I've noticed that some comics will claim that if a superhero stops a criminal, that is a "violation of his civil rights" or an "illegal arrest" and he therefore has to be let go. Based on what I know of the American criminal justice system, that doesn't make any sense to me. What exactly would the violation be? As far as I know, only the actions of the police and government matter when it comes to rights violations having an effect on admissable evidence and whatnot, the actions of a third party vigilante shouldn't matter.
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mostly due process dickery, biggest I can think would be potential for evidence tampering, and the right to face your accuser in court
What evidence tampering? All superheroes usually do is beat up the criminal and leave him to the cops. The right to face your accuser also doesn't matter because the superheroes are never the ones doing the accusing since they usually stop the villain when they're doing a crime in front of a bunch of witnesses.
So where’s the evidence they did anything criminal?
I'd say that if the Shocker is robbing a bank, all of the security camera footage and witnesses should be enough to send him to jail.
hence why villains wear masks
Most villains don't wear masks actually, in fact Ultimate Shocker from the OP doesn't wear a mask, and those that do are always unmasked when they're arrested. So unless a villain is claiming that the hero let the "real" villain go and then kidnapped them and forced them into a suit without anyone noticing, I doubt that defense would work, especially if the villain has powers.
All legal power including policing resides with we the people, the power that cops have is just delegated to us, taxpaying citizens are the highest ranking members of society and can absolutely arrest people who commit felonies
The term you're looking for is "citizen's arrest" and while a superheroes' actions performing one of them might cause legal issues, it'd mostly be in context of the superhero not following laws regarding citizen's arrest and committing a crime themselves rather than the villain going free.
Don't know about US law. Where I live, it would be legal to use force to prevent someone from committing a crime, but it would not be legal to do something like tie them up and hold them captive till the police arrive.
let alone interfering in a police investigation
>comics
>reality
all models are flawed but some are more useful than others
Probably depends on how the criminal is apprehended.
If Spider-man busts in and webs up some Bank robbers, I don't see that interfering with any type of due process or whatever.
If Spider-man sees a break-in, chases them a block away, and webs them to a lamp pole with a note saying "this guy totally burgled, y.f.n.s-m. " then I see them just letting his ass go.
Jim Gordon types usually help in these situations too since while Batman will solve a crime, he's usually just relaying everything he knows to Jim, who then actually does the legal legwork to get the criminals.
Though it might be funny to see a criminal argue that Batman is just a scam by the GCPD, "Cops have zero evidence I'm doing anything wrong, then what a coincidence an anonymous psychopath kicks in a hole through my ceiling creating probable cause for the police to invade my property. Then he's never caught despite constantly being seen hanging around cops"
irl the GCPD would be underwater in Lawsuits and Gorden would be under federal investigation so quickly it would make the flash blink
>irl
that's your problem right here
Irl the joker would've been put to death the second he broke out of Arkham to murder again. These are supposed to be morality plays for children, not a corporate commentary on our criminal justice system
>not a corporate commentary on our criminal justice system
We do sometimes get Dirty Harry style commentary though
In your spodermon example, I think the web and note would be probable cause to investigate them for burglary in the neighborhood.
Wasn't it a plot point in Gotham Central that they "needed" a person not affiliated with the GCPD to turn on the Bat-Signal?
Yes, but I highly doubt any court would humor said legal fiction, because she very clearly only turns on the signal when the cops ask her to and I highly doubt she'd be willing to lie under oath.
Would have been more feasible to use corruption as the reason villains keep gettting released than use a flimsy understanding of the law.
Yeah, that's the excuse they usually give for guys like the Kingpin or the Penguin. For poorer villains with no connections, writers know that there is no way they could pull that off, so they make up this "off on a technicality" bullshit.
It's also an excuse for certain writers to soapbox about how much they hate criminals having civil rights, especially in older stories.
In BTAS, there was an episode where a judge said that because Batman arrested Poison Ivy, that was a violation and she couldn't be sent to prison. She was then sent to Arkham Asylum instead. That seems like a contradiction, if you can't send her to prison because of Batman, wouldn't you also be unable to send her to Arkham?
Baker act
Pretty much everything in Batman comics about Arkham Asylum and the insanity defense is completely divorced from reality.
I'd imagine that sending them to Arkham has a different standard than prison. A quick google search says that New York's standard is along the lines of they have to be mentally ill, a threat, in need of treatment, and unable to make rational decisions about treatment. Nothing in there would be tainted by batman's involvement, so there wouldn't be much stopping the judge from sending them to Arkham and having a psychiatrist confirm those factors, assuming Gotham and New York haver similar laws.
It's actually way harder to send a criminal to an insane asylum than it is to send them to prison.
but very easy to send someone who hasn't done anything wrong and may not even have anything wrong with their brain
psychiatric hospitals do not recognize anyone's civil rights in any way
and I'm not talking about the DC universe
The only story where this sort of made sense was one where Spider-Man stopped some robbers in a store before the police arrived. The robbers all claimed that Spider-Man had attacked them for no reason, and the store owner was intimidated into corroborating their story.
That doesn't really sound like Spider-Man's fault though.
Yup, and the cop who let them go straight up told them he’d have done the same thing. There’s an interesting story to tell here about due process but bendis isn’t the writer to do it