Powell debate: Do the ends justify the means?

Steve Powell is led from a Pierce County Superior Court hearing, Monday, April 23, 2012, in Tacoma, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

While a judge has now
ruled evidence of child porn found on Steven Powell’s
computer is admissible in his upcoming trial, it’s raising
some troubling questions about how far police should be
able
to go to catch a bad guy.

Powell had argued the evidence should not be allowed
because it was discovered while they were searching for
other evidence against Powell’s son, Josh, suspected in
the
disappearance of his wife Susan.

“If in the course of searching a computer for one thing
you find something else, is that fair game?” wondered Ross
and Burbank co-host Dave Ross.

But co-host Luke Burbank said regardless of what police
were looking for, the ends justify the means.

“I’m sorry, but if somebody goes missing and then somebody
else tells the news media ‘I had a borderline sexual
relationship with them and I was frankly, let me admit it,
obsessed with them,’ I don’t think you’re violating that
person’s constitutional rights to take a look at them as a
suspect.”

Powell’s lawyers argued, unsuccessfully, that police
violated his
constitutional rights by going on what amounted to a
“fishing expedition” with no justification to seize his
computers and search them.

“Sometimes fishing expeditions catch some creepy fish and
in the case of Stephen Powell, I’m fine with it,” argued
Burbank.

“Are you an American or an unreconstructed Communist from
the old Soviet Union?” responded Ross, who worried such
thinking could lead to vastly expanded violations of
people’s rights based solely on suspicions, without real
justification.

“Everybody wants to get him and pin something on him, but
you’ve got to do it legally because this is the United
States of America. You can’t just go looking around into
people’s computers.”

The judge ultimately determined the search was justified
and legal. But Burbank argued even if it wasn’t, the
evidence of child porn should still have been strong
enough to stand up in court.

“I think if you have child pornography on your computer
and we find it, even if we find it in a round about way,
it’s still wrong and I think you should still be held
accountable. That is the world I want to live in,” Burbank
said.

“Then you want to live in a police state,” responded Ross,
who said he isn’t willing to sacrifice so much freedom
regardless of the potential crime.

By JOSH KERNS, MyNorthwest.com Reporter