Hacker News Reader

Comment by TZubiri | Hacker News Reader

"That, however, does not mean that Maher is entitled to relief from conviction. As the district court correctly ruled in the alternative, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required."

"Defendant [..] stands convicted following a guilty plea in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Glenn T. Suddaby, Judge) of both receiving and possessing approximately 4,000 images and five videos depicting child pornography"

A win for google, for the us judicial system, and for constitutional rights.

A loss for child abusers.

View on HN

Constitutional rights did not win enough, it should be that violating constitutional rights means the accused goes free, period, end of story

You forgot your IANAL, but thankfully it's obvious.

That's a ridiculous desire. In that world, if I delete your comment, and you kill me in retaliation, you should be let free if you argue that my deleting your comment infringed your right to free speech?

What I mean specifically is that because the police saw illegally obtained evidence, all evidence collected afterward after that point should be considered fruit of the poisoned tree and inadmissible

I think reasonable people can disagree on this. Fruit of the poisoned tree doctrines eliminate bad incentives for law enforcement to commit crimes in their investigations. But when doctrines such as this cause the guilty to go free, it erodes public confidence in the rule of law. Like many things, its a tradeoff - and the legal system is a process of discovery and adaptation, not some simplistic set of unchangeable rules. Justice for one must always be upheld. I think this ruling is pretty good at threading the line here.

The public are generally closeted authoritarians (see: pandemic, 9/11), and their opinions on fair trials, evidentiary rules, surveillance, and constitutional freedoms should not be regarded

Ah I see.

IANAL. But the argument for the right to search was twofold, one was considered unconstitutional the other wasn't.

If I search you based on probable cause and fear of destruction of evidence, and the judge rules one was valid and the other not, is the evidence inadmissible?

To me it's clearly an if OR search not an if AND search. Otherwise you disincentivize multiple justifications to do something.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com