Duckbag posted:

Come on guys let's not make this bigger than it is. All Dead Reckoning is saying is what if the Bill of Rights... is wrong?

VitalSigns posted:

I don't see what's so hard about this: if you did something Really Bad™ then it becomes okay to fabricate evidence for the sentencing hearing to make sure you get the maximum penalty.

How do we know if what you did is Really Bad™ and it's time to sentence you with fake evidence? Easy that's up to the DA to decide!

VitalSigns posted:

I don't see what's so hard about this: if you did something Really Bad™ then it becomes okay to fabricate evidence for the sentencing hearing to make sure you get the maximum penalty.

How do we know if what you did is Really Bad™ and it's time to sentence you with fake evidence? Easy that's up to the DA to decide!

Dead Reckoning posted:

You realize that the entire conversation was about evidence which was not disputed to be true, merely improperly collected, yes? You can't alter the terms under discussion and assume that people hold the same arguments and positions.

Dead Reckoning posted:

You realize that the entire conversation was about evidence which was not disputed to be true, merely improperly collected, yes? You can't alter the terms under discussion and assume that people hold the same arguments and positions.

VitalSigns posted:

Why does the right to counsel exist, Dead Reckoning?

Why do we need it, if we consider information obtained by interrogation without the benefit of counsel to be equally true and reliable as information obtained from the defendant with counsel?

Dead Reckoning posted:

Information obtained from a suspect who waives or never invokes his right to counsel is admissible though. The right to counsel has nothing to do with the factual accuracy of evidence.

You're throwing up smoke. I've been reasonable about not answering your question with a question in turn. Now answer mine: How does suppressing true evidence serve the interests of justice?

Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States posted:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Dead Reckoning posted:

Information obtained from a suspect who waives or never invokes his right to counsel is admissible though.

Dead Reckoning posted:

The right to counsel has nothing to do with the factual accuracy of evidence.

You're throwing up smoke. I've been reasonable about not answering your question with a question in turn. Now answer mine: How does suppressing true evidence serve the interests of justice?

Miranda v Arizone posted:

From these representative samples of interrogation techniques, the setting prescribed by the manuals and observed in practice becomes clear. In essence, it is this: to be alone with the subject is essential to prevent distraction and to deprive him of any outside support. The aura of confidence in his guilt undermines his will to resist. He merely confirms the preconceived story the police seek to have him describe. Patience and persistence, at times relentless questioning, are employed. To obtain a confession, the interrogator must "patiently maneuver himself or his quarry into a position from which the desired objective may be attained." When normal procedures fail to produce the needed result, the police may resort to deceptive stratagems such as giving false legal advice. It is important to keep the subject off balance, for example, by trading on his insecurity about himself or his surroundings. The police then persuade, trick, or cajole him out of exercising his constitutional rights.

Even without employing brutality, the "third degree" or the specific stratagems described above, the very fact of custodial interrogation exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty, and trades on the weakness of individuals.
...
This fact may be illustrated simply by referring to three confession cases decided by this Court in the Term immediately preceding our Escobedo decision. In Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963), the defendant was a 19-year-old heroin addict, described as a "near mental defective," id. at 307-310. The defendant in Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U. S. 528 (1963), was a woman who confessed to the arresting officer after being importuned to "cooperate" in order to prevent her children from being taken by relief authorities. This Court, as in those cases, reversed the conviction of a defendant in Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503 (1963), whose persistent request during his interrogation was to phone his wife or attorney. [Footnote 25] In other settings, these individuals might have exercised their constitutional rights. In the incommunicado police-dominated atmosphere, they succumbed.

In the cases before us today, given this background, we concern ourselves primarily with this interrogation atmosphere and the evils it can bring. In No. 759, Miranda v. Arizona, the police arrested the defendant and took him to a special interrogation room, where they secured a confession. In No. 760, Vignera v. New York, the defendant made oral admissions to the police after interrogation in the afternoon, and then signed an inculpatory statement upon being questioned by an assistant district attorney later the same evening. In No. 761, Westover v. United States, the defendant was handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation by local authorities after they had detained and interrogated him for a lengthy period, both at night and the following morning. After some two hours of questioning, the federal officers had obtained signed statements from the defendant. Lastly, in No. 584, California v. Stewart, the local police held the defendant five days in the station and interrogated him on nine separate occasions before they secured his inculpatory statement.

In these cases, we might not find the defendants' statements to have been involuntary in traditional terms. Our concern for adequate safeguards to protect precious Fifth Amendment rights is, of course, not lessened in the slightest. In each of the cases, the defendant was thrust into an unfamiliar atmosphere and run through menacing police interrogation procedures. The potentiality for compulsion is forcefully apparent, for example, in Miranda, where the indigent Mexican defendant was a seriously disturbed individual with pronounced sexual fantasies, and in Stewart, in which the defendant was an indigent Los Angeles Negro who had dropped out of school in the sixth grade. To be sure, the records do not evince overt physical coercion or patent psychological ploys. The fact remains that in none of these cases did the officers undertake to afford appropriate safeguards at the outset of the interrogation to insure that the statements were truly the product of free choice.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

I don't even know what you think is "justice."

Cup Runneth Over posted:

I don't even know what you think is "justice."

VitalSigns posted:

I don't see what's so hard about this: if you did something Really Bad™ then it becomes okay to fabricate evidence for the sentencing hearing to make sure you get the maximum penalty.

How do we know if what you did is Really Bad™ and it's time to sentence you with fake evidence? Easy that's up to the DA to decide!

Duckbag posted:

Either those rules exist for a reason and flagrantly ignoring them would undermine our whole legal system or Madison and co. just didn't care about justice. Which is it?

VitalSigns posted:

Dead Reckoning posted:

Again, I am not asking about the specifics of any particular case. I am asking about the abstract principle. How does excluding evidence which is true, and the truth of which is not in dispute, serve the interests of justice?

Dead Reckoning posted:

How, in principle, does excluding evidence which is true, and the truth of which is not in dispute, serve the interests of justice?

Dead Reckoning posted:

None of this is relevant to the question I asked. I am not asking about the specific circumstances of any particular case.

dont be mean to me posted:

In this case (gently caress your moving goalposts), the validity of the testimony IS in dispute, because it's hearsay. PRISON hearsay. Delivered by victims of unimaginable push-pull leverage in warehouses designed to turn people into an even more permanent underclass than us idiots. I'm absolutely sure there's nothing that's convincing jailhouse informants to deliver whatever information the prosecution wants to hear. Pinky swear.

Doc Hawkins posted:

Weird, that's exactly the "evidence" use to convict that proven-innocent guy Missouri is executing today.

Woah, wait, we're getting reports that this is a systemic problem across the country as police and prosecutors do their part to enforce and perpetuate our racialized caste system?! I keep hearing about these stories, is there anyone we can punish to make that stop?

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

Your idea of instead punishing the individual cops responsible for illegal searches and seizures would amount to suspension with pay and a handshake from the DA because "tough on crime"

dont be mean to me posted:

Other way around. Exhibits and testimony generally have to justify their inclusion into evidence. Not only that it hasn't been tampered, manufactured, or left somewhere it can be tampered with, but that it's actually relevant to an element of one of the charges. If an exhibit or testimony gets excluded it's nothing personal, unless the officer or prosecutor wants to make it personal (but with quotas and conviction rates and professional pride being what they are, welp;)

stone cold posted:

the phrase true evidence is really hilarious

Dead Reckoning posted:

So your big takeaway is that, since we/our government is apparently incapable of disciplining its police forces according to uniform standards, the best solution is to make it harder to convict criminals? Does that not strike you as a strange conclusion? Doesn't it say really lovely things about us as people and this whole representative government experiment we have going on?

Dead Reckoning posted:

None of this is relevant to the question I asked. I am not asking about the specific circumstances of any particular case.

Dead Reckoning posted:

This isn't some game where both sides have equal standing and a legitimate interest in a favorable outcome for them. On one side, you have the people of the State, and on the other, a guy who more or less indisputably killed eight people in cold blood over a child custody dispute. The fact that some of the evidence against him was obtained in an improper manner doesn't really change the fact that he loving did it.

dont be mean to me posted:

Your gang tag says you're closer to a solution for arbitrary nominally-legalized statemurder than I am.

Dead Reckoning posted:

So your big takeaway is that, since we/our government is apparently incapable of disciplining its police forces according to uniform standards, the best solution is to make it harder to convict criminals? Does that not strike you as a strange conclusion? Doesn't it say really lovely things about us as people and this whole representative government experiment we have going on?

quote:

The Judiciary Committee has been unable to confirm the author's claim that the Ninth Circuit ruling caused the Department of Transportation to prohibit any flags on any state right-of-way.

CPColin posted:

I think I should resolve to hold my (Republican) Assemblyperson's feet to the fire at every opportunity until I can vote against him. He recently posted this:

https://www.facebook.com/AsmCunningham/photos/a.446785175709388.1073741829.442329722821600/618701895184381/?type=3&theater

I checked on the bill, which is here:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB866

It passed the Assembly unanimously, because who would vote against it? So, neat, a cupcake bill passed. Way to pat yourself on the back, Mr. Cunningham! Then I happened to check out the bill analysis:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB866

It's got this great bit:


So it was a cupcake bill that "fixed" a problem that may not have existed. Whee! I need to keep close track of when Cunningham actually does anything meaningful, so I'm ready to go, "Actually..." when his campaign flyers start showing up in my mailbox.

quote:

Proposed Gateway Monuments shall not... Contain any displays of any sort, advertising, decorative banners, flags, or flag poles.

quote:

The Flag of the United States of America and the Flag of the State of California may be displayed on a sidewalk located in or abutting on a state highway situated within a city, if the type of flagholder and the method of its installation and maintenance are not in violation of the department’s rules.

quote:

Senate Bill 35, by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would try to tackle the state’s housing-supply shortage. Currently, cities are told every eight years how many units they need to build to meet their share of regional demand — but they are not required to build them. This bill would make it harder to ignore those goals. It targets cities that fall short, requiring them to approve more housing developments that fit the bill’s criteria until they are back on track.

quote:

Senate Bill 167, also by Skinner, would strengthen the state’s 35-year-old Housing Accountability Act, known colloquially as the “anti-NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) Act.” Cities that don’t comply with a court order to allow development would be hit with automatic fines of $10,000 per housing unit.

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

I see so much potential for mixed use development in the San Jose burbs but they keep putting up single story tan stucco big box monstrosities.

Pressure to develop leads to some idiotic planning decisions such as building on the floodplain of Coyote Creek. Do those bills do anything to encourage building up instead of out?

Badger of Basra posted:

An urban growth boundary would help with this but I don't think it's in there. It always surprised me that California doesn't have urban growth boundaries like Oregon or Washington (or Tennessee, weirdly). With all the extremely stringent environmental laws y'all have it seems like that would be another one to put on the pile but it never happened for some reason.

Duckbox posted:

Ah yes, the town that always smells like garlic definitely has to worry about those people lowering it's probably values.

Panfilo posted:

Better than living in Morgan Hill, the town that smells like poo poo every evening.