From: bud@mtek.com (Bud Hovell)
Subject: Re: What is United States of America like?
Reply-To: bud@mtek.com
Organization: MTEK International, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 00:21:40 GMT

pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek) writes:

>In article <1992Dec23.020652.18270@mtek.com> bud@mtek.com (Bud Hovell) writes:
>>Left again. The power of the IRS to make such seizures was certainly
>>*not* promolgated by the Rehnquist Court. That issue was settled at
>>a time before either of us was born,

>My reference to the Rehnquist Court was sparked by several decisions
>they have made which tend to increase the prosecutorial powers of the
>state as against individual liberty. For example, the 'good faith'
>exception to the exclusionary rule.

I may be on unclear ground, here, but wasn't the very notion of an
'exclusionary rule' a creature of the Warren Court -- *no* evidence
by discovery having previously been excluded for any reason? To move
partially back toward that position can hardly be argued as contrary
to the historical position of the Court during the century and a half
preceeding.

[Contrary to evident popular opinion, "individual liberty" has never
been threatened on the occasion that *guilty* people end up in the
dock! This may not be the politically correct view, but it is a fact,
no less.]

If evidence obtained by search fails to evidence any such guilt, then
no harm has been done to individual liberty. If it *does* sufficiently
(to convince a jury) compel conviction, then neither has individual
liberty been harmed, since such liberty can only be exercised by all
when actual criminal behavior by the few is prosecuted.

If someone ends up in the dock and is subsequently convicted based
on evidence that is false, then that is a different problem. And one[
not particularly mitigated by an absolute exclusionary rule. Which
begs the question as to what purpose such exclusion serves, except
to make conviction of factual criminals more difficult: hardly an
outcome promoting exercise of *actual* (as compared to theoretical)
individual liberty.

Somewhere, sometime we are compelled to address the question of
what is the real effect of our laws on the main society at large.
And whether conditions in our society indicate that it is becoming
more or less possible to enjoy individual liberties. If more, then
we have made good changes to the mechanics of the law. If less so,
then we need to move back from changes made and consider retrench-
ment until our wisdom has been increased in the fullness of time.

Lawful citizens of our cities are not living behind closed doors
with multiple locks and refusing to walk their own streets because
police are misusing the exclusionary rule in dealing with the
"technicals"* in our society. People live in fear partly because
of a relentless idea which took form in the sixties that is with us
still: citizenship is about exercising "rights", and "behaviors"
don't matter so long as the most tenuous argument can be made that
some infringement of those rights, in even the smallest degree,
may have occurred during the course of an arrest or prosecution.

Any comparison to other well-functioning democracies (some no less
venerable than our own) demonstrates that we have become downright
silly by any practical standard of law when it comes to dealing
with criminals. And what goes on in the streets and elsewhere in
this society proves it conclusively by the evidence of the hardest
possible reality.

-----------------
* I expect to see this name adopted soon by one of our newer
  street gangs, since this major growth industry in the U.S.
  has begun to diminish the available supply of catchy, "with-
  it" names so necessary to keep us advised of which is which.
-- 
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