4 ms·

It's to discourage police from overstepping their bounds. In any particular case you might figure that it's in the public's interest to just put these people a

It's to discourage police from overstepping their bounds. In any particular case you might figure that it's in the public's interest to just put these people away regardless of how the evidence was procured, but the people who designed the system saw government overreach as an existential threat in a way that no small-time criminal attacking individuals one-at-a-time could be.

xorcist 12y ago
Bad cops are kept from overstepping their bounds by bringing them to justice, not by letting criminals walk free.
- spacehome 12y ago
  Well, how's that working out for you? It's a tough call either way, but I think the founding fathers made a good decision on this one. Either way, it's worthwhile understanding what their motivations were.
  - xorcist 12y ago
    Very well, I think. Look at data from Amnesty International for example, for more information about the prevalence of torture in the world. I don't want to name specific countries (I've had enough of the downvotes) but it should be deeply obvious that this poisoned fruit doctrine has no correlation to police misconduct. (As would be expected, the risk of letting a criminal walk free is not much of a personal risk to take.)
    - spacehome 12y ago
      It's not at all obvious to me that poisoned fruit doctrines have no correlation to police misconduct, and I think it's not obvious to the many people I've talked about this with in meatspace. Do you have sources to back up that claim?
- granfalloon 12y ago
  It's not just about punishing the cops, though. The problem is that illegal searches are Fourth Amendment violations -- which we take very seriously -- and this seems to be the best way of preventing them. Usually constitutional violations are handled in a compensatory manner, but it probably wouldn't work to rely on lawsuits for 4th Amendment violations. How much to compensate for a police officer illegally searching your backpack? Probably a nominal amount, and certainly not enough to prevent police from committing illegal searches in the future -- it would just be considered part of the cost of securing a conviction, and illegal searches would be rampant. And it's hard to imagine the victims of most of these illegal searches being able to find lawyers to take the cases (not worth it). Excluding illegally obtained evidence (the "exclusionary rule") is the best way we've come up with to consistently protect these rights. The obvious downside is that we throw out tons of perfectly good evidence and lose lots of convictions, which is why the rule seems absurd to many people, especially lawyers from other countries. But we're essentially forced by the constitution to consider illegal searches a more serious evil than a missed conviction.

xorcist 12y ago

Bad cops are kept from overstepping their bounds by bringing them to justice, not by letting criminals walk free.

spacehome 12y ago
Well, how's that working out for you? It's a tough call either way, but I think the founding fathers made a good decision on this one. Either way, it's worthwhile understanding what their motivations were.
- xorcist 12y ago
  Very well, I think. Look at data from Amnesty International for example, for more information about the prevalence of torture in the world. I don't want to name specific countries (I've had enough of the downvotes) but it should be deeply obvious that this poisoned fruit doctrine has no correlation to police misconduct. (As would be expected, the risk of letting a criminal walk free is not much of a personal risk to take.)
  - spacehome 12y ago
    It's not at all obvious to me that poisoned fruit doctrines have no correlation to police misconduct, and I think it's not obvious to the many people I've talked about this with in meatspace. Do you have sources to back up that claim?
granfalloon 12y ago
It's not just about punishing the cops, though. The problem is that illegal searches are Fourth Amendment violations -- which we take very seriously -- and this seems to be the best way of preventing them. Usually constitutional violations are handled in a compensatory manner, but it probably wouldn't work to rely on lawsuits for 4th Amendment violations. How much to compensate for a police officer illegally searching your backpack? Probably a nominal amount, and certainly not enough to prevent police from committing illegal searches in the future -- it would just be considered part of the cost of securing a conviction, and illegal searches would be rampant. And it's hard to imagine the victims of most of these illegal searches being able to find lawyers to take the cases (not worth it). Excluding illegally obtained evidence (the "exclusionary rule") is the best way we've come up with to consistently protect these rights. The obvious downside is that we throw out tons of perfectly good evidence and lose lots of convictions, which is why the rule seems absurd to many people, especially lawyers from other countries. But we're essentially forced by the constitution to consider illegal searches a more serious evil than a missed conviction.