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Excluding the evidence would incentivize police to stop choosing the most convenient interpretation of the law. They should have to try to make the most accurat

Excluding the evidence would incentivize police to stop choosing the most convenient interpretation of the law. They should have to try to make the most accurate interpretation, which means punishment when they are wrong. Just like for everyone else

mjd 1y ago
No. In 2020 the police went to a magistrate judge to ask for a warrant. The judge issued the warrant. Five years later, another judge has determined that the warrant should not have been issued in the first place. That is not the fault of the police, and there is no reason to punish them for it.
- Vegenoid 1y ago
  The evidence can be suppressed without punishing the police.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- RHSeeger 1y ago
  > That is not the fault of the police, and there is no reason to punish them for it. It's not punishing the police. It's not allowing them to use evidence that they shouldn't have been allowed to gather. Fining them, firing them, and/or jailing them for breaking the law; those would be ways of punishing them. That's not what is being discussed here. Admittedly, we pretty much _never_ punish police no matter what they do, so it's kind of a moot point.
  - multjoy 1y ago
    They were allowed to gather the evidence - they had a warrant from a judge. The judge erred, not the police.
    - gylterud 1y ago
      But the point is justice for the people put through curt. It does not matter to them whose mistake it was.
      - vermilingua 1y ago
        No, that is not the point. Common law does not exist to render justice to the people in and of itself, it exists to give the people a mechanism of getting that justice themselves. I expect anyone that was convicted due to this dragnet would now be able to appeal.
    - RHSeeger 1y ago
      Where is it written that, if a judge tells a police officer they can do something, they are legally allowed to do it, no matter how blatantly illegal it is? I'm open to being corrected, but I have a hard time believing that, if a judge told a officer they have permission to go out an summarily execute 40 random people in the mall, it would be legal for the officer to do so. And once _anything_ can be illegal even if a judge tells them two, you're now in a grey area figuring out what is/isn't illegal. At the moment, I would believe they were both wrong, and that the officer broke the law. I _think_ the judge also broke the law, but I don't know exactly how that works.
      - AStonesThrow 1y ago
        Who commands the police officer to do things? Is it his/her superior, or the judge directly? If there is a chain of command in any police department or Sheriff's Office, then the judge is not going to jump that chain and interpose herself in giving orders to a lowest-level officer who is on-the-ground and doing things. The order's going to go to the office of their commander, who's going to evaluate it, and then it'll go through proper channels, so by the time your hypthetical "Police Officer in Summary Execution of 40 Innocent Consumers" then the order's been interdicted or validated as totally within the law as they interpret it?
        RHSeeger 1y ago
- autoexec 1y ago
  Really we should be punishing the judge who approved it in the first place. A judge that violates the rights of the people shouldn't be allowed to be a judge.
  - equinoxnemesis 1y ago
    There is obviously a line between what is and is not a permissible search somewhere and it's virtually inevitable that judicial rulings will from time to time err on both sides of that line (and they do). Punishing judges for ruling in ways which are later overturned would destroy rule of law at a fundamental level.
    - autoexec 1y ago
      > Punishing judges for ruling in ways which are later overturned would destroy rule of law at a fundamental level. Not where people's most fundamental rights are concerned. What it would do is cause judges to err on the side of caution before making a ruling that would violate the constitution which is exactly what we want judges to do.
      - immibis 1y ago
        Then a Republican judge could just rule that obviously constitutional things were unconstitutional and punish all judges who don't agree, right?
        autoexec 1y ago
        Judges who violate the basic rights of other judges would also be subject to some level of accountability though. At a certain point, we have to trust government officials to at least attempt to do their jobs and we need to have ways to address the situation when they don't. It shouldn't matter if that judge is a democrat or a republican. Right now there is currently zero accountability. At best, when a judge violates people's constitutional rights some small number of those people will be able to get an unjust ruling overturned at which point they might be released from prison or might get some monetary payout at the expense of taxpayers, but the judge is still free to do whatever they want without consequence knowing that at least a few people will be unable to assert their rights. Considering that unaccountable judges are where we're starting from, I think having a means to make judges accountable can only improve things. Given the choice between judges being able to violate people's rights without any accountability or a system where judges have some level of accountability for the most egregious violations of our rights, even while that system requires us to make sure that it isn't being clearly abused, I think we're better off with the option to get some accountability where it's needed. It doesn't need to be a perfect system to be a better one, and it feels like we could put some guardrails in place to keep the amount of obvious abuse down. It's difficult to believe that judges willfully violating people's rights without consequence is an unsolvable problem, let alone one that couldn't possibly be improved somehow.

mjd 1y ago

No. In 2020 the police went to a magistrate judge to ask for a warrant. The judge issued the warrant. Five years later, another judge has determined that the warrant should not have been issued in the first place. That is not the fault of the police, and there is no reason to punish them for it.

Vegenoid 1y ago
The evidence can be suppressed without punishing the police.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
RHSeeger 1y ago
> That is not the fault of the police, and there is no reason to punish them for it. It's not punishing the police. It's not allowing them to use evidence that they shouldn't have been allowed to gather. Fining them, firing them, and/or jailing them for breaking the law; those would be ways of punishing them. That's not what is being discussed here. Admittedly, we pretty much _never_ punish police no matter what they do, so it's kind of a moot point.
- multjoy 1y ago
  They were allowed to gather the evidence - they had a warrant from a judge. The judge erred, not the police.
  - gylterud 1y ago
    But the point is justice for the people put through curt. It does not matter to them whose mistake it was.
    - vermilingua 1y ago
      No, that is not the point. Common law does not exist to render justice to the people in and of itself, it exists to give the people a mechanism of getting that justice themselves. I expect anyone that was convicted due to this dragnet would now be able to appeal.
  - RHSeeger 1y ago
    Where is it written that, if a judge tells a police officer they can do something, they are legally allowed to do it, no matter how blatantly illegal it is? I'm open to being corrected, but I have a hard time believing that, if a judge told a officer they have permission to go out an summarily execute 40 random people in the mall, it would be legal for the officer to do so. And once _anything_ can be illegal even if a judge tells them two, you're now in a grey area figuring out what is/isn't illegal. At the moment, I would believe they were both wrong, and that the officer broke the law. I _think_ the judge also broke the law, but I don't know exactly how that works.
    - AStonesThrow 1y ago
      Who commands the police officer to do things? Is it his/her superior, or the judge directly? If there is a chain of command in any police department or Sheriff's Office, then the judge is not going to jump that chain and interpose herself in giving orders to a lowest-level officer who is on-the-ground and doing things. The order's going to go to the office of their commander, who's going to evaluate it, and then it'll go through proper channels, so by the time your hypthetical "Police Officer in Summary Execution of 40 Innocent Consumers" then the order's been interdicted or validated as totally within the law as they interpret it?
      - RHSeeger 1y ago
autoexec 1y ago
Really we should be punishing the judge who approved it in the first place. A judge that violates the rights of the people shouldn't be allowed to be a judge.
- equinoxnemesis 1y ago
  There is obviously a line between what is and is not a permissible search somewhere and it's virtually inevitable that judicial rulings will from time to time err on both sides of that line (and they do). Punishing judges for ruling in ways which are later overturned would destroy rule of law at a fundamental level.
  - autoexec 1y ago
    > Punishing judges for ruling in ways which are later overturned would destroy rule of law at a fundamental level. Not where people's most fundamental rights are concerned. What it would do is cause judges to err on the side of caution before making a ruling that would violate the constitution which is exactly what we want judges to do.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Then a Republican judge could just rule that obviously constitutional things were unconstitutional and punish all judges who don't agree, right?
      - autoexec 1y ago
        Judges who violate the basic rights of other judges would also be subject to some level of accountability though. At a certain point, we have to trust government officials to at least attempt to do their jobs and we need to have ways to address the situation when they don't. It shouldn't matter if that judge is a democrat or a republican. Right now there is currently zero accountability. At best, when a judge violates people's constitutional rights some small number of those people will be able to get an unjust ruling overturned at which point they might be released from prison or might get some monetary payout at the expense of taxpayers, but the judge is still free to do whatever they want without consequence knowing that at least a few people will be unable to assert their rights. Considering that unaccountable judges are where we're starting from, I think having a means to make judges accountable can only improve things. Given the choice between judges being able to violate people's rights without any accountability or a system where judges have some level of accountability for the most egregious violations of our rights, even while that system requires us to make sure that it isn't being clearly abused, I think we're better off with the option to get some accountability where it's needed. It doesn't need to be a perfect system to be a better one, and it feels like we could put some guardrails in place to keep the amount of obvious abuse down. It's difficult to believe that judges willfully violating people's rights without consequence is an unsolvable problem, let alone one that couldn't possibly be improved somehow.