And I appreciate your thoughtful replies. As a non-lawyer, I assume there's a lot of bureaucracy (and some corruption) that slows things down in system and leads to less-than-ideal solutions. Though I hope that we can still make progress in the right direction, even if slowly.

I mean, law enforcement gets more funding than other critical areas, like education and infrastructure. I'm not sure this is intentional crippling like you're suggesting it is, though I'd hope lawmakers and judges clarify the law so that it's not a a get out of jail card. However, as I replied to someone else, I don't think the answer is necessarily to go back to the old system, which had it's own slew of issues. We should strive to do better, even when the answers aren't clear cut.

I appreciate your perspective on the matter. It seems like there's opportunities to specify how and when these should be taken into account because I agree situations like the domestic violence one you discussed shouldn't be dropped. However, I'd hesitate to throw out the baby with the bathwater here - accountability and transparency are important in the justice system. Maybe I'm naively optimistic, but I'd really hope we can improve the system so that it's reasonably efficient but still gives people a fair shot at defending themselves. I don't think the solution should be fully rolling back these changes, as some other people seem to be suggesting.

I don't disagree with you entirely, but, as always, correlation is not causation. The pandemic resulted in high police mortality and lots of cities have been having trouble staffing departments, which probably contribute. I'm sure these reforms are having a negative impact on conviction rates, but we also can't assume that's necessarily a bad thing. Yes, there are high profile cases where someone clearly guilty gets off, but I'm sure there's less attention when someone innocent gets off too. As I mentioned above, several read like they were created to combat bad police work. I'm sure they create a higher bar for cases, but more work isn't an excuse to accept poor or dishonest policing and prosecution. I live in the city and am concerned about being a victim of crime, but being a victim of a corrupt justice system isn't something we should take lightly. Just my thoughts though.

According to the article you linked, those include what's below. They don't sound unreasonable and if the prosecutors can't get ahold of most of these things, it's an issue with police record keeping, which is honestly concerning. I don't know enough about the witness requirements to have a strong opinion on them, but I think in general the defense should have access to this info since it's relevant to the case. It also reads like a list of rules created in reaction to misconduct - there must have been some questionable expert witnesses for 6 to have been written.

>1. All police paperwork >2. All body-worn cameras, even for officers not involved directly in the arrest >3. All police-disciplinary records for every officer on scene >4. Witness names and contact information, meaning if prosecutors worry a witness is put at risk or can be intimidated, they must petition a judge to redact that information. >5. Criminal records of “potential witnesses” >6. Expert-witness résumés and writings >7. Disciplinary records of any possible police witnesses and any other material “related to the case.”