Freedom v. Safety
Mar. 2nd, 2009 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeverbriefI got three yes votes to posting about criminal issues, so on we go:
We want to be safe by allowing our government and police do their job, however, where do we draw the line in order to keep the freedoms we enjoy in our country. Please discuss.
In my Investigations course, taught by a former policeman, our instructor would often joke with the paralegal students, saying they were working for the enemy. He'd throw out examples of times where criminals found something wrong procedurally and get off light. Police would know the suspects did the crime, but they wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Slimy lawyers would reap the rewards all because one little rule that was broken tainted key evidence.
Here we see that the issue of civil right versus safety can be very divisive at times. We want to feel secure in the knowledge that we are protected by the law enacted by the government and enforced by police, but at the same time, we do not want that safety to come at the price of liberty. If we give too much freedom to the people, there is no way to effectively govern, as we would simply ignore the rules and descend into anarchy and eventually tyranny by whomever wins us over. If we give too much power to the government and police force, we run the risk of having no say in what we can and cannot do, eventually creating a 1984-esque police state where we aren't allowed to even think of wrong doing.
These are extreme examples, of course, ones we will hopefully never have to experience full-force, but at the same time, the balance between the duty of the government and police to do their jobs and our rights as individuals to do as we please is shaky at best. I suppose one of the classic examples of this divide comes to us in Arizona v. Miranda, the case where our Miranda rights originated. Without that case, we would not hear “You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...” and so on and so forth. We hear these words on television all the time. The words have almost their own cadence at this point, one which has become ingrained in our notion of what we're supposed to hear while getting arrested. We have a right to an attorney. We have a right to stay silent. If we do say something, it can be used against us. In these seemingly simple words, we are informed of what we have a right to do and what the government and police have a right to do, all in one package.
But even though we expect these rights to be intoned to us, this was not always the case. Though these are constitutional rights, they were not always told to suspects who being arrested. They were not even mentioned at all. In Miranda, we are faced with a man who was arrested without hearing those rights. While in police custody, Miranda confessed to his crime without knowing he didn't have to. Sure, he had the rights, but he wasn't aware of them, and the police used that to their advantage to get a confession. Was this confession true? Yes. Was this a man who should have been let back into the streets? No. But what would have happened if Miranda was innocent? What if police badgering Miranda eventually caused him to break down and tell them anything they wanted to hear? What happens then? We're no closer to the truth than when we started.
Miranda's confession was eventually thrown out and the police had to start all over again. The fruit of the poisoned tree proved to be just a piece of Miranda's wrongdoing, though, and police found evidence that eventually convicted him of his crime. To think, police had evidence all along that could convict Miranda of his crime without resorting to violating his rights. What a concept.
Procedural rules are not put in place to leash the police and prevent them from doing their jobs. So often we hear of people getting off on “technicalities” and what a terrible injustice it is that one small little rule being broken is the reason some dangerous criminal is free. Do we want the criminal to go free? Of course not. But at the same time, do we want the same government that is creating rules for us to follow to be exempt from those rules? Do we want an unbridled police force that will do anything in its power to force confessions from suspects, even if those people were just at the wrong place at the wrong time? Sure, we don't want rampant crime, but we also don't want a rampant government.
Unfortunately, the pendulum must keep swinging between these two concepts. The line drawn will never completely satisfy both sides. This is the true effect of a compromise. We have to strive to maintain the authority of police while making sure the autonomy of the people is not overlooked. As such, we will never fully realize either ideal without breaking into the other concept and dragging it down a little. The best we can do is to continue looking for examples, earmarks where rights can be changed to protect us more or rights have been violated and must be bolstered.
While my investigations teacher ribbed us paralegal students, he also had this to say, “You guys make us work that much harder in order to do our jobs right.” And that's the way it should be.
I have more of these. I'll post them over the next few days.
We want to be safe by allowing our government and police do their job, however, where do we draw the line in order to keep the freedoms we enjoy in our country. Please discuss.
In my Investigations course, taught by a former policeman, our instructor would often joke with the paralegal students, saying they were working for the enemy. He'd throw out examples of times where criminals found something wrong procedurally and get off light. Police would know the suspects did the crime, but they wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Slimy lawyers would reap the rewards all because one little rule that was broken tainted key evidence.
Here we see that the issue of civil right versus safety can be very divisive at times. We want to feel secure in the knowledge that we are protected by the law enacted by the government and enforced by police, but at the same time, we do not want that safety to come at the price of liberty. If we give too much freedom to the people, there is no way to effectively govern, as we would simply ignore the rules and descend into anarchy and eventually tyranny by whomever wins us over. If we give too much power to the government and police force, we run the risk of having no say in what we can and cannot do, eventually creating a 1984-esque police state where we aren't allowed to even think of wrong doing.
These are extreme examples, of course, ones we will hopefully never have to experience full-force, but at the same time, the balance between the duty of the government and police to do their jobs and our rights as individuals to do as we please is shaky at best. I suppose one of the classic examples of this divide comes to us in Arizona v. Miranda, the case where our Miranda rights originated. Without that case, we would not hear “You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...” and so on and so forth. We hear these words on television all the time. The words have almost their own cadence at this point, one which has become ingrained in our notion of what we're supposed to hear while getting arrested. We have a right to an attorney. We have a right to stay silent. If we do say something, it can be used against us. In these seemingly simple words, we are informed of what we have a right to do and what the government and police have a right to do, all in one package.
But even though we expect these rights to be intoned to us, this was not always the case. Though these are constitutional rights, they were not always told to suspects who being arrested. They were not even mentioned at all. In Miranda, we are faced with a man who was arrested without hearing those rights. While in police custody, Miranda confessed to his crime without knowing he didn't have to. Sure, he had the rights, but he wasn't aware of them, and the police used that to their advantage to get a confession. Was this confession true? Yes. Was this a man who should have been let back into the streets? No. But what would have happened if Miranda was innocent? What if police badgering Miranda eventually caused him to break down and tell them anything they wanted to hear? What happens then? We're no closer to the truth than when we started.
Miranda's confession was eventually thrown out and the police had to start all over again. The fruit of the poisoned tree proved to be just a piece of Miranda's wrongdoing, though, and police found evidence that eventually convicted him of his crime. To think, police had evidence all along that could convict Miranda of his crime without resorting to violating his rights. What a concept.
Procedural rules are not put in place to leash the police and prevent them from doing their jobs. So often we hear of people getting off on “technicalities” and what a terrible injustice it is that one small little rule being broken is the reason some dangerous criminal is free. Do we want the criminal to go free? Of course not. But at the same time, do we want the same government that is creating rules for us to follow to be exempt from those rules? Do we want an unbridled police force that will do anything in its power to force confessions from suspects, even if those people were just at the wrong place at the wrong time? Sure, we don't want rampant crime, but we also don't want a rampant government.
Unfortunately, the pendulum must keep swinging between these two concepts. The line drawn will never completely satisfy both sides. This is the true effect of a compromise. We have to strive to maintain the authority of police while making sure the autonomy of the people is not overlooked. As such, we will never fully realize either ideal without breaking into the other concept and dragging it down a little. The best we can do is to continue looking for examples, earmarks where rights can be changed to protect us more or rights have been violated and must be bolstered.
While my investigations teacher ribbed us paralegal students, he also had this to say, “You guys make us work that much harder in order to do our jobs right.” And that's the way it should be.
I have more of these. I'll post them over the next few days.
