[622] in libertarians
Re: Legislative Alert
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul D. Eccles)
Thu Feb 9 18:19:03 1995
From: "Paul D. Eccles" <pde@sd.inri.com>
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 95 15:10:47 PST
> For those of you who don't know yet, there's a bill in Congress attempting
> to weaken the exclusionary rule, which prohibits illegally seized evidence
> from being used in criminal prosecution. As we all know, as the government
> creates more and more victimless crimes, it becomes harder to enforce them
> without random or profile-based searches which violate the 4th amendment.
> Weakening the exclusionary rule would give the government all-the-more
> incentive to continue its chirades. (Like for example, when DEA goons
> kicked down the door of a minister in Boston looking for drugs, causing
> him to die of a heart attack. Needless to say, no drugs or contraband
> were found.)
The problem is not that illegally seized evidence is used in criminal
prosecution but that the persons violating the 4th ammendment are not
prosecuted. The Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, decided not to let
illegally siezed evidence be used at trial. Hence society loses by letting
a criminal go free.
