned down the house? Were you there?
If this had actually happened, it would probably be worth getting upset over.
There might actually be an ounce of sense in here. It’s not *wholly *unreasonable (or a new idea) that prosecutorial misconduct should be deterred by punishing prosecutors rather than letting a perp walk.
I do find it strange that when a criminal’s rights have been violated, the resolution seems to be ‘ignore the real evidence of their crime’. It seems more reasonable to prosecute the individuals who violated the criminal’s rights, but not to use that as an excuse to allow the guilty person to go free. This definitely seems like a case of just adding a second wrong instead of trying to make the situation right as a whole.
Perhaps there’s some reasoning to this I’m not clear on, however.
Perhaps we should begin by welcoming you to the SDMB, Ryan_Musarra. I hope you find your time here well-spent.
As to your Opening Post (we call them OPs around here), you’re striking some people, including me, as being a little “all over the map” (if you’ll forgive the oxymoron). The cases you bring up, are they events that you made up for the purposes of kick-starting a discussion? Or do they refer to actual events?
If they do refer to actual events, I think I speak for all of us when I say that you linking to some source of information about them would be greatly appreciated. You may have assumed in good faith that these cases are obviously going to be familiar to everyone who opens your thread (this thread), but the responses you’ve gotten thus far make it pretty clear that this is not so.
So. A little background, please and thank you?
P. S. Try to link to text-rich sites with articles that can be read within about fifteen minutes or so; some of us get cranky when a new poster assigns us an hour-long youtube video to watch and lets it go at that.
It’s not just you. Benjamin Cardozo (probably the most prominent jurist in US history who did not serve on SCOTUS) complained that, “the criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered.”
It wasn’t always so. Until 1961 states were not required to exclude evidence gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment. SCOTUS has held on occasion that exclusion is not required where redress is available through a civil action (such as a §1983 claim).
If violating someone’s rights, whether they’re guilty or innocent, is either pointless or counterproductive then the state has no motive to do so. And punishing police/prosecutors is hard.
At least those are the justifications I’ve heard. The rule is not so much focused on the case at hand, but on preventing rights violations systematically.
