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How did past generations deal with the problem of idiot and/or old law enforcers misunderstanding technology? And as technology improves more quickly, are we at risk of having even more of a problem of disconnect between the technologically proficient and the (often confused) government bureaucrats?

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They went ahead and broke the law and then were called heretics or worse. Kepler's mother was imprisoned, threatened with torture and called a witch. I'm sure you could find many more examples, it's basically the whole history of science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler#Epitome_of_Copernican_As...

I'm reminded of the old adage: Science. If you aren't pissing someone off, you aren't doing it right.

In court, cops are always right. Juries/judges almost always take the law enforcment's words at face value.

This is because criminals lie; the role of the defense attorney for a guilty client is to wrap a plausible story around this lie. The prosecution and law enforcement is playing an iterated prisoner's dilemma and the accused is only there for a single game. If law enforcement or the prosecution lies then they may get away with it, or they may get caught. If the latter they can face fines, loss of the status that allows them to practice their profession, loss of pension, and even imprisonment. If the accused lies and gets caught they are unlikely to face any additional charges beyond the ones that brought them before the court in the first place. The accused has a strong incentive to lie and the prosecution does not, judges and juries know this and that is why they weigh testimony differently given the source.

You're reasoning as though the prosecution and police officers have no incentive to lie when they do. They are under pressure to make arrests and make them stick. That's their 'job'.

So, both sides have an incentive to lie. Juries give credence to law enforcement testimony out of deference to authority.

maybe we need better incentives

and I think we used to have better incentives, back when enforcement was local and directly responsible to the parents of those whose heads they might crack. Of course, they weren't always fair to people just passing through.

The community relationships of the past have been weakened and/or replaced with relationships to politicians and unions. I see no reason why the police should not be subjected to rule of law like the rest of us.

Local law like this?

>> For fifteen minutes the Long Beach Police watched Douglas Zerby sitting on an interior courtyard stoop playing with a toy gun. They never announced their presence. There was no danger to anyone. They never announced their presence. There were at least five police officers there. Then, after fifteen minutes, two or three of them opened fire with shotguns and pistols. There was no warning, and no command to drop the weapon. Apparently his first notification that the police were present was to be shot dead.

This, according to the LBPD, was to protect the citizens and make certain no one got hurt.

Heroic. <<

From http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2010/Q4/view653.html#Frid...

That story is messed up for sure, but I really doubt Long Beach is the kind local small-town law enforcement the grandparent post is talking about.

I think you were misread by whoever downvoted you. I agree that the incentive structure for LEOs needs to change dramatically; and that the incentives for Barney Fife were more conducive to effective and non-abusive police work than today's.

Unfortunately, I doubt fixing LEO incentives will be as simple as rewinding the USA to Andy Griffith.

yeah, but there is a big kernel of truth there.

I think part of the problem is the fact that cities really don't care about people that are unhappy with their governance. If parts of the city could withdraw from the legal arrangement if they are unhappy, cities would try a lot harder.

I really doubt that the now ridiculous pensions many government workers have would be possible if governments were subject to more discipline than "Oh, shit, we've run out of money."

Which is why I like the Swiss cantons. The people of any given part of a canton can vote to leave, join another, or start a new canton.

Government needs competition just like the rest of us. We have traditionally thought of competition as impossible or requiring violence, but that does not have to be the case.

...the role of the defense attorney for a guilty client is to wrap a plausible story around this lie...

No, the role of a defense attorney for a guilty client to demand that the state actually prove the client's guilt.

Lying to the court is the dumbest strategy. Any competent defense attorney will not organize their case around a lie but rather around making the state actually prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. It is important that guilty people be proven guilty, not simply be "likely guilty".

Also, cops caught lying face little-to-no-repercussions.

(This is paraphrasing an attorney friend of mine).

I don't know if this varies from location to location but it is pretty common here in the UK for a criminal defense not to lead any evidence - it is for the prosecution to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, not for the defense to prove the innocence of the accused.

There are also enough high profile cases where police have lied and/or fabricated evidence - not something that happens a lot, but it has happened.

Except that policemen and prosecutes only ever interact with a jury once, and judges are often former prosecutors making them sympathetic to what prosecutors have to do to win cases. Have you been following the "Videotaping the police" meta-story thats been coming up these last couple of years? Even when video evidence laters shows that a police officer was lying on the stand there are seldom any consequences, and those are usually just a period of paid leave.

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