No, that's not implied at all. The remedy for most "illegal" things is repayment of damages suffered, or a statutory fine. Nor can you imprison an inanimate entity, like the government that carried out the illegal warrant.
What's convenient ? ? The inability to imprison inanimate entities ? Isn't that... you know... logic.
Maybe you're speaking of the fact that most democratic judicial system have a tendency not to send everyone to prison ? I understand that this seems strange in US... but in most places, prison is really the last resort. And I'm happy that people are not sent to jail jail for mistrials. Or for abuse of the judicial system. If I had a risk of imprisonment... I'll probably not even risk any judicial process... too risky.
I think the point is, there's a line of thinking that when anyone, a person or an entity, uses force against someone in a way determined to be illegal (not just making some mistake on paperwork), some person should be put in prison over it. Whether it's the leader of the illegal operation, or the bureaucrat who authorized it.
A few bureaucrats and agents would end up in prison due to mistakes, but private citizens already end up in prison due to law enforcement mistakes. If government employees don't like taking that risk, they shouldn't be government employees. Better a few government employees behind bars "unfairly" than more than a few citizens behind bars "unfairly".
I'm sorry, but you have a terrible conception of Justice.
We should never think that prison "should" be the solution for anything. That's the reason there is 4.5 times more persons in prison per capita in US than in NZ [1].
In continental Europe we tend to consider that prison is there as a punishment for really severe things (killings, sexual abuse, severe drug trafficking etc.) OR a way to avoid reiteration. If there is no risk of reiteration and the damage was light, then fines and other non-socially disruptive punishments are better suited.
And your conception that : private citizens always end up in prison so should government representatives, is wrong. If private citizens always end up in prison, then that's a problem that should be solved... not ampliated by putting more people behind the bars. Your vision almost sounds to me like a bitter revenge : "Hiii, we pooooor citizens always go to jail, they should taste their own medicine". No, the least prison, the better.
The best example of this is your terrible transformation of an important Judicial principle. You wrote : « Better a few government employees behind bars "unfairly" than more than a few citizens behind bars "unfairly". »
Dude. Read yourself. There is no way, people behind the bars unfairly is better than anything. It's the wrost thing. Remember the Blackstone Principle : "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer".
And finally, do not forget that police is by essence making mistakes, it's impossible not to do, because they do something called investigation. If they were only to act in full certainty, then they would almost never act. They gather data and facts about a possible crime, and they have to use force to do that, and then they send all of this to a judge who will decide if there is enough to effectively find someone guilty or not. What you are asking for, is that police only act when they're so certain of the guilt that there is almost no need anymore for a trial. The judicial system cannot work like that. You must allow police force to make mistakes... or we're going to end up with police acting like Judge Dredd.
Which by the way does not mean there is not going to be any punishment, and if they do some really grave trespassing, then they might even end up in prison. It's a question of scale.
> We should never think that prison "should" be the solution for anything. That's the reason there is 4.5 times more persons in prison per capita in US than in NZ
It's because in the US, prisons are a business venture.
"Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for "challenging corrections budgets." In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus _an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full_"
It's convenient that there is nobody to punish because then there is no disincentive to acting in an illegal manner.
Abuses of the judicial system are precisely what I have in mind when discussing this topic: when the response to such an abuse is -- at best -- a fine paid by the public, why should such abuses stop?
Sorry for Godwinning this thread, but “I didn't do it, I was acting in the name of an inanimate entity!” is up there with “I was just following orders!”
Non-monetary punishments would be warranted for abuses of police power, because they threaten the social contract, which brings them within the purview of criminal law (not to say there isn't a civil case as well).
