There's good reason to exclude bad evidence

October 2, 11:52 AMCivil Liberties ExaminerJ.D. Tuccille

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Dozens of criminal cases are under investigation in Oakland, California, and at least 12 officers have been pulled from duty because of "misstatements" the officers made in warrant applications. Specifically, the officers have been "claiming substances purchased in undercover buys from suspects were actual narcotics, when in fact that had not been confirmed by the police crime lab when the warrants were issued."

Police officials say the misstatements were errors, not lies. Maybe, maybe not. Fibs or mistakes, the result may be the same, if cases get tossed out because prosecutors are barred from using evidence gathered through the use of the flawed warrants.

Some people find that harsh. Give the erring cops an administrative punishment, they say, but don't throw out good evidence of illegal activity because of some technical "exclusionary rule." After all, if the cops cut a few corners on the way to catching bad guys, what harm is done?

But harm often is done when police try to gather evidence through illegal means. Truthfully, the authorities don't always know what they think they know, and they sometimes move against the wrong people -- with occasionally tragic results -- when they don't abide by all of those annoying rules.

That's what was behind the shooting death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston at the hands of Atlanta police officers in 2006. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution put it in coverage of the officers' trial, "A former Atlanta police officer testified Thursday that narcotics officers routinely lied under oath when seeking search warrants —- a practice that led to police killing a 92-year-old woman." Police were so sure that they had a cocaine dealer dead to rights, that they manufactured a tip and lied about finding drugs on informants.

Of course the case was garbage -- and the short-cut was lethal.

Excluding evidence gained by "misstatements" -- accidental or deliberate -- reduces the temptation for cops to cut corners, and thereby cuts the likelihood that police will crash through another innocent person's door in a hail of bullets.