united-states evidence
Police, Evidence and Conflict Of Interest
<p>I've recently binge-watched the entire Netflix original series <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_a_Murderer" rel="nofollow">Making A Murderer</a> and while I have a million questions, I suppose if I could narrow it down to one, it would be the following (some background for those not familiar).</p>

<p>Officers who were actively being sued by Mr. Avery, the accused, were ordered to not be involved in the process of searching Mr. Avery's property, collecting evidence or having any direct access or involvement in the case because of the fact that Mr. Avery had a lawsuit before the courts against these officers for 36 million dollars. This was willingly admitted by the department at the beginning and because of this conflict, they handed over the case to police from a neighboring county. </p>

<p>They were being sued for causing him to be imprisoned for 18 years for a sexual assault that DNA evidence proved he did not commit. Later, it was revealed that at best this was because of gross negligence and at worst due to deliberate malicious action by many police officers.</p>

<p>However, during murder investigation, they were allowed on to his property. Not only were they allowed on his property, but they "discovered" all major evidence used to convict him, or had documented, private access to the rest of the evidence discovered.</p>

<p>My question is, why is it that such evidence was allowed to be used against Mr. Avery without being thrown out, when even by their own admission, these officers had a clear conflict of interest being involved at all? How is it that the State can confess its own conflict of interest, and ignore it entirely at the same time?</p>

<p>Agents of the state are not presumed to be perfect.  The justice system and due process are designed to weigh all the nuances of evidence and try to provide a fair outcome.  So in a trial the fact that there was a conflict of interest would and should be brought to light, and the judge and jury will consider that conflict and how it should color the evidence.</p>

<p>Even when there is no <em>explicit</em> conflict of interest, a great deal of a criminal trial may be spent by each side trying to impress upon the jury the reliability or dubiousness of the provenance and import of every piece of evidence.</p>

<p>Only when the justice system determines that fundamental rights have been violated (e.g., fourth- and fifth-amendment rights) will it completely exclude evidence so procured.</p>
