The Genetic Fallacy

There are many dozens of cases of people falsely imprisoned because of faulty evidence procedures, so to suggest that they aren't necessary or that we shouldn't be more strict is a very odd way to go about trying to catch the few extra criminals you'll net over all the innocent people you jail forever in prison because of incorrect murder convictions. The vast majority of court cases in which innocent people are jailed are almost solely due to one or two police officers saying "screw the rules" and put in bad evidence but people didn't find out. (It's not just about warrants, there's a huuuuge list of procedures you need to follow such as how you even follow leads in the evidence you obtain)

And additionally, most people (the defendants) who go into the court system aren't reputable people in the first place. So if you show up with "awesome but incorrectly gathered" evidence, it's nigh impossible for someone with a criminal record to defend himself against that. It's why we have these rules in place. Law didn't just sprout out the ground and you can't just throw away things that took decades to built. These automatic rules are far better because the gains heavily outweigh the losses.

It's similar to having a building code that is strictly followed even if it's not inherently useful to 100% of all houses built in an area. You'd rather accidentally put in an extra I-beam than have a house collapse and kill a family.

edited 5th Jun '12 6:38:43 AM by breadloaf

Not sure if this has been posted, but...just to back up everything that's been said:

This is dead on the money and as soon as I'm a lawyer I'm going to recommend every single one of my clients watch the full video.