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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   17909 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025

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IMHO a better solution to the "fruit from the poisonous tree" rule would be "the criminal defendant can be in prison when the criminal cop is too". Two crimes get two sentences, not zero. Making one sentence contingent on the other would be sufficient to fix the bad incentives.

In this case, though ... do we even need to imprison the "defendant"? "A confidential informant said he was MS-13" got him held without bond after he was arrested for loitering, but never got a conviction. "The cops think this gang-member-turned-snitch is very trustworthy now" is a good place to start an investigation but surely it's not a good enough place to end one; police informants are sometimes themselves motivated more by base incentives than by a newly-acquired love of honesty and justice.

IMHO a better solution to the "fruit from the poisonous tree" rule would be "the criminal defendant can be in prison when the criminal cop is too". Two crimes get two sentences, not zero. Making one sentence contingent on the other would be sufficient to fix the bad incentives.

The outcome of that would be judges looking the other way to avoid putting cops in jail.

So then we're back to the status quo of zero sentences in N% of cases, but we get justice in 100-N%? Since N will be less than 100 that still sounds like an improvement.

I think N would be near enough to 100 not to matter. Putting cops in jail for misconduct is very unpopular. Any prosecutor who tries it ends up getting shunned by the cops and losing his career as a result. A few years ago a couple of NYPD cops even beat up a judge and got away with it.

A few years ago a couple of NYPD cops even beat up a judge and got away with it.

Source?

https://archive.ph/3miok

Thanks. Archive.org works better in some browsers, for future reference, due to not requiring a google captcha.

I think N would be near enough to 100 not to matter. Putting cops in jail for misconduct is very unpopular. Any prosecutor who tries it ends up getting shunned by the cops and losing his career as a result. A few years ago a couple of NYPD cops even beat up a judge and got away with it.

If the primary problem is cops who beat citizens (or mishandle investigations, ignore procedures, etc) when they think they can get away it, that should be the problem directly to solve.

"Fruit of poisonous tree" is not working very well. Cases where it should be apply, may get parallel construction and other lies to "hide the poison" (hopefully rarely), yet criminals who face procedural errors walk free (quite often). Evidently criminals walking free is not enough of incentive for the rotten parts of the tree to become less rotten.

If the primary problem is cops who beat citizens (or mishandle investigations, ignore procedures, etc) when they think they can get away it, that should be the problem directly to solve.

Yes, and the way it is solved is by changing incentives so when cops mishandle investigations, ignore procedures, and beat citizens, the defendant is freed and the police have egg on their face. Punishing the cops for doing it would be great but is never going to happen.

Evidently criminals walking free is not enough of incentive for the rotten parts of the tree to become less rotten.

Not the remaining rotten parts, no.

A few years ago a couple of NYPD cops even beat up a judge and got away with it

Based

Aww, put a little more effort into it than this!

Institutions reducing hostile state capacity is a good thing. In this case the NYPD is, although paid by the state, demonstrating its ability to defy it.

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