If he hadn’t been playing on the side that tries every day to weaken the “malice aforethought” defense, he might have a point.

Besides, half-assed police work IS malice aforethought.

“Yes your Honor, my client did shoot and kill 5 heavily armed police officers that burst into his home unannounced in the dark of night. Was it serious? Yes. Was it malicious? No.”

Legally speaking, if officers do a raid on the wrong house, wouldn’t it be entirely legal for the homeowner to kill them in self defense?

I mean, they have no warrant and no exigent circumstances. Legally, how are they any different from home invaders?

Yes, I know that, de facto, they are the nobility and we are the peasants, that the courts will find a way to make you pay. I’m talking about the actual law.

This is an under-discussed point. Back when I went to law school they were called CRI’s for Confidential Reliable Informants because policemen generally considered that they had to make some kind of falsifiable showing that the informant was reliable. I think that warrant application papers still make a point of alleging that the informant is “reliable,” but it is no longer expected to be a falsifiable showing. Probably mostly a function of ex-prosecutors now overwhelmingly being the deciders on warrant applications.

In the Chicago case, the policeman only won because the judge let the policeman explore the issue of the reliability of of the CI before trial. In the MN case, the judge might or might not let the family explore facts relating to the reliability of the CI (before trial and then during). I could definitely imagine the MN judge, when the time comes, saying, “plaintiffs have not presented any evidence to show that the CI was unreliable, so summary judgement on the issue of whether the warrant was obtained based on dishonest premises in violation of 4A.” Of course, plaintiffs can only show that the CI is unreliable (or non-existent) if the judge allows meaningful discovery on this issue. BTW, if it does go down that way in MN (and I hope it doesn’t), this actually would not be “qualified immunity.” It would simply be summary judgement based on “no Constitutional violation shown.”

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/police-stops-when-pulled-over-30186.html

“If a police car is following you with its siren blaring or emergency lights flashing, pull over to the right safely and quickly. Pull over in a way that will be most likely to calm down an angry or annoyed traffic officer. Use your turn signal to indicate any lane changes from left to right, and slow down fairly quickly, but not so quickly that the officer will have to brake to avoid hitting you. Pull over as far to the right as possible so that, when the officer comes up to your widow,”

A cops gets some taste of his own medicine. Good.
Department and individual pigs get to pay punitive damages. Good.

Too bad the wife and kids had to go thru the ordeal.

I think you’re right about the cops blaming the CI for the mistake. That’s why the defendants weren’t able to suppress the gun evidence. It was technically the “correct house”, at least according to the thorough and thoughtful investigation conducted by the crackhead.

It’s a wonder why all raids don’t vest all responsibility to a confidential informant. It’s so much more convenient.

*sigh*

This incident, however, raises some interesting questions:

Did the raiding officers check to see who the resident at this location was supposed to be?

Why didn’t they just arrest him as he reported for work? This would have exposed less people to any potential violence. Oh that’s right, kids and pets are expendable.

Will the lying officers be fired?

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/471/the-convert

Bob, it’s so hard to tell when you’re being cynical enough and in the right direction.

On reconsideration, I’m going with the boring option of the address being random (whether from an invented informant or someone who lied to stay out of jail) as most likely.

You are probably correct. Ockham’s razor and all.

All in all, the end causality here is probably just lax police policy. If your system is set up to allow short cuts like this, (No investigation, no need to document your informant, etc.) you advantage the people with the willingness to take those shortcuts. In a perverse way, that laxness is all win for the police, lots of raids means lots of police jobs and lots of overtime. Minimal investigation requirements means raids can be stacked up like cord wood waiting to be executed. It’s no longer about “justice” but about keeping the police machine busy and justifying increased budgets.