Isn't that exactly what the court system is for? I've never heard of anyone being charged with terrorism merely for googling IS, and I suspect any judge would throw out a case like that in a heartbeat.
> But that's a result of the evaluation of prospects at trial, so the protections that apply at trial directly influence that.
That would be nice, but it's not true. Prosecutors use the threat of trial to get innocent people to accept plea deals out of fear of being found guilty anyway and facing the full penalties of the charges.
You're assuming good faith from prosecutors, you shouldn't; they only care about winning cases, not justice. The justice system is not your friend and is not out to ensure justice is done. The justice system is for those who can afford lawyers, it does its best to fuck anyone who can't.
No, I'm not. Access to and competence of defense counsel is actually more relevant to the degree of effect that the available adversarial process has on the outcome of plea deals that avoid (some part of) that process, but even with imperfect access to and competence of counsel the fact that some share of cases do go to trial and prosecutors can't certainly predict in advance which cases will be in that set means that the protections in the adversarial process create incentives that influence behavior in the process that precedes arrest and charging.
(This contrasts sharply with, e.g., the foreign intelligence surveillance warrant process, where the warrants do not feed into an adversarial process even in principle, and thus there is far less constraint on government misconduct even with a judicial warrant process.
Prosecutors know who they can bully unfairly and have the discretion to back down if they make a mistake. If what would fly in court were any real behavior influencer, they wouldn't bully people into plea deals that were unjust just because they can. Most people do not have access to competent council and prosecutors know it, and they know the fear of being found guilty will get even innocent people to accept a plea; if you don't have money, the justice system isn't for you.
