In many of his books, Thomas Sowell criticizes how the Warren court's rulings on criminal justice allegedly led to a great spike in crime. For example, the requirement to give Miranda warnings or to provide people who cannot afford a lawyer one free of charge.
While Sowell claims that these rulings had no basis in the Constitution, which may well be the case, I'd like to discuss the substance of the matter.
Given the persecution being faced by Derek Chauvin, Donald Trump and the January 6 protesters, I wonder if the Warren court protects the rights of defendants enough, because it does not seem to be doing much to protect people's rights.
The government can spend tens of millions of dollars 'investigating' you, frivolously indict you, and if you manage to beat the charges, you have bankruptcy to show for your pains. Because if you have been a responsible citizen and saved money, you won't count as impecunious and the government isn't going to pay for an ineffective lawyer for you. So you lose all your money as well as years of your life being dragged through a court.
Basically, they can destroy a man de facto if not de iure, and that only if they do not manage to find a sympathetic judge and jury.
Counterarguments could be of course, to point out in Sowellian style that more rights for criminal defendants is not a 'solution', but merely a trade-off. While you hedge against tyranny and make fewer innocent people go to jail, you also further undermine the ability of the government to prosecute legitimate criminals who terrorize neighborhoods.
The Warren Court did a lot of stupid shit outside the really obvious stuff that has stuck around. Remember that they banned the death penalty, it was repealed by the states.
I'm not going to complain about Miranda rights, court-appointed legal counsel, making it illegal to shoot non-threatening & fleeing suspects in the back, or such things like that. Those were all quite reasonable.
My Libertarian streak has no problem with this. "Better that 10 guilty men go free". The reason for that is that a corrupt regime will side with criminals, and spend it's time imprisoning the innocent because they were stupid enough to trust the regime.
But if I were to live in a world where I could shoot people to death for property crimes, then the corrupt judiciary and a cuckolded police force is simply not relevant.
That's the issue. I don't trust the government to prosecute criminals, I trust the government to side with criminals except when it is trying to establish it's legitimacy. Prosecutors are some of the most evil, subhuman, savages that have ever roamed the Earth because they very often target the innocent for prosecution, since career criminals (that avoid being regularly caught) tend to be much smarter.
This will always be a major dividing point between Libertarians/Minarchists & Conservatives/Traditionalists: the state is complete and total shit at maintaining social order and public safety. Police forces only emerged in the 18th century, and mostly as a result of mass migration and population density within cities. After their creation, (in the US) they were horrifically corrupt. They have only been genuinely accountable to law and misconduct since the 1970's. The nadir of police excellence was basically in the 2010's.
The problem isn't the rights of the criminals or the defendants, the problem is that it was decided the judiciary and the police could solve social order and reform people; rather than letting the victims defend themselves. "Rights of the criminals" can't be paired with "Defense of the victims" because those are mutually exclusive. What the Warren Court did was create "rights of the criminals", to the point of siding with terrorists and banning the death penalty; while also seeking to isolate victims from doing anything but calling the police and hoping for the best.
Rest assured: the Left is making a horrific mistake because they are pushing policies that push people towards my position. They emphasize that the police won't protect you, and the prosecutors will indict you, and the judges will convict you because you're innocent. That means people will realize the police not only can't, but won't protect them; and that they have to protect themselves. This is why gun control is DOA for the 2024 election; and why first-time gunbuyers are at an all-time high. This is also why even legally questionable self-defense cases are being rebuffed by massive political pressure.