NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/activism/19912

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-30 | 3.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Bud Hovell)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: Re: What is United States of America like?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Dec 92 16:42:08 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Distribution: usa
Organization: MTEK International, Inc.
Lines: 61

[e-mail] (Bill Anderson) writes:

>[e-mail] (Bud Hovell) writes:

>: If evidence obtained by search fails to evidence any such guilt, then
>: no harm has been done to individual liberty. If it *does* sufficiently
>: (to convince a jury) compel conviction, then neither has individual
>: liberty been harmed, since such liberty can only be exercised by all
>: when actual criminal behavior by the few is prosecuted.

>I sincerely hope that armed police officers never break down
>your door, throw you to the ground, handcuff you, terrify
>your children and destroy your possesions, only to find later
>that they have made a mistake.  If they do, however, please

I would be more concerned about having similar treatment at the hands
of armed thugs -- which would, I believe, be statistically far more
likely.

>be assured that they will apologize very nicely.
>If this happens to you, write us back and let us know if
>you think your individual liberty has been violated.

Off the point. Obviously, if such occasion were to arise under the
circumstances you describe, the search -- absent a warrant --
would be illegal in the first instance, and -- given a warrant --
would still be subject to all existing constraints of law with
regard to conducting searches and/or taking suspects under arrest:
Miranda, et al. Your argument is a straw man.

If you are suggesting that search *methods* should be more constrained,
then this problem exists whether the basis of the search was legal or
not. And it would be appropriate to direct energy against solving that
problem, without regard to the present issue. A point, by the way,
upon which we would probably agree, so long as those limits didn't get
ACLU-silly. I'm fairly certain that I would support the notion that if
a person's property were damaged in the course of a search that full
restitution for such damage would be paid, regardless of the outcome
of the search -- except for any property damaged that actually contained
or constituted evidence of a crime, unless and until such time a crime
demonstrated by such evidence was finally found by a court to have not
occurred. Hopefully, a public budget for such expenditure would act as
a real-world check on such activities by virtue of making them subject
to direct review by higher authority (the one that authorizes such ex-
penditure) and subject, in most cases, to public review and comment:
reduce this to a public funding issue, and you will find that the prob-
lem fades quickly from whatever level it may now occur.

But given legal execution of a properly issued warrant, the question
is whether evidence of a suspected act not named in the warrant shall
be automatically excluded from admissability.

You also overlook that that court must agree that the evidence was
obtained in "good faith", and some of the behavior you describe would
automatically place that under *severe* doubt in many jurisdictions.
As I'm sure you must know.
--
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