As was pointed out on the news reports over the past few days, no one
really knew a crime had been committed when the first girl disappeared ..
or even when the second did. When would the '48 hours' you speak of have
started to toll? In January? In March? It is very difficult, in June,
to call a search an emergency for an event that occurred months before ...
unless you have some evidence that your efforts will prevent a crime (such
as believing the girls were being held captive and that they would be
killed or further harm come to them if civil liberties were not set aside)
or keep evidence from being destroyed. Both of these would qualify to
bypass getting a warrant before entering the premises.
We all wish something more could have been done and it had not taken so
long to bring this to resolution. But I don't see how the rules of
evidence really had much bearing on the outcome, when it was not even
recognized at the time of the disappearances that a crime had been
committed.
Richard.J.GRESHAM@private
tate.or.us To: "'crime@private'" <crime@private>
Sent by: cc:
owner-crime@private Subject: Re: CRIME Follow-up law enforcement response
08/28/2002 09:33 AM
Just some simple historical thoughts ....
Remember the old thought that our court system was created with the concept
that we would rather let 100 guilty men go free rather than convict one
innocent? The outgrowths of these thoughts along with past abuses of
powers, the current limits on law enforcement were put into place. We also
need to remember that our freedom "from" government as well as "of"
government is a major part of why we became the great nation we are. As
people raced to put into place more restrictive laws to stop the horrible
Sept 11 tragedy, what made us great has started being changed -- and IMHO
not for the better. Others concur, saying that if we give in to the
terrorists and change our laws so that we become less free, then the
attackers have one a major battle. So too, if we look at the abductors
only with an eye of prevention at all costs, then we lessen part of the
freedoms of all Americans.
Rich Gresham
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Aug 28 2002 - 13:10:19 PDT