Dragaera

Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement

Sun Jan 11 18:16:44 PST 2004


On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 rone at ennui.org wrote:

> warbi writes:
>     Entrapment is a major weapon of police these days, just like illegal
>   search and seizure.  There have even been recent movements to do away with
>   the Miranda rights.  If they think drugs are involved, kiss your rights
>   good-bye.
>
> I think you are overstating the case regarding Miranda rights.
> They've been overromanticized by cops in TV and movies.

I suspect you're underestimating the extent to which Miranda rights fail
to impede law enforcement (because criminals are stupid, because the
warning is repeated to background noise, because the police can
effectively evade [or at least lessen the effect of] granting the right);
and I've read that the law enforcement community is increasingly in
support of Miranda, for the sake of transparency (as with the trend of
videotaping complete interrogations in capital cases).  Anyway, this is
far away from Dragaera, where we know what the noble attitude towards
"police" is.