Re:Video of Valley Mogul Kicking His Girlfriend 117 Times Co...
by dragonwriter on Monday August 08, 2016 @12:09PM
(#12248839)
> The correct action in a case like this should be to use the evidence, and discipline the officer who violated regulations.
Illegally-obtained evidence applied in a criminal trial is always the government violating the fundamental law which governs its authority to use power against the people. Which is why it cannot be tolerated (and why it is not the exclusionary rule, but the increasingly broad exceptions to it, that are problematic.)
Its true that such excesses by government also involve violations of the law by individual agents of government, which ideally should be punished as well as the government being constrained from exceeding the Constitutional limitations on its powers, but such punishment -- which would require the government to pursue it, which is why it rarely happens -- is no substitute for restraint on government.
Illegally-obtained evidence applied in a criminal trial is always the government violating the fundamental law which governs its authority to use power against the people. Which is why it cannot be tolerated (and why it is not the exclusionary rule, but the increasingly broad exceptions to it, that are problematic.)
Its true that such excesses by government also involve violations of the law by individual agents of government, which ideally should be punished as well as the government being constrained from exceeding the Constitutional limitations on its powers, but such punishment -- which would require the government to pursue it, which is why it rarely happens -- is no substitute for restraint on government.