Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
What prevents the police from making a judgment of this person is worth breaking the law for?
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Also, if you don't exclude evidence obtained by illegal means, does that include torturing suspects? How about denying them their lawyer and intimidating them into submission? Threatening their families? I mean, why stop at just invading peoples' homes without cause? There are lots of other ways to get evidence if the situation seems to warrant extreme measures.
Plus, you have to wonder if just as a matter of human nature, there's an inclination to go easy on the officer who commits an illegal search and turns out to be right, as opposed to the one who doesn't find anything. Which is just moral luck.
It's an unequivocally utilitarian approach - the greater good justifies doing bad things in some cases. We have it to some extent (section 1), but we only allow legislation that violates the Charter.
But we don't let police officers play that role, because they're
police officers. That system is downright scary and primed for abuse. And hell, it's not like s.8 of the Charter requires Police to comply with some onerous burden in order to undertake a search. Asking for reasonable and probable grounds that an offence has been committed before barging into someone's house or sorting through their car's trunk is not asking for the moon.