Comment by ikeboy
2 hours ago
The warrant here was approved by a magistrate judge, and I would suggest making the process for approval more robust to reduce this kind of abuse.
Personal civil liability and firing can also help.
2 hours ago
The warrant here was approved by a magistrate judge, and I would suggest making the process for approval more robust to reduce this kind of abuse.
Personal civil liability and firing can also help.
I don't think magistrates rule on questions of law (maybe you were implying this, but maybe not). But in general the whole legal/justice system is basically blind to the harm it itself causes, so I don't think an actual judge looking at the merits of a warrant would be terribly adversarial to a sheriff either - they work together all the time, and most of the warrants presented by the sheriff are legitimate.
I do agree with you in general that we should aim to split system functions between multiple people. But this merely raises the bar, it doesn't make corrupt actions impossible. Which means we should be focusing on both avenues of reform, rather than emphasizing one to downplay another. Especially as when you do this, the entrenched system seems to takes advantage of the downplaying while resisting the solution being emphasized.
Magistrates are supposed to verify that the warrant contains probable cause and reject ones that don't.
You could make the system more adversarial at that point, although I think enforcing bail hearings where a public defender can argue would help in this and many other cases.
Shooting from the hip, I'd think a properly adversarial/just process would be something like a public defender (or other attorney of the person's choosing) who is paid out of government funds. Then there should probably be different classes of warrants, with the lowest class being something like the person is notified and able to choose their representation to challenge the warrant before it's even issued (presumably non-violent, no flight risk, etc), with escalating classes based on those factors.
But even then, abuse of that classification is something that could routinely happen and would need to be punished post-facto. Imagine the same sheriff looking to perform the same retaliation, so he checks all the boxes for a no-notice no-knock warrant that still results in an arrest with a weekend in jail. Which is why my main point is that we shouldn't argue against one avenue of reform with the goal of emphasizing a different one.
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