They tampered with evidence? Nobody is going to be charged based on anything they did. Nobody's civil rights were violated by their scam. There were no victims. The net effect of what they did was to get the police department's priorities re-arranged, nobody got hurt. They might get fired, but go to prison? for what? what is kima so upset about, anyway?

ok, they made a lot of politicians and department managers look stupid, but that's not hard to do.

I'm guessing any evidence aquired as a result of the wiretap on the cell phone will be unadmissible, as the wiretap was not legally obtained.

Net effect of all this: nobody goes to jail. Not McNulty, not Marlo, not Levy, not Davis. Maybe Marlo gets it from Michael, and maybe Chris goes to prison for the DNA evidence, and a new batch of gangsters take over, and Carcetti gets a single term as amyor and loses the governor's race. When it's all done, the names of the politicians and the criminals change, but the new politicians keep lying and the new criminals keep criminalyzing (is that a word?).

What a great show.

What are McNulty and Lester's crimes? How about:

1. Swearing false affidavits or perjury. One or both swore to 'facts' they knew were false in order to convince the judge they had probable cause. Judges take this very seriously.

2. Obstruction of justice . They, one again, knowingly misled a judge and fellow police.

3. What in Canada is known as 'mischief' - causing the police to undertake an investigation which they knew was without substance.

4. Kidnapping or unlawful confinement - McNulty's spriting away of the homeless man without his consent.

5. I would be surprised if Maryland did not have an offence of interfering with or mutilating a dead body.

6. Fraud. Mcnulty signed off on the use of police resources which he knew were not for the purpose of any criminal investigation- even his bogus one. He thus became a party to a fruadulent enterprise.

While Lester was less direclty involved in the overt acts that constitute the offences, he was a party to them and would be subject to conspiracy charges.

As for the suggestion that no one's civil rights were violated, every person who was subject to a search or detention based on the warrant(s) obtained had his or her rights violated.

I would say that the main victim's of McNulty's crimes are the families of the supposed serial killer's victims. These people were misled into thinking that their loved ones were molested and mutilated, when in reality they succumbed to forces that the family had come to expect long ago. Also, desecrating people's remains has fairly significant religious implications, and many people would consider it a serious offense.

That being said, are these crimes worse than the continual "juking" of the stats that the department practices? What is worse: creating a serial killer victim, or making a rape victim disappear?

Also, while there were no "death" victims (since the "killings" were just modifications of natural deaths that had already occurred), you can be sure that the psychological victims--the families of the homeless men, as showcased in that scene with Kima a few episodes back--will be bringing plenty of lawsuits against an already cash-strapped police department and city government, ultimately weakening police activity in the future the same way the education deficit did at the beginning of this season.

yeah, they did all that, but who were the victims, nesides the dead bodies (and it would be a stretch to say those bodies were mutilated)? The homeless man was taken off the streets and to a shelter.

they did cause an investigation to take place, but most of the resources pledged to the investogation of homeless murders were directed at real crimes, which otherwise would have been ignored.

they would have been able to easily get a court order for the wiretap on marlo's phone, the only reason they couldn't ask for it is because they weren't supposed to be working on the vacant house murders.In effect, they had a virtual warrant for the wiretap that led to discovering evidence, and while the wiretap itslef wouldn't be allowed, some of that evidence that was found would have been.

they broke a lot of department rules and violated policy, but there were no real victims.

I touched on this under a separate post (Repercussions), so forgive the repetition. Lester and McNulty's lied about using a C.I. to cover the fact that they gained information from an unauthorized wiretap. Marlo and Chris and crew, in jail, tried to determine who could have been the C.I. and assumed it was Michael. This ultimately led to Michael's (preemptive) killing of Snoop, and to Dukie's new, presumably sad, life with the junkie junk men. I think the writers are pointing out the ramifications of that one small illegal act so that we can't say there were no victims.

I was going to post the same thing. I think what's partly driving Kima's actions is that she felt a great deal of empathy for the families she interviewed who were so shaken up by the way they were supposedly killed. She's begun to soften up this season: spending time with her son, confessing to McNulty that she blames herself for the breakup with his other mom. She's deeply, morally betrayed by McNulty's actions, and her character can't do anything different than turn him in.

This is the woman who, in her hospital bed, refused to take up Bunk's "suggestion" that she might be able to identify the photo of one of the men who shot her.

Perhaps the most serious crime commited by McNulty & Lester:

Violating Marlo Stanfield's civil rights.

They had an illegal wiretap. That's a big American no-no. Unless they plan to invoke Excecutive Privilage, those 2 could be charged with Civil Rights violation.

Santo, come on, you can't blame Snoop's murder on the unauthorized wiretap. That's like blaming the death of someone who dies in a car accident on a person who made a decision to also be on the freeway the same time, and might have created a different traffic pattern such that no accident would have occurred. Snoop was killed because they didn't trust Michael and were going to kill him. That would have happened anyway. They're all criminals, and criminals can never be trusted.

Also, so all those families of the homeless victims were only upset because of the bite marks on their relatives' bodies? They weren't upset by the actual deaths? They wouldn't have been upset about them dying from homelessness and drug overdoses? You're calling the relatives of the homeless men victims, what about the relatives of the vacant house murders? What about those murder victims themselves? Are you (and everyone else talking about the homeless relatives) saying that the 29 vacants and their families were not victims because the dysfunctional Sun didn't protray them as victims of a serial killer?

I'm not saying it was acceptable for McNulty and Freamon to do what they did, but let's get a little perspective here. What they did is not equivalent to any of the other crimes that are portrayed in the show - not the murders or even the corruption or cynicism of the politicians. They only preyed upon the willingness of politicians to pander. They deserve the same fate as Colvin - being forced to get a new job, as their system is too dysfunctional to utilize people like them.

The homeless men's families weren't only upset because of the biting, but in the one example we did see (Kima's interview of one man's parents), they were more upset because of it. They said they had made their peace with the sad fact that their son could not be saved, and would likely die a drug-related death, but the shock of the killing and its details disturbed them anew. So yes, I do think the families have been victimized by McNulty's and Freamon's actions.

But that's not to minimize the victims of the vacants. It seems to me that part of the point of Jimmy's (and Lester's, and Bunk's) anger at the time of the "This ain't Aruba, bitch" conversation in the season's second episode is that Chris Partlow* actually is a serial killer, but because the killings are "ghetto drug murders" there's not enough sexiness to the story to get the city, police and media behind catching him at all costs, or to even define the killings as "serial" in the Hannibal Lecter sense.

Anyway, I just think part of the perspective we need to take is that while there are fewer people affected by Jimmy's malfeasance, it wasn't a completely harmless way to get the manpower they wanted for their legitimate case. And in fact, the queasy nature of Jimmy's ruse was enough to spark a whistleblower, whose testimony could, unfortunately, unravel the Stanfield/Partlow convictions.

What I take away from it (at least, before seeing what the final episode holds) is that there are two bleak possible outcomes: the drug dealers and mass murderers are punished for their crimes, but with us aware that it took circumventing due process and violating civil rights to do so; or, had the cops done the "right thing" and played by the book, the killing and the poisoning of the city would have continued unabated. Either way, it's not a happy ending.

*And by extension, his accomplice, Snoop Pearson, and the man whose orders they were executing, Marlo Stanfield.

kgsbca: I think you're not familiar with what a 'crime' is. You've had a thorough reply as to what their crimes were and still insist there weren't really any. But a crime's just breaking the law, and even if you think that breaking the law is what's morally correct in these cases, it's still a crime. So just accept that McNulty and Freamon could easily face criminal charges for what they did, whether or not you think it was right.

pst, I didn't say there weren't really any crimes, just that what they did was not a big time crime, like a cop taking a bribe, or beating up a suspect. I just don't think they did anything worthy of prison time for themselves, just that they would be fired.

spoonnyc, while Marlo's case would and should be thrown out because of the illegally obtained wiretap, at least the ruse exposed how he operated. It also led to dissension within his ranks (he can't sue the city because one of his killers killed another one, due to the illegal wiretap). So while the wiretap ruins the drug case, it at least served a useful purpose, with JImmy and Lester's jobs and pensions paying the price. And Partlow's murder conviction had nothing to do with the wiretap, it was about DNA.

And while I generally don't like trading one tragedy for another, if causing some people to think for a few weeks, that their homeless, drug addicted relative (whom they had already given up hope for) died not of an overdose but instead at the hands of a deranged killer, could help catch and stop real serial killers, I'd make that trade any day.

BrooklynFan, yeah, Marlo's civil rights were violated, so he shouldn't be prosecuted for being involved in the drug deal. And the guys who illegally obtained the wiretap should be fired. But if he doesn't go to prison because of that, how does he suffer? A loss of revenue? He has a right (in pre-Bush America) to not have his phone communications tapped without proper authorization, but he doesn't have the right to redress for lost revenue due to a blown drug deal.

they did cause an investigation to take place, but most of the resources pledged to the investigation of homeless murders were directed at real crimes, which otherwise would have been ignored.

You have to remember that police department budget cuts that caused the shuttering of the Stansfield investigation were ordered by the mayor in order bail out the school systems. In order to get more resources to further fund the investigation in to the homeless serial killer, Carcetti shifted money around by cutting other programs.

In addition, resources were wasted and Marlo is still not on the hook for the murders in the vacants. I am not sure exactly how much - but definitely some judging by the size and scale of the investigation. Marlo's on a criminal conspiracy charge - but nothing ties him to the murders in the vacants.

Finally, McNulty did tamper with a crime scene and file false reports and make false statements. Those are crimes and he could go to jail for them. Whether yu think the ends justifies the means (which may be true if you look at the whole budgetary picture) doesn't change the fact that they are indeed crimes.