Originally Posted by
mahohmei
Too lazy to look up a link (and I don't want to do said Google search at work), but there was a case some time ago where burglars found, in their loot, CDs containing child porn. They turned them into the police, who called the burglary victim to recover his property, and once he identified the CDs as his, he was arrested.
That would be correct.
Methinks any competent defense lawyer could blow a hole right through this. If your "evidence" came from someone who was committing a crime in the first place (burglar, valet attendant searching the trunk for things to steal...), I'm going to go ahead and assume the evidence was planted.
Methinks you're unfamiliar with the rules of evidence, the standards for admissibility, the significance of evidence in a criminal trial, or the conduct of trials themselves.
Even LEOs plant evidence, so I sure as heck am not going to trust someone who claims to have found the evidence while committing another crime. If the evidence was allowed, this opens two very scary precedents:
- The cops can't get a warrant? No problem. Just get an off-duty, plainclothes cop to commit a burglary, steal the evidence, and turn it in.
In other words, break the law.
- You're valet parking, and your ex/boss who fired you/teacher you never liked in high school turns in their car for valet parking. Time to throw that big bag of weed in the trunk and "find" it.
In other words, break the law.
Look, this isn't a question of opinion, open to debate. The law is the law.