What the “death of the exclusionary rule” means for America is that police could be granted carte blanche when it comes to purposeful or accidental police misconduct. The practices of law enforcement will be less important than creating some sort of proof that the suspect is guilty of a crime.
Any removal of the “rule” also means more and more criminals are locked up behind bars.
Chief Justice Roberts and others who share his ideology may, in theory, have good reason to do what they do but practically speaking, further decisions like Herring v. United States will simply ensure the U.S. continues to do what it does best --- incarcerate its people.
Liptak writes in an article published for the International Herald Tribune in 2008, “the United States leads the world in producing prisoners…Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.”
Let's keep going with this conservative and libertarian ideology and think about what conservatives and libertarians think about taxes, which must pay for the incarceration of prisoners, right?
Have you noticed that every time we build a jail it immediately fills to capacity? They’re like homeless shelters. An acquaintance of mine likes to say this about both jails and homeless shelters: if you build them they will come. Jails are schools for criminals. Nobody comes out rehabilitated – that myth was disproved decades ago. Criminals come out better-educated criminals than before they went in.
Liberals say we shouldn’t put violent murderers and rapists to death. They say we should be humane. They say we should lock them in cages like animals.
I ask: how is that humane? Those same liberals gripe when they see actual animals locked in cages.
The truth is that jails are not cages anymore. Jails are: free health care, free dental care, free HBO, free books, free pornography, free air conditioning, free heating, free conjugal visits, free exercise facilities, free trade schools, free showers, free beds, free laundry service, and lots of free time to hone their criminal trade from fellow inmates.
All that is free only to the inmate. The family that the inmate devastated when he raped and murdered their little girl is the one who pays his bills with their taxes. And this is called "justice"?
Don’t get me wrong. If jails were harsh environments I still wouldn’t support their existence. Jails are miserable failures the same way that the government schools are.
Considering the fact that the ideology of the author of this babble may be somewhat different from Chief Justice Roberts and many in the Federalist Society, I will let you decide how much proof this is that conservative and libertarian ideology can be a labyrinth of preposterous thinking which will ultimately lead to more and more conundrums instead of explanations that can be put into practice.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).