So just by signing an NDA, I'm not obligated to disclose information to the court?
If manufacturers forced distributors and gun stores to sign NDAs ... well, we know how that vs. the clear laws and regulations on the books would resolve.
Somehow these other Constitutionally enumerated rights seem to be getting about as much respect as the 2nd Amendment does....
Good thing an NDA caused rapists/etc to go free!
No, good thing illegal behaviour by police departments was identified and rightly led to overturning the convictions resulting from that behaviour.
Whether the perps were murderers, pot smokers or speeders (or innocents...) does not matter.
You might not agree if you were the victim or the victim's friends/family. The evidence might have been illegally gathered, but it was also pretty damming.
I absolutely agree with what the ACLU is doing, but there is still a victim and they will likely never see justice. It's a real failing of the US justice system, and not something I'm personally comfortable in celebrating.
I expect a significant number of people would characterize what the police did as bending the rules a little to catch a rapist on the loose. Many -- including me! aren't going to agree with that, but it is a legitimate point of view, and it does explain why police are very rarely sanctioned for actions like this.
If there is one thing more dangerous than criminals then it is authorities operating without any checks on their power.
So if you want criminals to be punished for their deeds you should be very much against police bending the rules to catch them.
The point of putting people in prison isn't supposed to be to help the victim, either. The victim is kind of irrelevant.
I know that this is hard to stomach, especially for the victims. But as a society we've determined that convictions based on illegal evidence are a bigger problem than the crimes they intend to punish. And by and large that is a good thing, even if in individual cases it hurts like hell.
The alternative, a society where police can commit crimes in order to catch criminals is much worse than a society where the police is still kept in check by the law. In a really just society these officers would be charged.
I don't disagree, but there are alternatives to the exclusionary rule, like massive civil liability (or even criminal liability for the police) instead of the current qualified immunity regime.
If a group of police officers illegally obtains evidence, and goes bankrupt/gets foreclosed on/etc for doing it, they are unlikely to do this again.
In fact, i'd venture that qualified immunity has done more than anything else to foster this culture of misconduct that the exclusionary rule was meant to prevent. The likelihood of criminal charges against police in these cases was always low.
I believe at this point, time has shown that the exclusionary rule is not really an effective deterrent to police misconduct, whereas at least int he US, real money might be.
(sad, but true).
As a complete aside, "we as a society" did not decide anything. The exclusionary rule was judicially created, and very very recent (late 1900's). Prior to that, illegal evidence was as good as anything else in the US.
No, police misconduct did, and that's how the justice system needs to work. If they face no consequences for violating the law, they'll continue to do so.
It also doesn't work this way in other countries and is effective there too.
The cops, in the end, aren't punished because someone went free. We are.
I'd posit that large amounts of civil liability for the cops who do this would be a much better deterrent than letting a criminal that isn't them, go free.
(the other option, of criminally charging cops, is just never going to happen)