maybe related https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...

Literally too smart to be regime muscle.

There have been many periods in US history where sets of laws were purposefully created that criminalized activities that nearly ~100% of the population engage in. The intent of those isn't to stop those activities, and there's no intent of prosecuting everyone. The intent is to be able to prosecute any individual person or someone close to them, at any arbitrary point in time.

Many of today's lawmakers no longer have that intent, but the system as a whole still keeps running in a manner that allows tools of that nature to be used against targeted individuals and populations.

It's not that people hate police, it's that the police have zero accountability and that, over time, has lead to a culture where they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. The police are rife with systemic abuse and even a HINT of "oh maybe we should be looking into this" is met with "back the blue" type people crawling of the woodwork to explain how qualified immunity is good, actually, and we don't want good ole boys going to prison for things as trivial as state-sanctioned murder.

I think a good police force could exist, but the current implementation could use improvement

In Illinois I noticed they modified the template admonitions they read to the defendant during a guilty plea to say something like "has anyone promised you anything, except for this plea agreement?"

plea bargaining in the U.S also is a promise that they will recommend that you get a particular deal, but the judge in sentencing can decide not to take that deal.

Can you give any sources for plea bargains not being used outside of the US? I'm mostly familiar with US law but my understanding is that plea deals are used in most commonwealth/adversarial system countries such as the UK, Canada, and Australia.

For example I can find a lot of Australian lawyers discussing plea deals.

> There are three main types of plea deals in Australia:

> Charge Bargaining – The defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge than initially filed. For example, a charge of aggravated assault may be reduced to common assault.

> Sentence Bargaining – The defendant pleads guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence recommendation from the prosecution.

> Fact Bargaining – The prosecution and defence agree on which facts will be presented to the court, potentially influencing sentencing outcomes.

https://newsouthlawyers.com.au/plea-deals-in-australia-what-...

If you just mean that plea deals are not used by inquisitorial systems then obviously that makes sense.

> The police are asking you questions to "get to the bottom of it" and they encounter people every day who do think they can lie to get out of a crime;

I don't even think they are all that interested in getting to the truth of the matter, they are mostly concerned with getting an arrest and conviction. If it'll be easier to throw you behind bars than to find and arrest the dangerous person who actually committed the crime they aren't all going to choose more work and risk "officer safety" when they can just take you and call it a day. Especially not if they're already prejudiced against you or you bruised their fragile ego somehow.

This x 1000.

A friend was a career LAPD detective, and he gave me the talk. He said because I’m a nice guy I might try to help the police by explaining what I saw in detail. He was adamant that I never ever do that, because in the absence of someone to pin it on, they would find a way to pin it on me. He saw it as literally their job.

No matter what, even if you are just standing there when something happens, don’t talk to the police.

Couldn't they also be questioning you because 3) you are a witness?

What is one to do if they have material information and a vested interest in crimes being solved and getting the right people be held responsible?

“We can put you in Queens on the night of the robbery.”

“Oh really? I live in Queens. You got a team of monkeys working on this or something?”

You're interpreting GP's comment in bad faith.

“Not sure, sorry” is more my go to. Nothing illegal or inciting about ignorance and stupidity. And manners cost nothing.

Many of those tax payers are fine with them being gang members, but only against "others" -- that's a feature, not a bug.

> Police are nothing more than State-sponsored gang members.

Sometimes very literally:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_Los_Angeles_Count...

State (any country, since the birth of monarchies) is the gang. It literally robs you ("taxes"), monopolized violence (only state is allowed to utilize it). But if it does a poor job at that, other states swoop in with their rules, no invitation needed.

> That is not the fault of the police, and there is no reason to punish them for it.

It's not punishing the police. It's not allowing them to use evidence that they shouldn't have been allowed to gather.

Fining them, firing them, and/or jailing them for breaking the law; those would be ways of punishing them. That's not what is being discussed here. Admittedly, we pretty much _never_ punish police no matter what they do, so it's kind of a moot point.

The evidence can be suppressed without punishing the police.

Really we should be punishing the judge who approved it in the first place. A judge that violates the rights of the people shouldn't be allowed to be a judge.

> The police did not commit a crime here.

They did, however, violate the Fourth Amendment. Per the court.

18 U.S. Code § 242, “Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States…”.

The judge erred in granting the warrant, the police violated the above statute. Them being unaware would be an affirmative defense, that does require admission of the above crime.

Police can commit statutory crimes to gather evidence in the USA. I'd like to see any solid ruling that says otherwise.

What they cannot do is violate certain constitutional rights to do so without triggering exclusion.

> If you believe in good faith that you have not broken the law, and can reasonably convince a jury of that, you almost certainly will receive a lighter sentence than you would have otherwise

Juries usually don't decide sentencing, and even if they did I don't think that would matter with crimes viewed as wrong in themselves (mala in se) though it might with crimes viewed as wrong because they are prohibited (mala prohibita).

Jeremy Kettler -- bought a silencer completely made and sold within his state (no interstate commerce) and believed based on the Kansas Second Amendment Act (I think that was the name) which legalized intrastate NFA items that it was 100% legal. His own state representatives had advertised to their constituents that the law exempted silencers that never crossed state boundaries. The buyer and seller did it openly and even had photos on facebook, seemingly totally oblivious this would actually still touch federal law / interstate commerce.

Cody Wilson -- Went to a sugar daddy website that verifies IDs to ensure all 'escorts' are 18 which is a pretty good faith way to do it IMO. Woman seemingly had fake ID at some point, and also lied and turned out to be like 16 or 17. At some point later she underwent counseling at school and admitted she was an escort, after which a criminal investigation happened and Mr. Wilson was arrested. As a strict liability crime, there was no defense that due diligence was done to ensure the escort was 18.

Hide some drugs in someone's luggage when they're traveling at an airport and then get back to me. There's tons of cases of people being arrested for things they either had no idea they doing or had no idea was illegal. And then even more where the police tack on lots of charges for someone that's already been arrested; for things that they had no idea they were a problem in the first place.

It's a perfectly reasonable defense to a charge of mail fraud, for example.

Or employing illegal aliens. "But they told me they had work visas, and they showed me what later turned out to be expertly-counterfeited visas!" Why shouldn't that get you off the hook, if true?

I have this vague impression that a certain amount of intent, but (a) I think it’s more about intending to do the bad thing than knowing that the bad thing is illegal, and (b) this is all very vague so I could be totally wrong.

It apparently doesn't in one of the areas of which I have a high level interest. The ATF is constantly changing their mind on what a machine gun is, and if it is one, it is a strict liability crime.

Not long ago a guy was put in jail for creating business-card sized metal sheets with the image of a 'lightning link' (machinegun conversion device) on it. Not the actual device, just a picture of it etched <0.001" into the metal. Clearly just art, and even when the ATF cut it out they could not get it function as a machine gun. They gave it to an actual machinist, and even after a day he could not get it to function as a machine gun. They could only get it to do anything by literally jamming it into the gun and making it do hammer follow, which every AR-15 can do with the parts already in it.

Up until the guy was convicted I don't think anyone had any idea a picture of a machine gun on a metal card was a machine gun. They even convicted the guy advertising it, who never as far as I know actually distributed one.

He doesn't like it, and it's also horseshit.

The problem here is that the police ALREADY have systems upon systems upon systems in place to ensure they never have to take accountability, ever. Police _literally_ get away with murder, but more importantly, they routinely get away with lesser offenses.

I mean, if we can't even charge someone like Chauvin without first burning down a few cities, could you just imagine how many clerical errors get swept under the rug? How much false evidence is floating around? How many innocent people are behind bars?

And where does it say that they bring groceries?

> Level doesn’t matter

This level of civic and legal ignorance is a large part of why our country is in the mess that it is.