Every week on TV (both in the news/real life and also on shows) there is something that goes: “It was an illegal search, so even though the police found fifteen hundred pounds of pot, ten pounds of cocaine, and two dead bodies in the trunk of the car, no of it can be used as evidence.”
Or: “Yes he confessed to the murder and rape of ten young women, but the police did not read him his rights, so we have to let him go.”
So I want to know why we the American people put up with this. Even if there was a valid reason to do this at one time the crime wave makes it have more sense to use this evidence. Where in the Constitution does it even say that you cant use the evidence you find. It is the most rediculous thing to let someone who is obviously a drug dealer go just because some piece of paper didnt have all the dots on the I’s.
While I hate to employ a “slippery slope” argument, it seems pretty clear to me that if police were allowed to disregard legal procedure, our civil rights would become meaningless. If illegal searches and seizures by police are ignored every time they produce evidence against a law-breaker, what’s to stop them from performing them routinely against law-abiders? Just because there are no drugs or dead bodies or child pornography in my house does not mean I feel comfortable with cops storming my house without a warrant.
The procedure police are required to follow is in place to protect the freedom and privacy of citizens. There is no reason why that procedure should not be followed. If police are forced to let people go who have obviously broken laws, what that says to me is that police need to be better trained to follow the rules so that they can bust these people legally.
I think it better that we ask why we the American people put up with police who get so hot-to-trot that they bungle the procedure and free a criminal. Get a damn warrant! Read the guy his rights! Let him have an attourney present if he asks for one! Better that something take a longer time and lead to a proper arrest/conviction than that police be allowed to disregard legality and civil rights in order to get what they’re after.
“It says, I choo-choo-choose you. And it’s got a picture of a train.”
– Ralph Wiggum
I disagree with the proposal of the OP. Those procedures are there to protect innocent people.
However, I just want to point out that these errors are not all that common. Overwhelmingly police officers are very particular about following procedures. This perception of trivial police errors resulting in free criminals is largely in the realm of fiction (it is a good writing gimic because you, the viewer, know the guy is guilty but they can’t use the evidence, so there is tension as to how they’ll catch him). Most errors are in matters of judgement not in failing to follow procedures.
Some of the more common “mistakes” are:
Not pursuing all leads/suspects. This is biggie that can lead to reasonable doubt. However, it is difficult because of the case load that police officers carry. More officers would cut down on these.
Errors in arrest because of probable cause. A good attorney will almost always try to argue that there wasn’t probable cause to arrest the defendent (well, suspect at the time), and this is to some degree an educated guessing game for the officer. It is difficult to always accurately guess what a judge will rule. The judge wasn’t there so even with the best explanation sometimes it just doesn’t seem as obvious to the judge as it was the officer (probable cause must be able to be clearly articulated). There are also cases where the officer will jump the gun on making the arrest, but more often it seems to be that the officer felt he was doing the right thing and had good cause, but the judge didn’t agree.
Errors in the execution of a sweep. Police are allowed to sweep a residence to make sure it is free from danger. If they find something incriminating in plain view than they can arrest the resident/suspect and use the evidence in court. However, sometimes the question of what “in plain view” means comes up. Again, what seems in plain view to the officer at the time, may not seem so to the judge. Of course, there are also cases where the officer purposefully conducts a search when he should be just sweeping the area.
This isn’t to say there aren’t some overzealous cops. This isn’t to say occasionally gross errors aren’t made. But the bulk of “errors” really come down to the officer feeling they are doing the right thing and having sufficient evidence and a judge disagreeing.
My experience has been that the police almost never fail to read a person their rights. If the person wants a lawyer they give them a lawyer (they may try to talk them out of it though. The classic “Alright, but we can’t help you once the lawyers are involved.” isn’t that far from the truth). The police aren’t stupid. They really want to catch the bad guy, and they know if they blow the obvious stuff the guy walks … for sure. Nothing drives an officer crazier than a criminal walking.
AvenueB-dude: What you’re describing is actually very rare. Police are not stupid, and there is a well-defined procedure for implementing a legal search, which they consistently follow.
I don’t watch TV every day, but I do read two newspapers every morning, and I can’t recall a single incident where a serious criminal was released due to a procedural violation by the police.
Yes, it does happen. And yes, it’s tough beans. The police do know better, and the courts enforce their obligation to follow correct procedure.
If you want to make the extraordinary claim that the release of an obvious criminal on procedural grounds is common, you’ll need to back it up with some serious statistic.
The Fourth Amendendment provides that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…” However, it does not specify a mechanism whereby this provision should be enforced.
The main problem I have with the exclusionary evidence procedure is that it only helps the guilty.
Let’s say that the local police suspect my neighbor and me of having illegal drugs in our houses. Overcome with zeal, they break into both our houses without warrants and tear them apart looking for drugs. In my neighbor’s house, they find drugs along with illegal weapons, child pornography, stealth technology secrets, and Jimmy Hoffa’s body. In my house they find no evidence of drugs or any other crime.
Now the Supreme Court ruled that it is wrong for the police to search without a warrant and anyone who’s rights are violated is entitled to redress. So my neighbor gets his redress; all the evidence of his crimes is ruled inadmissable, obviously a very valuable gift from his standpoint. However where is my redress? Having committed no crimes, there was no evidence to be found in my house, so I got nothing.
So before 1904 there was no rule for suppressing evidence! But it was the same Constitution. So we could remove that rule now without changing the Constitution!
I dont have any statistics. But Singledad, if it happens even once how can you say its not serious?
Example (true story): girl calls the cops and says her boyfriend threatened her with a gun. So the cops took her with them in there car to look for the boyfriend. As they were driving she saw her boyfriends friend parked and said that he would know where the boyfriend was. So the cops pull in behind him. He drives away, they pull him over. They walk up to the car and see a bag of pot on the floor of the car. They tell him to get out, and then they see a gun also on the floor of the car. They arrest him, and his case gets thrown out. Why? HE WAS A CRIMINAL! The cops didn’t brake down his door in the middle of the night. THEY WALKED UP TO HIS CAR!
First, Weeks[ stood for the proposition that evidence gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment was inadmissible in federal prosecutions. It wasn’t until Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), that the Supremes ruled that such evidence could also not be used in state court prosecutions.
Second… AveB, that’s the way the country works. We continually refine our interpretations of the law. There are plenty of outmoded concepts that were widely believed in 1901 - or 1961, for that matter - which are no longer held in high esteem. The law, quite properly, reflects our society’s changing sense of what we should permit.
So then it is a localized thing. And what is “way too much crime”? Again, crime rates are down. Is there some sort of mini-wave going on in your neighborhood?
Now, let’s go through this point by point:
Everything’s just ducky so far, go on-
Thus far everything sounds plausible-
Right. . .still with you-
Okay, this is where your narrative starts going south. Why was the case thrown out? Did the officers fail to read this fellow his rights? Was the bag full of oregano, and the gun a toy? Did they book him on these charges and tell him he could walk if he gave up his friend? Goddamnit, B, you’re the one who claims to know this story, claims it to be true, and says that you know the young lady in question. It seems that the least you could do is supply some details, instead of the anecdotal tale you have spun. So, why was the case thrown out? If you need to ask the involved parties, I’ll be waiting here.
If his case was thrown it, it was probably an appeals court that did it. Appellate decisions are reported and published. Give us a cite, or at least a name.
The guys name that was arrested and then got off was Clive Spencer. This happened around three years ago. I dont have a newspaper article or anything or a court number but I know the ex-gf of his that this happened to.
One of the top five rules on The Straight Dope is, “Don’t say it’s true unless you can prove it.” Unless you can cite a verifiable newspaper article or police report, this is all hypothetical.
First of all, whatever happened to the girl’s boyfriend who threatened her?
Second of all, why was the case thrown out? If the police pull over a car and see a bag of drugs, that’s called probable cause, and they have every right to search the car. Then they find a gun. Was he carrying the gun legally? If the bag wasn’t pot, and he had the gun legally, and he didn’t threaten anyone, then of course the case got thrown out. If he had pot, or the gun was illegal, then, again, why was the case thrown out? It sounds like the police followed proper procedure here.
Is the story possibly true as presented? Sure, and if so the judge who threw it out must have been high, insane or incompetent. There was no violation of police procedure if everything occured as you presented it. Therefore, I somehow suspect that there is something being left out.
I must disagree. I have no idea if it’s true… but accepting the recitation of facts as given for the moment… what probable cause did the police have for the traffic stop?
AvB said:
So far as those facts indicate, the only reason the police had for initiating the traffic stop was that the driver “would know where the boyfriend was”. Even if he did, that’s not a crime. The police could certainly have walked up to him in his car and asked him questions – that is a consensual encounter. But once he drove away, they could not initiate a traffic stop and force him to pull over just to ask him questions. That would be a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. At the very least, it would be a Terry-type stop, which must be supported by reasonable, articulable suspicion. The police didn’t even have that.
I would note that if the police had simply followed the car, and happened to see a traffic infraction, they then would have been justified in initiating a traffic stop. The drugs on the floor would be admissible as plain view evidence, and the gun the fruit of a search incident to arrest.
If the story happened as described, it was a failure of police procedure to initiate the traffic stop for no reason.
I would ask you why you seem so hell bent on ironing out every crease in society, but I really don’t think I’d get a straight answer. (Hell, Esprix could give me a straighter answer)