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The problem with allowing illegally obtained evidence to be admissible is that it sets a legal precedent. There are no one -offs in common law countries. The DA

The problem with allowing illegally obtained evidence to be admissible is that it sets a legal precedent. There are no one -offs in common law countries. The DA can use this case as an argument next time, effectively incentivising police to breach protocol in other more egregious ways like tapping into your phone calls without reason. It saddens me deeply that Chahal is getting off on a technicality but ultimately there is no such thing as an objective spirit of the law. All we have is the literal text - the letter of the law - that's in the books and two sides arguing the best way to interpret that. Writing warrant laws that protect good citizens and good citizens only is impossible. Sometimes bad people slip through the cracks as a result. It's a tragedy, but not one that is easy to remedy.

coldtea 10y ago
>The problem with allowing illegally obtained evidence to be admissible is that it sets a legal precedent. I think what the parent is asking for is precisely for it to be the case ALWAYS, so whether this specific instance would set a legal precedent shouldn't matter. >The DA can use this case as an argument next time, effectively incentivising police to breach protocol in other more egregious ways like tapping into your phone calls without reason. Not if in addition to using the evidence they also punish the policemen who broke protocol as severely as needed to de-incentivise them. Except we have some reason to believe they would value nailing some specific criminal with video evidence over their careers...
- alex_hitchins 10y ago
  Are you suggesting evidence should be presentable to the court so long as the judge/just know it was illegally gained and the officer fired? If so, this is to me is an absurd conclusion.
  - scotty79 10y ago
    Why is that? The purpose of evidence is to help determine the truth. How the legality of how evidence was obtained affects its validity? Those two things should be independent. If policeman obtained evidence illegally but it's still good evidence (not planted for example) then it shouldn't be ignored. Policeman should be prosecuted for breaching the law that specifies how evidences can be obtained and punished, but that's separate case.
    - alex_hitchins 10y ago
      For me at least, I think we are on shaky ground when we start accepting the 'evidence' as true/valid when we know it was gained illegally. Who knows what evidence can be collected if the rulebook is thrown away. In this case also, surely the crime committed is against his girlfriend, who herself can go to the police and make charges against him. I appreciate in domestic abuse cases this is hard, but this is how it needs to be done to maintain any trust in the legal process. The guy is clearly a disturbed specimen and needs rehabilitation.
      - paulhilbert 10y ago
        "Who knows what evidence can be collected if the rulebook is thrown away" Pretty much all Europeans - the legality of evidence here is only refused in very intense cases (read: torture). And it works quite well tbh...
        alex_hitchins 10y ago
        I would be interested to hear of any cases where in-admissable evidence is deemed admissable for the purposes of finding someone guilty. As a European (currently!) I would not want to allow this to continue.
        coldtea 10y ago
        >for the purposes of finding someone guilty Also for finding someone innocent. You forgot that. >As a European (currently!) I would not want to allow this to continue. Because its drawbacks are?
        alex_hitchins 10y ago
        >>for the purposes of finding someone guilty >Also for finding someone innocent. You forgot that. True, some people may want to break the law to gain evidence to support someones defense. I have a gut feeling this is going to be in the minority of cases. >>As a European (currently!) I would not want to allow this to continue. >Because its drawbacks are? It's drawbacks are mainly being that it would be a massive retrograde step.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Are you suggesting evidence should be presentable to the court so long as the judge/just know it was illegally gained and the officer fired? I'm suggesting something like video evidence of a person committing a crime should be presentable to the court whether illegally obtained or not. It IS evidence of the crime after all, in the dictionary, common, sense. Now, if the video was indeed obtained illegally, then that's another, unrelated to the case on trial, issue, and can be tried separately, have the officer fired or fined, etc. The idea is very simple: we don't want the police illegally obtaining video (so we discourage that), but in case there is one and it proves a person's innocence or guilt, we might as well use it at the same time. Sounds perfectly logical to me. The idea that: we throw video evidence that a man is innocent and let him get the death penalty, or we throw video that a man killed 5 people and let him get off, because we want to discourage the police from getting video evidence illegally, sounds totally illogical. There are other ways to discourage the police from doing so in the general case, without throwing away perfectly good evidence if it's available in a particular case. Of course I'm not an American, and so I was not accustomed from a young age on what should and should not be held as evidence, and what is the supposed one and only way to go about such things.
    - infinite8s 10y ago
      I'm not sure its possible for evidence demonstrating innocence to be obtained illegally, since it would usually be obtained and presented by the defense.
- 1123581321 10y ago
  I apologize if you already know this, but it sounds like you might not be from the United States. Indeed, prosecutors do not think about legal precedent. There is nothing stopping them from trying to win a case illegally. However, a guilty ruling can be appealed by the defendant to another court, which will look at the original case and undo the guilty decision if it was achieved incorrectly. The judge hearing the appeal will interpret the law strictly. Only in situations where the law is vague can precedent be set. Precedent means that in the future, judges considering the same vague law will try to interpret it consistently with past interpretations. If a judge ruled that a blatantly illegal court procedure could stand, then this ruling would also be appealed. Appeals can go up a chain of appeals courts all the way to the Supreme Court. If a prosecutor blatantly broke the law to win a case, and the judge allowed it or colluded with it, and an appeals review made this known, then this would adversely affect their careers. This, combined with that most prosecutors and judges want to follow the rules, is an effective deterrent against illegally obtained evidence. Even if a prosecutor thought, similarly to you, that it's worth breaking the law to win a case, they are discouraged from doing so by the appeals system.
  - scotty79 10y ago
    > There is nothing stopping them from trying to win a case illegally. Are they immune to prosecution if they do illegal things?
    - 1123581321 10y ago
      You are right. Appeal overturn, censure, disbarment and prosecution are all options depending on the specific wrongdoing -- but all would happen after the initial case.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Are they immune to prosecution if they do illegal things? "Immune", no, but prosecutors are unlikely to prosecute prosecutors for overzealous prosecutions, and are also unlikely to prosecute police and others working for prosecutors for their actions in support of such prosecutions.

coldtea 10y ago

>The problem with allowing illegally obtained evidence to be admissible is that it sets a legal precedent. I think what the parent is asking for is precisely for it to be the case ALWAYS, so whether this specific instance would set a legal precedent shouldn't matter. >The DA can use this case as an argument next time, effectively incentivising police to breach protocol in other more egregious ways like tapping into your phone calls without reason. Not if in addition to using the evidence they also punish the policemen who broke protocol as severely as needed to de-incentivise them. Except we have some reason to believe they would value nailing some specific criminal with video evidence over their careers...

alex_hitchins 10y ago
Are you suggesting evidence should be presentable to the court so long as the judge/just know it was illegally gained and the officer fired? If so, this is to me is an absurd conclusion.
- scotty79 10y ago
  Why is that? The purpose of evidence is to help determine the truth. How the legality of how evidence was obtained affects its validity? Those two things should be independent. If policeman obtained evidence illegally but it's still good evidence (not planted for example) then it shouldn't be ignored. Policeman should be prosecuted for breaching the law that specifies how evidences can be obtained and punished, but that's separate case.
  - alex_hitchins 10y ago
    For me at least, I think we are on shaky ground when we start accepting the 'evidence' as true/valid when we know it was gained illegally. Who knows what evidence can be collected if the rulebook is thrown away. In this case also, surely the crime committed is against his girlfriend, who herself can go to the police and make charges against him. I appreciate in domestic abuse cases this is hard, but this is how it needs to be done to maintain any trust in the legal process. The guy is clearly a disturbed specimen and needs rehabilitation.
    - paulhilbert 10y ago
      "Who knows what evidence can be collected if the rulebook is thrown away" Pretty much all Europeans - the legality of evidence here is only refused in very intense cases (read: torture). And it works quite well tbh...
      - alex_hitchins 10y ago
        I would be interested to hear of any cases where in-admissable evidence is deemed admissable for the purposes of finding someone guilty. As a European (currently!) I would not want to allow this to continue.
        coldtea 10y ago
        >for the purposes of finding someone guilty Also for finding someone innocent. You forgot that. >As a European (currently!) I would not want to allow this to continue. Because its drawbacks are?
        alex_hitchins 10y ago
        >>for the purposes of finding someone guilty >Also for finding someone innocent. You forgot that. True, some people may want to break the law to gain evidence to support someones defense. I have a gut feeling this is going to be in the minority of cases. >>As a European (currently!) I would not want to allow this to continue. >Because its drawbacks are? It's drawbacks are mainly being that it would be a massive retrograde step.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Are you suggesting evidence should be presentable to the court so long as the judge/just know it was illegally gained and the officer fired? I'm suggesting something like video evidence of a person committing a crime should be presentable to the court whether illegally obtained or not. It IS evidence of the crime after all, in the dictionary, common, sense. Now, if the video was indeed obtained illegally, then that's another, unrelated to the case on trial, issue, and can be tried separately, have the officer fired or fined, etc. The idea is very simple: we don't want the police illegally obtaining video (so we discourage that), but in case there is one and it proves a person's innocence or guilt, we might as well use it at the same time. Sounds perfectly logical to me. The idea that: we throw video evidence that a man is innocent and let him get the death penalty, or we throw video that a man killed 5 people and let him get off, because we want to discourage the police from getting video evidence illegally, sounds totally illogical. There are other ways to discourage the police from doing so in the general case, without throwing away perfectly good evidence if it's available in a particular case. Of course I'm not an American, and so I was not accustomed from a young age on what should and should not be held as evidence, and what is the supposed one and only way to go about such things.
  - infinite8s 10y ago
    I'm not sure its possible for evidence demonstrating innocence to be obtained illegally, since it would usually be obtained and presented by the defense.
1123581321 10y ago
I apologize if you already know this, but it sounds like you might not be from the United States. Indeed, prosecutors do not think about legal precedent. There is nothing stopping them from trying to win a case illegally. However, a guilty ruling can be appealed by the defendant to another court, which will look at the original case and undo the guilty decision if it was achieved incorrectly. The judge hearing the appeal will interpret the law strictly. Only in situations where the law is vague can precedent be set. Precedent means that in the future, judges considering the same vague law will try to interpret it consistently with past interpretations. If a judge ruled that a blatantly illegal court procedure could stand, then this ruling would also be appealed. Appeals can go up a chain of appeals courts all the way to the Supreme Court. If a prosecutor blatantly broke the law to win a case, and the judge allowed it or colluded with it, and an appeals review made this known, then this would adversely affect their careers. This, combined with that most prosecutors and judges want to follow the rules, is an effective deterrent against illegally obtained evidence. Even if a prosecutor thought, similarly to you, that it's worth breaking the law to win a case, they are discouraged from doing so by the appeals system.
- scotty79 10y ago
  > There is nothing stopping them from trying to win a case illegally. Are they immune to prosecution if they do illegal things?
  - 1123581321 10y ago
    You are right. Appeal overturn, censure, disbarment and prosecution are all options depending on the specific wrongdoing -- but all would happen after the initial case.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Are they immune to prosecution if they do illegal things? "Immune", no, but prosecutors are unlikely to prosecute prosecutors for overzealous prosecutions, and are also unlikely to prosecute police and others working for prosecutors for their actions in support of such prosecutions.