> How could evidence gathered by police be used in a court of law? It could be fabricated! We are just trusting they found those drugs in that car! They could b

> How could evidence gathered by police be used in a court of law? It could be fabricated! We are just trusting they found those drugs in that car! They could be from anywhere! I think this sarcasm is misplaced given the number of scandals surrounding trust in police and the evidence they put forward. For example, the mishandling or tampering of evidence in crimina labs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/forensic-techniques-are-subject-to-human-bias-lack-standards-panel-found/2012/04/17/gIQADCoMPT_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/forensic-techniqu... https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/16/sjc-hear-arguments-dookhan-crime-lab-scandal/bIg0k9QwoKg3lfsopqKTCM/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/16/sjc-hear-argume... http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/03/02/new-jersey-lab-technician-suspended-falsifying-test-results/ http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/03/02/new-jersey-lab-... http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/csi-is-a-lie/390897/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/csi-is-a... And of course there's fabricated police reports and officers lying under oath - http://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/perjury_usa_rampant_police_lying_taints_criminal_justice_system_nationwide/ http://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/perjury_usa_rampant_police_l... There's also the tons of Brady violations which are lies by omission - http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/epidemic_of_brady_violations_decried_in_kozinski_opinion http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/epidemic_of_brady_vio... A lot of these situations have the same parallel of trust - we trust prosecutors to produce all exculpatory evidence, because it is very difficult to determine that they haven't(since the defense doesn't have access to the evidence like prosecutors do). We trust labs to not tamper with the evidence, because the defense does not have the resources to challenge every lab analysis. We trust police officers to not lie under oath, because they are often the sole "untainted" witness of a crime, especially in controversial police shooting cases. When that trust is broken, it is difficult to rein in the backlash - there is no way to know just how often it was broken in the past without us knowing.