Follow BeltwayBlips on Twitter
Goldberg: Dont Punish Public for Blundering Constables
Articles on National Review Online —
... shouldn t be exempt from following the law like everyone else. Reynolds understands the court s reasoning: Why punish the police by letting a guilty man go free when they just made a simple mistake? But, he reasons, ignorance is no excuse for John Q. Public, so why should it be one for Johnny Law? Being a public servant, apparently, means being free to make the kind of mistakes that the rest of us aren t allowed, writes Reynolds. I ve never understood this argument. CONTINUED 1 2 ...
On Red Herrings & Glenn Reynolds
The Corner on National Review Online —
Friday, January 16, 2009 [image] On Red Herrings & Glenn Reynolds [ Jonah Goldberg ] Last night Ramesh objected to Glenn Reynolds' column in the NYP post on the Herring decision and the exclusionary rule. Little did Ramesh know that I had a column coming out today on the same topic making the same objection. An excerpt: Reynolds and others say police should be subject to the same laws as other citizens and public servants. I agree. But if a husband runs a red light to get his pregnant wife to the hospital, she s not turned away because he broke the law. Or, imagine if a health inspector had the wrong address on his paperwork and rummaged around ...
alicublog — MORE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS. The recent Supreme Court decision in Herring v. United States weakens the exclusionary rule that forbids use of improperly obtained evidence in court. National Review's Jonah Goldberg doesn't know much about anything, but he knows what he doesn't like, and so emits a column that portrays the rule as a "get-out-of-jail-free card" for "the scum of the earth." (He is eased in his task by a column by the Ole Perfesser that seems to defend the rule, but really just uses it as an opportunity to gripe about all the rules the rest of us are obliged to follow, the rebuttal of which extraneous argument allows ...
Replacing the Exclusionary Rule With Something Better:
The Volokh Conspiracy —
Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Reynolds have gotten into an interesting debate on the merits of the exclusionary rule. Jonah argues against setting the criminal free because the constable blunders and Glenn contends that the exclusionary rule is all we have so long as the police retain their immunity from civil liability. (Their exchange is Glenn , Jonah , Glenn , Jonah .) I agree with Glenn that, when it comes to police misconduct, the exclusionary rule is better than nothing. And in my experience as a prosecutor in the late 70's and early 80's the ...
The Case Against Official Immunity
Hit & Run —
When the Herring decision limiting the exclusionary rule came down last week, the conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg praised it, declaring that "According to the exclusionary rule, a cop who breaks the rules to arrest a serial child rapist should be 'punished' by having the rapist released back into the general public. (Or as Benjamin Cordozo put it in 1926 when he was a New York state judge, 'The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered.') But the officer, while frustrated, isn't really punished. The people punished are the subsequent victims and their families." I agree with Glenn Reynolds' reply: ...
