Our criminal justice system is one of the best in the world
Our criminal justice system is one of the best in the world. We allow criminal defense attorneys to question judges, prosecutors, and police without fear of retribution.
However, we struggle as a society with protecting the constitutional rights of those we feel are guilty. Why should we protect a father who killed his child? Why should we protect the Fourth Amendment rights of drug couriers? Why should a cop killer not be executed?
These are all legitimate questions. However, there are other important considerations.
One, our criminal justice systems makes mistakes. We are human after all. We arrest the wrong people sometimes. We have convicted innocent people. We have executed innocent people. Is this acceptable?
Second, hard cases make bad law. Why protect an admitted killer’s constitutional rights? Why keep the government from prosecuting a drug dealer because evidence was seized illegally? Each time we fail to protect the constitutional rights of any defendant, we weaken the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens who may need that same protection.
We do so by allowing unconstitutional acts to go without consequence. We do so because we let ourselves be controlled by emotions, not facts. When we do so, cases like the one in the link occur. We must do better.