OJ -

Whatever prompted you to attend VLS ... of all law schools?

Before California courts outlawed the practice, a legendary Los Angeles deputy district attorney would, during his closing argument in a case where the defendant elected not to testify, walk behind the defendant and say to the jury: 'Ladies and gentlement, it is fifteen steps, fifteen short steps, to walk from here to that witness stand (pointing) to proclaim your innocence . . . '

I miss the old days. Don't get me started on the abuse of the 'presumption of innocence' when employed outside the courtroom in judging everyday matters.

OJ, I bet that line gets you out of jury duty quite often.

Tonto:

My LSAT score was twice my GPA.

Robert:

No, the one that works wonders is: I don't believe the police arrest people unless they are criminals.

My mom liked to say that she could always tell if people were guilty by how they looked.

I think an even more implicit admission of guilt is to refuse to talk to the policeman and give him a detailed and full explanation of your version of the events. Of course, that may mean that if the policeman later decides that even if you didn't commit a crime and he didn't actually write down or record the interview that you were not truthful, you should be prosecuted so that other would be encouraged to be truthful. Of course, the greatest implicit admission of guilt is to attack witnesses that have appeared against you. Innocent people have nothing to fear since by definition an innocent person cannot be guilty. On the whole, the best thing would be for the law to presume that the accused is guilty and let him prove that he is innocent. That would not be any problem for the innocent person and would save a lot of time about the guilty. Take Martha Stewart everybody knows that she did it, something about insider trading or something, and we have had this three week trial for nothing, although she did claim to be innocent to the police, they didn't believe her, so why doesn't she just prove that she didn't say the things that they didn't record and save us all this nightmare and waste of money.

George:

If you have nothing to cover up, then why not co-operate fully with police? Are we searching for truth and justice or playing games?

The prosecutors deprived her of her 5th amendment rights by indicting her for protesting her innocence. When the liberals thought that was done to an unrepentant rapist, they not only let him off, they named a warning after him, so now they want to deny to a woman who may have committed a 5-figure insider trade a right they wouldn't take from a rapist?? The Feminazis hate her that much for glorifying homemaking?? One of the charges, perjury, was something they let a President get away with.

Orrin - I couldn't agree more. We both know that all that legal technicality stuff just gets in the way of finding out the truth. I mean, for example, why should the police need a warrant to search your house? If they don't find any contraband or evidence, you're not going to be charged with anything and if they do, well which is more important, knowing the truth or curbing some hypothetical excesses on the part of the police. In fact, a judge should probably tell the jury that this defendant wanted the police to get a warrant, obvious evidence of a guilty conscience or maybe proof of obstruction of justice. The fact that the police didn't find anything when they did search (sort of like the fact that government didn't charge Stewart with insider trading) wouldn't alter the fact that they were obstructed. Some might have a less benign view of government and want to restrict its power and circumscibe it agents with limitations, but they probably have something to hide.

George:

Yes, the police should be disciplined but evidence should be admissible.

Orrin - That's what I used to think as well, prior to be introduced to the real world. In the real world, police officers are members of an union. It is difficult enough to discipline a police officer for actual wrongs that he or she commits because of the civil service protections and grievance procedures, but discipline for being a zealous cop, who may have not troubled with availing some criminal his rights, no way that is going to happen. In addition, police already tend to shade the truth a little about the circumstances that gave rise to this or that action (i.e. car had a tail-light out so I stopped it, that sort of thing) if they faced discipline for being wrong about probable cause, we would add self-interest as another motive to lie to the existing desire to "get the bad guys." The exclusionary rule is only desireable in the light of a lack of better solutions.

So because of our inability to discipline cops effectively criminals should go free?

OJ:

Moral hazard seems to enter here.

Your approach would scarcely penalize, and often reward, what is essentially sloppy work.

And send the guilty to prison.

Along with the innocent, a far too common result when the system abets sloppy police work.

If they were innocent there wouldn't be evidence of their guilt for the cops to find in the first place.

Here in Michigan recently (within the last 8 months) there have been a couple cases of people being released from prison due to sloppy police work leading to wrong convictions.

Sloppy processes lead to rework. In the manufacturing world, that means wasted effort fixing or replacing widgets. In the judicial world, that rework leads to broken lives, which can't be fixed or replaced.

No one cares about widgets, they do about crime.