Is it really too much to expect the cops to honor the Constitution and Bill or Rights when they arrest people suspected of committing crimes?

I suspect the lazy cops think so. After all it's a lot easier to trick or force a suspect into confessing then it is to do a lot of hard police work and dig up the evidence that would convict a suspected criminal in court.

Source

Judge drops murder charge

Prosecutors say action in Apache County case was uncalled for

by Felicia Fonseca - Jan. 21, 2011 12:00 AM

Associated Press

ST. JOHNS - An Apache County judge has dropped charges against an eastern Arizona man accused of murder and concealing and mutilating a human body, a move that prosecutors said was uncalled for in the case.

Superior Court Judge Donna Grimsley said investigators violated Joseph Roberts' constitutional rights when they interviewed him without his attorney last year. Grimsley dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning they can't be refiled.

"The court is of the view that the flagrant and manipulative subversion of the Sixth Amendment constitutional rights in this case trumps all other considerations and that dismissal is the only remedy that will preserve the defendant's inviolable constitutional right," Grimsley said in an order this week.

The Apache County Attorney's Office was disqualified from the case after the eight-minute interview in February, in which its investigators discussed a plea agreement with Roberts ahead of a preliminary hearing. A Maricopa County prosecutor took over.

A spokesman for that office, Jerry Cobb, said Thursday that suppressing any evidence gathered during the interview appeared to be the more appropriate action, as cited by case law.

"We're reviewing our next move," he said, including an appeal to the state Court of Appeals.

Roberts had pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the April 2007 shooting death of William "Stoney" McCarraghe, 72, on his ranch outside St. Johns. He also was charged with concealment of a dead body, tampering with evidence, hindering prosecution and mutilating a human body in the death of Daniel Achten, 60, nearly two years later.

Roberts made no incriminating statements in the interview with Brian Hounshell, a former sheriff who works as an investigator for the Apache County Attorney's Office.

Grimsley said that although Roberts was read his Miranda rights, Hounshell isn't a certified law-enforcement officer and failed to notify Roberts' attorney of the interview. She called the behavior "outrageous" and "unethical."