Legal and ethical implications of the hoax call that set off the polygamy raid

Great Debates
1

This is actually more GQ but I think it will end up here if there are many responses.

So, it seems now that the call from a suicidal child-bride of a polygamist claiming abuse and suicidal thoughts that set off the raid on the Eldorado compound was a hoax. The real caller was probably Rozita Swinton, who is not only not a member of the cult but is in Colorado (the cult’s in Texas, Arizona, Utah and Idaho), not a teenager (she’s 33), and black (ironic because the FLDS is extremely racist and does not allow black members and has bizarre mythology dehumanizing black people). Nevertheless, the raid did turn up real abuse (not surprising to anybody who’s studied these people).

I’ve read conflicting accounts (which you can google) as to whether or not the illegitimacy of the caller should invalidate the initial warrant, but most that I’ve seen interviewed or read editorials by say that it probably will not. Personally I am hoping that it does.

I can’t stand the very notion of the FLDS church and have no sympathy for any woman, regardless of how brainwashed, who’ll let her teenaged son be taken away in a truck for some alleged trivial offense (namely being competition for a middle aged man seeking new wives) or who’ll let her 16 year old be married to a 45 year old man with 5 other wives. Even lionesses will kill to protect their young from a dominant male, humans you’d think would do no less. However, I have major problems with going into that compound on false grounds. It seems to me it could set a horrible precedent.

It reminds me of a scene from the movie SE7EN when the Pitt/Freeman characters want to search the Spacey’s character’s apartment (I can’t remember their character’s names) so Pitt pays a homeless woman to make a false report about seeing him leave his apartment and acting suspiciously on the night of the murders. While I can understand perhaps the temptation, this could also be used to invade the privacy of anybody in the U.S.A.- “we suspect but have no evidence that this guy is dealing drugs, so let’s get a crank to call in and say she’s seen him cooking meth in a home lab even though in fact she’s never been anywhere near his house- and if there’s no meth there then our bad and if there is then exitus acta probat/the end justifies the means”. Which is not to say that the law enforcement agencies knew Swinton’s call was a fake, but if I were the defense I’d damned sure deploy maximum force to implying it.

Anyway, the questions:

1- Are the arrests/removals still valid if the initial cause for entry was false?

2- In your opinion (as a legal expert or not) should it be?

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One exception to the requirement for a search to be conducted pursuant to a valid warrant is the so-called “good-faith exception.” If the police believe they are executing a valid search warrant, and that belief is objectively reasonable, then the results of that search are not subject to the exclusionary rule.

Why? Because the exclusionary rule exists to deter police misconduct – we wish to ensure that police obtain a search warrant, and “punish” them when they do not. When they do obtain a warrant, even if circumstances beyond their control lead to the warrant’s basis being flawed, the purpose of the warrant rule has been served and there is no reason to exclude the evidence.

Should it, in this case?

I’d say yes, as long as there is no indication that police may have put the hoax into motion,