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Comment by lmkg | Hacker News Reader

The principle of the "Fruit of the Poisoned Tree" says that if $A is inadmissible, then evidence derived from $A is inadmissible. The perjury is claiming (possibly a lie by omission) that $B was not derived from $A. Sometimes this involves a (more direct) lie inventing an alternate history for $B.

Perjury may or may not be the correct or most applicable transgression. Point is, if $A is what led to the collection of $B, then $B should be inadmissible. Presenting $B at trial is a violation of rights.

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IIUC, and I may not, that's slightly too strong and there are some circumstances where evidence that's (shall we say) barely inadmissible doesn't necessarily invalidate later evidence.

But in any case, whether the principle applies to a given instance is something that needs to be tested in court, and parallel construction is deliberately depriving the court of the ability to make a determination.

Not quite. If someone says “Jim told me that Matt killed the guy”. That’s inadmissible hearsay, but it doesn’t mean the cops can’t go interrogate Matt and generate admissible evidence.

That's not right at all. Loads of stuff is inadmissible as evidence but not illegal. For example, in many countries phone intercept is inadmissible. For example, in The Wire, they might hear a drug deal being arranged on the phones, then arrange to be on patrol with a drug dog and find the stash. The phone recording would be inadmissible (even though it would help the prosecution), the evidence used to prosecute would have to be paralleled.

If the evidence they're hearing on the phone is not admissible, there's a good chance it's because they're listening through illegitimate means as well, hmm?

No, not necessarily. In the UK, for example, all phone intercept is always inadmissible.

The main incentive for paralleling something is to protect the source, to maintain its effectiveness.

In the UK, they do not have the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine. Parallel Reconstruction is not needed to bypass admissibility constraints because those constraints don't exist in the first place.

Parallel Reconstruction is used to avoid scrutiny of the original source of evidence. Even when used to legitimate ends (and I have doubts how often it's used as such), there are fundamental problems with dodging accountability.

Parallel construction is still used in the UK. That's my point - it is used to conceal sources in a wide variety of circumstances, and is orthogonal to any issues regarding illegality of evidence.

I loved The Wire, but it's a poor choice of reference for good police work.

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