Evidence of misconduct

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday to loosen restrictions on the use of unlawfully obtained evidence in criminal trials. The case in question concerned an Alabama man who was arrested due to an outdated warrant, but was still convicted for possession of methamphetamine and a gun.

For those not quite up to date on the American justice system, the rules governing evidence state are very clear and very simple: the police must follow their own rules and the letter of the law when obtaining evidence, and if they do not, then that evidence is inadmissible in court. A cop can't break the law to uphold the law.

With the Supreme Court's decision, the balance of power shifts further in favor of the courts and further from the rights and freedoms of the defendant. To be sure, there is a percentage of crime that goes unpunished due to negligent police work and missing evidence, and it is common for evidence to go unused based on an officer's inability to legally find it. But the alternative to this is a possible police state.

The reason that we have such strict rules pertaining to evidentiary proceedings in the justice system is not to make it easier for criminals to get off, but to make it harder for law enforcement officers to abuse their power.

This is not, of course, to say that every officer of the law will abuse this power. But the potential for abuse is increased so immeasurably by this ruling that it hardly matters.

Consider that the rules governing evidence are already arbitrarily followed. A judge can choose to ignore certain facts about where evidence came from if, for example, that evidence is a ballistics-proven, fingerprint-inundated handgun found in the house of a murder suspect with a history of violence. Ignoring the alternative problem of planted evidence, if the proof is there, who cares where it came from?

In truth, this sort of 'Death Valley days' justice is appealing, because it seems more immediately effective. It's a two-fisted approach to justice that appeals to us all. But the price that it carries is a further erosion of our constitutional rights, and that as well is unacceptable. We do not need to make ourselves more vulnerable in the pursuit of justice. We simply need to protect our rights as much as our safety.