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Wait, so it doesn’t matter that the pot was planted? Or are you just not covering that?
The informant sold club drugs, not pot. On page 22, she pretended to get some from the house, but they were really her own drugs she’d brought along. It looks like she got the paper bag inside the house. When the cops raided, they weren’t looking for pot, but they still found some in Mike’s bedroom. It hadn’t been planted there.
What probably happened two seconds after this hearing was over, was both guys pled to very minor offenses (probably not even crimes, presuming they had no record), paid fines far smaller than their lawyer fees, and went on with their lives. Mike had to hire a repairman to fix his front door. Charlie pled guilty to selling drugs, and the judge slammed her at sentencing for lying under oath at the search warrant application. She’s not enjoying state prison at all.
Are their any circumstances under which one can get the police to pay the cost of repairs? Or perhaps the informant for causing the mess in the first place?
That would be a tort. It will be a while before our intrepid author gets to Torts.
Maybe Charlie knew all along that she wouldn’t get away with her lies, but did it anyway so that her ex, Mike (who dumped her for Jen), would get in trouble for his marijuana!! So the real question becomes: was her revenge worth it?? (I don’t think so.)
Many (most?) people who turn to crime as a lifestyle do it because there is something a bit broken in them. They make terrible choices, or they believe that for some reason regular rules don’t apply to them, or they have trouble judging the long-term consequences of short-term satisfaction, or they let emotion overrule their good sense, or any combination of the above.
You might as well ask if getting into the drug-dealing business in the first place was worth it. Obviously not.
I just wanted to point out, as a reminder, that Charlie isn’t like some of the earlier examples of a criminal in this comic strip. She didn’t make one mistake that ruined her life, or become blinded by rage when provoked, or accidentally do something wrong through negligence. She has deliberately chosen a life of crime. This isn’t going to be a person with good judgement.
It looks to me like a shell game. Either it is or it isn’t a deterrent depending on what’s most convenient for whatever is being argued at the time.
You’ve got a long list of things that exclude evidence, but so long as they aren’t all happening at once, the evidence goes through because someone, somewhere, is acting in good faith. We’re shown a long line of hoops, but not told that the state only has to jump through one of them.
“…no bad conduct to deter…” Like obtaining a bad warrant?