Judge throws out confessionFollow

Lol! True...

I usually rail against many of these cases, but in this situation it's a reasonable call for the judge to make. They very clearly ignored his requests for a lawyer so they could continue to get information out of him. The impression I got from the article was that they essentially chose to do that becasue at the time, there was still a possiblity that the girl was alive, and they'd rather recover her alive then wait for the guys lawyer to appear.

In cases like that the absolute first thing in the cops minds is rescuing a live child. 9 out of 10 cops would take the risk that a confession would get thrown out if there was a 1 in 100 chance that they'd save a life in the process. That's just the way it works. It didn't sound like the DA in this case was suprised or concerned about the judges decision.

I never said that we'd excuse rapists period. I've stated that rapists disgust me, and should be stoned to death several times in the past. Rapists and child molesters are the worst scum on the planet in my opinion.

I'm not fond of the idea of taking someones rights away (in fact, we deserve our rights back, but that's a topic for another day), I stated that in this very thread, however, I do think that in cases like this, certain things should be allowed, such as leaning on the suspect to make them give up information to find the missing child. I also think that the suspects identity should be protected, unless it will aid in the recovery of the missing child, or hell, for that matter, adults that are missing. The victims should be the ones protected here, not the criminals. I know that it's not that easy, but it should be.

If we don't work to protect the victim, what's the point of the law? Why have any laws to begin with, if we're not going to protect the victims? Why is it that people are more worried about procting the accused than the victim? We've gotten too PC in this country. We're more worried that the guy breaking into our house will cut himself on the glass in our window than worried about keeping them out, or punishing them for breaking in to begin with. True story here in VA: man broke into someones house via a window and cut himself badly. He sued the homeowner and won. He was sentenced for the break in, because of the civil case, so where's the justice?

While I love the fact that we do have likely the best legal system, where we give the accused the rights they need to protect themselves from accusations that would destroy their reputations, I don't think we go far enough for the victims. This is a case where I agree with the officers. I think they did the right thing, even if people don't agree with it. They went out there to try and protect that little girl. I don't have a problem with that. I have to wonder if this guys lawyer had showed up, and told him to clam up, what would have happened had the police found the little girl a day or two later, and found that had they gotten information from the jerk sooner, they could have found her alive.

I don't like slippery slopes (they never lead to where you want them to), but I still think that erring on the side of caution is best (I think we can avoid the slippery slope, maybe with a change to the laws that covers missing persons?). I think that the police need to be able to use all available resources to help the victims, rather than have investigations blocked by criminals and their protectors. I guess I want to have faith in the system, but I can't. I've seen the system fail far too many times (kinda like our goverment).

Well...I guess I'm slightly conflicted. I want the bastards that would do such things to die a horrible death, but I do think that everyone has the right to a fair trial. If found innocent, not much I can say, really. We all know cases where the person is as guilty as possible, but they were let off, just to commit further crimes. Can't change that. We as a society must do what we can to protect the victim, without destroying the accused. A case like this is a little different than most. This wasn't an after the fact murder investigation, this was a missing person with evidence to prove she was there investigation. I think gabji said it best when he stated that the cops were more worried about finding the little girl than following the law. Good on them. The DA also has enough evidence to convict in my opinion, so there isn't much to say now, other than turn on the chair, and get it warmed up.

I think that officers should be able to do whatever needed to find the missing person. Whatever is needed to convict is a different matter, and can lead to falsifying evidence. That is not what I want. That doesn't benifit anyone, and leads down that slope to injustice. What I want is to help the victims rather than protect the criminals. It's a tough position that I've put myself in, and it relies on common sense, and rock solid proof. This is one of those cases. A case that isn't one of those would be the Holloway case. There is no solid linkable evidence to link the boys they've questioned so far to formally charge them (unless something has changed in the last week or so). So you can't procede in the same manner.

I hope I got that out right...I think I did, but I'm rather busy at work, but I'm trying to get this up. I'll proof it later this evening.