"Kristin A. Ruhle" wrote:
> I think the fundamental cultural difference between the US and the UK is
> that Americans have an extreme allergy to government.
<snip>
> I don't like the idea of the "neo West" (to use DB's term) being split
> into the US versus everybody else - I don't think AMerica is the only
> society in the world that values freedom, but we sometimes take it to
> extremes. And should the police be prevented from doing their job because
> (as some justices interpret the US constitution) "that technology didin't
> exist in the 18th century so it must be wrong?"
I don't pretend to understand US law or courts (nor do many American lawyers, I
gather) but it seems to me that we have been seeing TV shows from the states for
decades now which show criminals who clearly, incontrovertably committed a crime
- fingerprints, DNA, witnesses, items in possession of the alleged offender etc,
and yet he walks free because of a technicality. If this really happens, then
America has taken position that it prefers personal freedom to personal safety,
and that is fairly unique.
Other societies value freedom, and even have laws to prevent such things as
forced confessions, entrapment, evidence tampering etc, but the idea that a
search conducted under circumstances which the officer and the judge disagree
about means the entire case can be dismissed? Where evidence has not followed the
proper custodial trail, where it may have been compromised, or obtained illegally
then that evidence should not be used, but if an illegal search resulted in the
police investigating somewhere else and turning up more evidence, then that new
evidence shouldn't be tainted by the inadmissability of the first piece.
Surely the right approach is to convict the criminal on the evidence and then
penalise the officer in some way for not following correct procedure. Releasing
the criminal to go ahead and offend again can't help.
We've had debates here before about Random Breath Testing on our roads - a major
contributor in cutting down drink driving and alcohol related road accidents and
stunningly effective for a small outlay of resources for the police, but not
feasible in the US under your privacy laws. DNA databases are just another
example of the sort of thing that is helpful to society to but which the US won't
have because of the privacy/freedom implications.
I can only hope that there will continue to be a divide between the US and the
rest of the Neo-West (well, I'd prefer the people of the US get tired of all the
silly carrying on in their courts, but that seems unlikely - there's that whole
slippery slope thing to contend with...)
Russell Chapman
Brisbane Australia
