Taking fiction aside, if there were a real-life non-lethal vigilante, how would the criminals they catch legally go to prison? The vigilante broke the law to gain evidence, so all the evidence the vigilante obtained would be thrown out, and every criminal would walk. As messed up as it is, The Punisher and Dexter make sense, because the only way a vigilante can really be successful is if he just straight up kills the criminals.
Usually in these stories, Batman or whoever leaves behind enough evidence to support a successful prosecution, along with the tied-up bad guy.
The vigilante broke the law to gain evidence, so all the evidence the vigilante obtained would be thrown out,
That’s actually an interesting situation. The fourth and fifth amendments put restrictions on the government, not private vigilantes. So if the cops just happen to find evidence in plain view, there won’t be a direct constitutional reason to suppress it.
Now if the local prosecutor has a pattern or practice of deliberately turning a blind eye to the unlicensed private investigators that routinely supply them with illegally obtained information, there’s probably a claim there. But it’s a lot more complicated to make that case than a straight-up 4th amendment case.
This is one of the reasons vigilantism works better in fiction than in real life. In cases where some vigilante left a beat up suspect and some sort of evidence, any competent defense attorney is going to move to have the evidence suppressed due to issues around chain of custody and possible tampering. They would likely also push the narrative that the vigilante is the real criminal and left the evidence to frame their client. Between possibly getting much of the evidence suppressed, and building doubt around anything remaining, a conviction could be really hard for the prosecutor.
This also ignores issues around vigilantes going after the wrong person for something (see: lynchings) and applying wildly disproportionate, extra-judicial punishments for crimes (see: lynchings, again). Crime and punishment really are hard problems which don’t lend themselves to easy answers. And there is a reason the Code of Hammurabi is seen as such a big deal in history. Rule of Law is an important concept which protects people.
In the US there’s a concept called citizens arrest where in some states you’re able to detain people after they committed a crime. That’s it though. It’s also not recommended that anyone ever do it, because it can very easily cross the line into false imprisonment, kidnapping, or some other crime.
Citizens arrest is a common concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen's_arrest
The laws would have to be adjusted in a world where vigilantes exist. This is actually a plotpoint in several vigilante stories. Either the (super)hero catches someone and they can’t go to prison or the laws have to change in a society where superpowers exist.
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