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Comment by ikeboy | Hacker News Reader

We should start by removing the ability of prosecutors and police to bring such cases in the first place.

What does that look like here?

They falsely claimed he'd made an actionable threat. We can't remove their power to request warrants and arrest people for legitimately threatening others, right?

They misused power.

The magistrate judge is supposed to be a check on that power. Unfortunately, they've become rubber stamps for the most part. In a functioning system, the judge would block the warrant and arrest.

I think there are ways to have a system where judges do that, without having to criminally prosecute either cops or judges.

> In a functioning system, the judge would block the warrant and arrest.

But they lied to obtain the warrant.

OP says that they left out information (which cops do all the time) but that the warrant shouldn't have been granted either way because of SCOTUS precedent.

Would welcome reform that makes it harder to lie on warrant affidavits, although again, that should be civil in nature.

> they left out information

Yes, we call that lying by omission.

They knew that information would result in the warrant not being granted, so they left it out.

I doubt that. The magistrate judge already granted an unconstitutional warrant, why assume the result would be different with more info?

As you are well aware, they kept important facts from the magistrate judge to obtain said warrant.

The affidavit did not support the post was a threat.[1] This was why FIRE said the information left out should not have mattered. Any reasonable competent person would have denied the warrant. But the information left out could have overcome incompetence possibly. This was why FIRE said it was important.

A reasonable system would have required the investigator attached an unedited full screen image which included the post. And the magistrate attempted to view the post if possible to counter deceit. And required the magistrate had legal education.

[1] https://www.fire.org/research-learn/complaint-bushart-v-perr...

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