The collected musings of Ryan Elder

I don't know why, I was just told by a couple of lawyers I asked that video is hearsay, because in this case, the gang leader has arranged to have it delivered to the police anonymously, without testifying about it, and thereby incriminating himself in the process.

Where as in other real cases, the maker of the video or photograph is willing to authenticate it, and it's therefore, not hearsay. Or I suppose if it's found on the suspect, than it's not hearsay either as oppose to a suspect who is stupid enough to film himself. But for a video sent in anonymously as leverage, it's hearsay or at least that is what I was told.

 

Okay thanks. The gang leader having leverage over his people has been done before in fiction though. Like for example, in the The Departed, the gang leader kept audio recordings of incriminating conversations on his men, thereby making himself culpable in his own conversations.

So what the gang leader's reasons in other works of fictions, since it's been done before though?

 

Well the thing is, is that since the MC is acting on his own, he cannot get warrants or wire tap orders to get any further evidence. So I cannot find a way for him to get evidence that would be admissible in court. This is my dilemma.

Even if the cop chooses to kill the villains, and make it look like police self defense for example, he will still have no legal proof that he killed the right person, and his superiors would just have to take his word for it. But it still makes the MC look really bad since he killed a suspect he was investigation, which he had no authorization to, and it was just on a hunch.

 

Actually, I did some camera tests with a phone. The phone is too far pulled back in the lens, and if the gang tried to film one of their own members doing a blood in, the person would be too far away possibly. The defense in court, will argue that the person is too far away, and perhaps they got someone else who liked the person who is accused. So by using an actual camera, with a zoom lens, the camera operator can zoom in, to get a good close up of the person's face needed for court, should it come to that later. So it seems that camera cellphones are not ideal for close ups in that type of situation for having proof in court.

 

Yes the MC was already investigating the rapist, but I wrote it so that he cannot prove it was her who raped him, when she covers up the crime. This is why perhaps the MC should not tell anyone cause that would make him a conflict of interest and he doesn't want to be taken off the investigation.

 

IN The Departed they're used to take down the person that takes him down. If you rat on me, I'll rat on you. if I remember correctly (I may not) that was also to keep the corrupt police in line.

So if your gang leader was already being prosecuted for murder based on the information from a gang member, he could use them to take down the gang members that informed on him. Using that example.

 

Well basically in my story, the MC's plan is to trick the gang leader into going to get one of the blood in videos, cause he needs it, but then leaving the others where they are, cause he doesn't need those ones. So then the MC would know where they are then. No after that it's just a matter of figuring out how to make them legal evidence.

As for having murder weapons as oppose to videos, with DNA on them, I was told by a lawyer that a murder weapon anonymously sent into the police would not work either, because the court could argue that the DNA was planted and it's a set up, since the weapon was anonymously sent in under questionable circumstances.

 

He is doing it on his own cause he was raped by one of the gang members who gets away with it, and this causes him to become sick and disgusted with all the violence they are going around committing. He cannot go through the proper channels because if he reports his rape, he will be taken off the case, which he doesn't want. But also, he doesn't have enough evidence to get warrants or wire tap orders, I was told by lawyers in my research, since the two suspects he had, got off for lack evidence earlier in the story.

So since the suspects were found 'innocent' the police were not allowed to get warrants to investigate further, or so I was told that is how it would go. This forces the MC to act on his own, having to circumvent the proper channels to investigate further, since he is not allowed to record conversations or search any property legally.

I could write it so the MC chooses to kill instead, but he would have to kill like 15 gang members without it coming off as an act of vigilantism? He can make it look like self defense, but could he do this with 15 of them? Would he have to get them all together and kill them at the same time? Cause they are trying to avoid the police which means the MC would have to go where they are, on their property, and that makes it even look more suspicious.

 

Having the gang leader make the videos as leverage is perfectly fine. The gang leader isn't a lawyer & he's welcome to believe his leverage will have the intended effect on his members. Likewise, the gang members can believe the videos will screw them over.
Using them in court is a probably going to have issues but as others have said, they could be as a piece of evidence for the police to dig deeper in a murder investigation. It's kinda hard to think the video was a fake if the victim is actually dead.

 

Yes, the case is dismissed before it reaches the point of a verdict, and the prosecutor dismisses the charges, once too much reasonable doubt comes into play, and he doesn't have enough. But they are still legally considered innocent in the sense that there is not enough evidence to get future warrants. The cops can still investigate, but I was told in my research that there is not enough evidence to get warrants. Therefore, the investigating is useless. The cops could follow the two suspects here and see them talking to a person for example. Well that doesn't mean anything. And since the police are legally not allowed record the conversation, they don't have evidence as a result.

Or the police could follow them to a building and see them go inside. This could be a place where they use to commit crimes. However, again they cannot legally get search warrants. Therefore, everything the police to do investigate is useless, and I was told by a lawyer that they would not keep spending time on this, and that they would be forced by their superiors to go concentrate on crimes they can prosecute instead.

This is the legal paradox I am trying to overcome, cause the police do not have enough evidence to permit search warrants or recording conversations. This works in favor of my story, cause I want the MC to act on his own, since I want it to be his journey without back up. But the disadvantage of this is, that I cannot find a way for him to legally bring in any evidence either.

It doesn't necessarily matter if it comes off as an act of vigilantism, I am just trying to think how he wouldn't be caught, either way.

 

Okay thanks. What does GSR stand for?

I could write it so that he kills them all and tries to hide DNA and prints. But this seems kind of not like the tone I was going for, for the character. I wanted the character to frame the villains and manipulate the police to going after them. Or at least that is the tone I was going for. Killing them off one by one, just really wasn't what I was going for. But on other hand, it's hard to frame someone by planting evidence for example, when you can't even legally get a warrant to search for the illegally planted evidence.

As for the cops entering without a warrant because they are immediately in pursuit of a suspect, if one of the gang members is being chased by the police, he is not going to be dumb enough to run somewhere to lead the cops to evidence that could convict him. He would logically go somewhere else, or at least I cannot think of a motivation as to why he would the police to the evidence on purpose.

 

Yeah I just need a point of arrest originally. The villains already know the police are unto them so they are already laying low, not giving the police any reasons to arrest them. So the MC doesn't really have an arrest to begin with before planting drugs. However, it seems to me that if he just frames one guy, it's a small fish. That small fish will then call and warn the bigger fish, which will make things harder. But maybe starting out with the small fish, is the way to go.

The way I wrote it so far is that the MC illegally snoops into the case file of the lawyer, of the suspect's who got off. By snooping into the case file, he sees that the lawyer has written down or typed out, the whole case, laid out by his client, and he finds out who the leader of the gang is from reading it. He cannot legally prove who the leader is since he did illegally snooping and it will be 'fruit of the poisonous tree' as the expression goes. But the MC just wanted to find out the truth at this point, so he could therefore, figure out a plan next.

The MC also finds out that one of the cops he has been working with on the case is a mole, working for the gang. Which explains why the gang were able to stay ahead of the police when it came to certain things. Again the MC cannot arrest the mole, since it would be fruit of the poisonous tree.

The MC desides to use this to his advantage. He knows from reading the case file, and from his own theory, that the gang leader has some sort of physical evidence, that would be leverage on the mole. He theorizes that if the leader has leverage on the mole, than he may have leverage on the other gang members as well, and may be keeping this leverage altogether in the same place.

So the MC sets up a plan where he tricks the gang leader, into going to get the leverage on the mole and then he follows him and watches. After the villain leaves the place, the MC then goes there, possibly has to break in, and finds the leverage on all the other members, which the villain left there, since the MC only tricked him into taking out leverage on the mole.

The MC can now take all this leverage or leave it in the same place and do something with it, which ever is best to nail the villains. Also the gang leader is going to take this leverage on the mole, and go speak to his gang members about it and they are going to all meet up and decide what to do. So the MC now has an opportunity here, since the gang is alltogether, that is, should the MC choose to still follow the leader, after the leader leaves the place, where all the leverage is.

So the MC can either find a way to use all the leverage to bust them all at the same time, in the same place. Or he can kill them all, and therefore all that leverage sort of becomes a useless plot device without a pay off then. Does either of these endings sound workable or good?

That is what I have right now, unless it's better to frame a smaller fish first, and hope that it gets to the bigger fish later.

 

Okay thanks. And this is the problem with getting the little fish. I think that I am probably better off with the cop trying to figure out how to make the leverage evidence admissible and make it work somehow. I have been talking to cops for a while now, but all they say is that there is no way the police could get warrants for the reasons that I want. One cop even told me that my villains are legally unbeatable, if they are willing to leave any evidence outside of private property, and that poses a problem.

 

Okay thanks. But I've been told by a cop that these examples will not work.

The evidence is on a hard disk drive. The plain view search will not allow for this, cause a hard disk drive does not look suspicious. They will need a warrant to search it, and I was told by a cop, that the police cannot search any electronics, just because they are laying around in plain view. If it's drugs, or an illegal weapon, then yes, but not something that is perfectly legal like a disk. That needs a warrant, which a cop would not be able to get since he is operating on hunches, on his own.

The fleeing suspect will not work cause any member of the gang will not be dumb enough to lead the cops to wear evidence is kept. But even if a suspect enters a building, this still doesn't give the cops the right to search everything in the building. You cannot search a disk, just because a person runs into a building that the disk happens to be in. And if someone's life is in danger, that still doesn't mean the police can search a disk that happens to be in the building, that the person's life is in danger of.

The police legally cannot search the disk in any of those scenarios, or at least that is what I was told, cause those scenarios only apply to evidence that has the appearance of being illegal, unlike a disk.

In order to write it so the criminals make a mistake, I may have one. If the gang buries the disk underground, in an outdoor public place, in order to keep it off their property so the police cannot find it, the police can technically dig it up without a warrant, since it is buried on public ground.

However, I am not sure this works with the villains logic. Would the villain hide a disk which he is using to blackmail someone with, by burying it underground? Obviously if a situation occurred where he would need it right away, it will take a longer time for him to dig up, and he would have to hide it out in the field, outside city, which would take longer to get too.

So legally this will work and it can be used evidence, if it's buried underneath public ground, but logically it might create a plot hole in the villain's logic. What do you think?