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Friday Fun Thread for May 17, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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This is a very interesting write up and I thank you for it.

Regarding the evidence standards in the first point - how is this not constantly abused by police?

Regarding the last point (which kind of answers my first question) - Again, it's just this insane reality that even the wealthiest European's (Scandi's) have long ago decided that at high standard of living is worth the wholesale trade of fundamental liberty.

We have something called "free sifting of evidence". This means courts can use evidence no matter how it was gathered; even if the police themselves commit crimes or had no reasonable suspicion whatsoever this is a separate matter and won't get the evidence "thrown out" or the like.

It is the US that is the outlier with its strong exclusionary rule (so the rights of guilty criminals are well-protected) and strong qualified immunity (so the rights of innocent people are not). Most civil law countries have no exclusionary rule and no qualified immunity at all. Most Commonwealth countries have weaker exclusionary rules - for example Canada only excludes illegally-obtained evidence if admitting it would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

Regarding the evidence standards in the first point - how is this not constantly abused by police?

If a policeman commits a crime when looking for evidence he'll potentially be charged with misconduct (in addition to whatever else he did, like battery or burglary). A particularly egregious case from the top of my head was this one where the policeman was later convicted, fined, and fired.

the wholesale trade of fundamental liberty.

I think the idea here is that if the government ignores the constitution, then any law you have to address it can just be ignored as well and it's up to the citizens to fix it by whatever means are necessary. The important thing here is if this actually works, or in practice results in constant low-level constitutional violations that people ignore; personally I don't think so. I helps a bit that the Swedish constitution isn't as hairy as the American one – the exception being freedom of expression where boundaries can be unclear / debated, which is indeed the parts that do have legal systems in place to decide that.

(Another fun legal thing I forgot to mention is that the king (or regent) is immune from prosecution. This question comes up from time to time as the king pretty frequently gets caught speeding and potentially drunk driving, but the police always has to just let him go.)