21 ms·

New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

418 points by williamsharris 6y ago

VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
I don't know why anyone would want to be a police officer. There's no upside. Aside from the genuine affection they get from the people they help here and there. Given the nature of their job, it seems like there would be too much personal risk to get involved in any kind of physical altercation with the public. Because if you get in a fight, I mean a real fight, you better be ready to fight-to-win. Because there's a good chance that the meth'd out junkie you're fighting doesn't even know what planet he's on, let alone what are the consequences of pulling your gun off your hip and shooting you with it.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Because there's a good chance that the meth'd out junkie you're fighting Arguing from stereotypes isn't helpful.
  - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
    What do you think police officers do
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > There's no upside A San Jose, California cop makes over $120,000 a year [1]. They also get terrific benefits. [1] https://www.indeed.com/cmp/SAN-Jose-Police-Department/salaries/Police-Officer https://www.indeed.com/cmp/SAN-Jose-Police-Department/salari...
  - ljp_206 6y ago
    Seattle cops similarly make bank. Of course, police pay is heavily effected by local cost of living, but Seattle cops make tons of overtime. I just learned there is a minimum three-hour overtime pay, meaning much of the overtime payout isn't even physically worked: https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/09/04/seattle-police-fleecing-city-with-overtime-audit-shows/ https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/09/04/seattle-police-fleeci...
    - int_19h 6y ago
      A lawyer friend of mine told me that it's a well known thing (at least in WA) that state patrol deliberately tries to ticket people at the end of their shift, because then they have to go through with the whole rigmarole of writing a traffic ticket, and it goes into overtime, triggering the payment. Supposedly, if you look at the statistical breakdown of tickets written by time of day, you see a clear spike there.
- adgjlsfhk1 6y ago
  You mean no upside other than a really cushy pension after 20 years. Also police officers aren't anywhere close to the most dangerous jobs. Above them are gardeners, construction workers, iron and steel workers, farmers, drivers, garbage collectors, roofers, aircraft engineers, fishermen, and loggers. In other words, if your a strong idiot, police work is the one of the best paying and safest jobs for you.
- farrarstan 6y ago
  You dipshit
- croes 6y ago
  So you think as a compensation for that risk police officers shouldn't be held liable for taking innocent people to prison with their misconduct?
  - dumpsterdiver 6y ago
    Did you respond to the wrong comment? I’m having trouble making sense of your question in context to the comment you are responding to. I am on mobile though, so maybe I’m experiencing and off by one error.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Police officers actually don't have particularly risky jobs. In this list based on BLS data [1] it makes #22 behind crane workers, delivery drivers and crossing guards. Important work? Definitely. It's not logging, though - not even close. [1] https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    You’re arguing police work isn’t dangerous because there are a handful of more dangerous jobs, by linking to a page that includes police officer as a dangerous job. In any case, you aren’t really offering a compelling case for several reasons: -Death is not the only negative outcome of danger. -Not all police jobs are equal so any metric that measures across the entire array of such jobs is fundamentally flawed. An undercover officer going after a drug dealer is in much more danger than a desk sergeant. -Other people are the primary danger to police officers, so even if we accept the numbers as meaningful, there is a qualitative difference. A tree doesn’t decide you need to die, it just falls and you die or you don’t and it’s over. People aren’t like that. -This is a measurement of outcomes with safety measures in place, including some that people find distasteful, like carrying fire arms.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      > You’re arguing police work isn’t dangerous because there are a handful of more dangerous jobs, by linking to a page that includes police officer as a dangerous job. No, they're arguing that it isn't particularly dangerous by naming 20 other jobs that are more dangerous, that orders of magnitude more people are employed in, and that nobody thanks for their service, leads a parade for, raises tens of thousands for, or reports on the news when they fall off the ladder and break their neck. > Other people are the primary danger to police officers, so even if we accept the numbers as meaningful, there is a qualitative difference. A tree doesn’t decide you need to die, it just falls and you die or you don’t and it’s over. People aren’t like that. What does this mean?
      - 6y ago
- ddingus 6y ago
  They do get paid well. Policing is generally a family income type job. Those are increasingly difficult to come by. Good policing = a better society to live in. Regarding risks: A return to robust and inclusive deescalation and related situational awareness, people awareness training can pack a big punch, as can having multiple avenues of response. Perhaps that flying high person is better met by others, not necessarily police. We can, and should, improve on the currently poor balance of income vs cost and risk exposure. Lots of ways to that, and putting a bunch of people to work cleaning up, repairing and enhancing our infrastructure would be top of my list. Stronger requirements for police to be from and or parr of the community they police can cut a lot of risk too. This also can improve reward as well as respect and consideration. All these things go a long way. Frankly, we could pay them more and invest in them more and get better policing as well as a lower risk for those police. In my town, we just hired new officers. The difference between them and the ones either leaving or who are long into their careers is striking. The training and overall readiness for all aspects of the job are not so well aligned as they have been in the past. Better policy = lower risk too. The war on drugs has been particularly brutal all around. It would be great to see those risks taken for better, more mutually agreed upon rewards. In simple terms: policing is an investment that can deliver great returns Or... not, and a lot of that is on us, as a people, as it is on the officers. Some people, well adapted to, or whose basic nature aligns with the job may feel very differently about what "upside" means too. You are not fundementally wrong. It can range from OK to pretty grim. A lot can be done. We need to have police people open to it, educating people as much as we ourselves need to be open to it, educating people. The basic want of a better, safer, appropriately secure, helpful place to live is reason to sign up just as thuggery can be. We can work on that too. Hiring criteria, bigger and more inclusive, robust training is a big part of seeing policing improve.
- int_19h 6y ago
  It depends on what kind of cop, obviously. But here's one example. "The officers with SWAT and dynamic-entry experience interviewed for this book say raids are orders of magnitude more intoxicating than anything else in police work. Ironically, many cops describe them with language usually used to describe the drugs the raids are conducted to confiscate. “Oh, it’s a huge rush,” Franklin says. “Those times when you do have to kick down a door, it’s just a big shot of adrenaline.” Downing agrees. “It’s a rush. And you have to be careful, because the raids themselves can be habit-forming.” Jamie Haase, a former special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who went on multiple narcotics, money laundering, and human trafficking raids, says the thrill of the raid may factor into why narcotics cops just don’t consider less volatile means of serving search warrants. “The thing is, it’s so much safer to wait the suspect out,” he says. “Waiting people out is just so much better. You’ve done your investigation, so you know their routine. So you wait until the guy leaves, and you do a routine traffic stop and you arrest him. That’s the safest way to do it. But you have to understand that a lot of these cops are meatheads. They think this stuff is cool. And they get hooked on that jolt of energy they get during a raid.”"
- int_19h 6y ago
  The current state of affairs is entirely of police's own making. It's not like that in many other countries, where cops are genuinely respected. And maybe we do need radical measures to fix things. Georgia (the country) had a similar problem with their traffic police. They solved it by literally firing the entire force overnight, then raising both the hiring standards and the pay, and rebuilding it all from scratch.
  - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
    I find that very hard to believe
    - int_19h 6y ago
      If you mean the story of the Georgian police reform, it happened a while ago, and there's plenty of articles on how it went and the results it produced. For example: https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/siezing-moment-rebuilding-georgias-police https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/siezing-mom...
- runako 6y ago
  > There's no upside. Do you know any police officers? They frequently retire in their 40s with their living expenses covered for the rest of their lives. To generate that much passive income in another job typically would require a person to accumulate $2 million or more.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
I thought that because QI was defended by the SCOTUS, that even if a state doesn't have QI at all, a police officer or department sued for malpractice could still appeal to the SCOTUS and then eventually win?
- kyrra 6y ago
  Lower courts would likely have to follow the SCOTUS ruling on it, but it could be argued up to the supreme court to overturn their own creation. This is the problem with creating new rules out of whole-cloth from the bench.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    Lower federal courts have no say. It's a state matter up to the supreme court of NM, and then maybe SCOTUS. But also regardless, QI is an extension of sovereign immunity. Therefore, the legislature is free to waive it by statue. That's what NM has done. It's not saying QI doesn't exist, it's that this state waives its privileges.
- SavantIdiot 6y ago
  We'll see. Part of the Catch-22 of QI is that if it hasn't gone to trial it doesn't exist, so it doesn't go to trial. Let's see if this WinAmp's Box can be bashed open.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    "WinAmp's Box" Don't! If you bash it open, llamas will flood the world and whip everybody's ass in retaliation!
- johntb86 6y ago
  Supreme court rulings are always connected to the law at the time of the ruling. If a law changes (at the state, federal, or constitutional level) that can change how the supreme court will rule. The state probably couldn't invalidate QI for federal officers, but for state officers, why not?
- 6y ago
CA0DA 6y ago
> recover damages from the government when their constitutional rights are violated Great, so I'm paying for the sins of crappy cops via my taxes. Do I have an ability to influence my city or state to not hire unethical cops? (serious question)
- jachee 6y ago
  Don't vote for mayor/governor candidates that glorify the police. Choose ones who want to divert paramilitary funding to other social safety net services.
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
  Yes. Talk to your local representatives
- fitblipper 6y ago
  Only in a very limited capacity, I guess. IMO the important result of this legislation is that it helps align the incentives of the police department with that of the public they are supposed to serve. That means a department will be more likely to reform practices and policies which would cause frequent lawsuits instead of simply instituting policies to optimize for arrests or convictions. Asset forfeiture is another police policy which places the interests of the police at odds with that of the public. In many places the assets claimed by asset forfeiture can be used to directly fund the department's budget and there is no need to charge anyone of a crime to do so.
  - unanswered 6y ago
    How does spending a greater amount of other people's money incentivize a police department or any other public body?
    - vinay427 6y ago
      They already hypothesized one possibility in their comment: > That means a department will be more likely to reform practices and policies which would cause frequent lawsuits instead of simply instituting policies to optimize for arrests or convictions.
noodlesUK 6y ago
What (if at all) does this mean about the immunity of federal officials working in New Mexico? Do the same rules apply, or is there still QI for them as they’re not state officials?
- adrenalinelol 6y ago
  IANAL but I'd assume this doesn't apply to them.
- ghayes 6y ago
  From the text[0]: > A public body or person acting on behalf of, under color of or within the course and scope of the authority of a public body shall not subject or cause to be subjected any resident of New Mexico ... to deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured pursuant to the bill of rights ... and: > [a] "public body" means a state or local government, an advisory board, a commission, an agency or an entity created by the constitution of New Mexico or any branch of government that receives public funding, including political subdivisions, special tax districts, school districts and institutions of higher education... [0] https://legiscan.com/NM/text/HB4/2021 https://legiscan.com/NM/text/HB4/2021
caseysoftware 6y ago
> “Qualified immunity is a court-created doctrine that allows public officials to escape accountability after they engage in misconduct, even when their actions send an innocent person to prison. I know this is likely impossible.. but I'd love to see prosecutors/law enforcement have to serve out the sentence or someone they convicted via misconduct. Withhold or manufacture evidence to push for a 10 year sentence? Sure but if that's ever uncovered, you get the 10 year sentence instead. It might convince everyone to be a) more forthcoming with evidence and b) reasonable in the penalties they seek. Both could be a win for the system and the public as a whole.
- Aloha 6y ago
  I'd be willing to go at 25% up to 10 years. To be honest though, disbarment (particularly if that disbarment was reciprocal) and fine is a more just punishment, because often the issues are so technical that a jury of non lawyers has trouble understanding the issues involved. The last thing that I'd want to do is send someone to jail for up to 30 years for a good faith mistake, that's not justice either.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Generally these are crimes of intent so good faith mistakes are unlikely to yield a sentence.
    - danielheath 6y ago
      When a jury is involved, all bets are off.
      - okwubodu 6y ago
        In that situation, a good faith mistake wouldn't be prosecuted in the first place. It's hard enough getting clear malpractice charged anyways.
        6y ago
coolspot 6y ago
I think that the Game theory suggests that cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility. Eat donuts, ignore the radio and you will be fine.
- bigiain 6y ago
  That might actually be a win overall...
  - coolspot 6y ago
    I invite you to peaceful evening walk through Venice Beach, CA.
    - meroes 6y ago
      Just did it a few weeks ago. Thousands of people, never felt unsafe, and saw zero cops. Your point?
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility Police report to elected governments. They are checked the same way the rest of the state is: through elections. Police pay is high across America because they're widely seen as bringing value to the community. Their strikes are feared by politicians; the cops turning on the mayor signals instant political death in most cities. If that perception of police frays, their leverage disappears. More pointedly, if a civil servant decides it's too much legal responsibility to not break the law, they should find another line of work.
  - coolspot 6y ago
    I am not sure you are familiar with usual clientele of law enforcement officer, but usual day-to-day interactions are not nice. You will have to use violence, because nice obedient people don’t cause trouble. People that cops are called on will likely fight and resist and you will have a high chance of breaking someone’s bones (or kill someone). So, a rational cop can just avoid risky situations by doing absolute minimum and not showing up or not engaging. Drug addict trashes a store that didn’t accept his fake dollar bill? Whatever, just yell “sir please stop” from distance and leave.
mike_d 6y ago
The purpose of qualified immunity is to permit officials to carry out their discretionary duties without fear of personal liability or harassing litigation. It applies to all parts of government. Didn't get the building permit for your kids horse barn? Sue the planning commission members individually. Animal control writes you a citation for Puddles not being on a leash? Unleash the lawyers. Health department gave your wine bar a bad rating? Sue the inspector personally. The way to fix policing isn't by making the rest of government worse. Reform unions for employees of the people. Create independent civilian oversight boards with the teeth to suspend and terminate. Invest more in mental health and drug rehabilitation services. Invest in educational resources to teach communities how to deal with law enforcement. Edit to add: People are confusing civil liability with criminal liability. If you are found guilty of a crime, then you can be sued.
- jshen 6y ago
  So a police offer that kills someone will at worst be fired?
  - mike_d 6y ago
    Civil liability is not the same as criminal charges.
    - jshen 6y ago
      Thanks, I didn’t know it only applied to civil charges. “ civil suits are the only means by which individuals or their families can get compensation for the violation of their constitutional or civil rights. And, in practice, civil lawsuits are often the only means to seek justice at all because prosecutors—themselves government workers—are typically reluctant to bring criminal charges against their government colleagues, especially police officers who are crucial to the work prosecutors do on a daily basis.”
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  >> It applies to all parts of government. No, you are talking about something else, which is called sovereign immunity. Qualified immunity is a dumb concept the courts made up to protect police officers.
LatteLazy 6y ago
From the outside, the US has big issues with race, poverty, mental health and access to firearms. That makes policing very difficult and pushes towards a "shoot first" approach. But since the US refuses to address any of the issues, it's stuck trying to fix the problem without being able to fix the problem. What concerns me most (and I see it here in the UK too) isn't these issues themselves, it is the inability of people (media, politicians and everyday citizens) to have an adult conversation about any of it. If the US collectively said "we accept these events as a downside of our way of life" I might not agree but I'd understand. Instead people act like they're surprised or pretend they can be fixed by tinkering around the edges. It seems quite dishonest...
- ianai 6y ago
  Apparently the mechanisms to address mental health were largely disbanded in the 80s. Oddly this is when many financial oversights and regulations were also undone. It’s like Not A gets established, the ramifications are obviously bad, but A is never re-established.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    I'm always surprised there isn't more push for mental health provision in the US. Everyone who loves guns and everyone who is anti mass-shooting should like that, and that's a lot of voters...
    - runako 6y ago
      > Everyone who loves guns and everyone who is anti mass-shooting should like that, and that's a lot of voters... Those are largely the voters who voted in the President (Reagan) who dismantled our large parts of our mental health infrastructure in the 80s, and who since have voted in Presidents that have attempted to make our healthcare system more adversarial towards patients. They are (now) a distinct minority of voters, but unfortunately we do not live in a very representative republic.
- lolsal 6y ago
  > But since the US refuses to address any of the issues, it's stuck trying to fix the problem without being able to fix the problem. That's a bit unfair I think. We have a lot of things to improve, but we absolutely are trying to change things all over the country. Volunteer programs for under-privileged kids on the east side of my town make sure kids have food during the day and a positive adult role model to spend time with them after school for a few hours a week. That's a slow burn kind of investment that affects poverty, racial inequalities (and kinds of intolerance), mental health, violence, and all sort of other stuff. I haven't performed a trial or a study, so I don't have any sort of peer reviewed journal to link you to. But it's happening.
lsiebert 6y ago
A frivolous lawsuit can still be dismissed without qualified immunity, and they regularly are, but the problem is that serious wrongdoing is also regularly dismissed, creating a catch 22 where the lack of existing case law and the requirement that wrongdoing be in violation of clearly established law (which generally means nearly identical facts) leads to cases being dismissed before they become case law. That's not conducive to good governance, which is why you get conservative Libertarians like The Cato Institute joining with the NAACP to argue against it.
lucb1e 6y ago
Since it's a USA-specific term and not very self-explanatory (I thought this was a COVID-related thing because it contains 'immunity', but it's not): > In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". -- Wikipedia
exabrial 6y ago
Getting rid of qualified immunity without instating a "loser pays legal fees" law seems like a a far worse situation.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Loser pays has negative consequences. If you have big pockets you can afford to sue, if you lose it isn't a big deal, but if you are a small guy you don't dare sue a big player: they can lawyer up, even if they only win 10% of the time via confusing legal loopholes that shouldn't apply but they can make apply anyway, that is still enough lawyer fees for the loser to pay that no regular person dares go to court. I don't know of a solution. The problem is very complex. So far every option I've heard of (including what we have now) has serious negative effects.
geogra4 6y ago
In practice police are almost entirely legally invulnerable. QI is part of that, and needs to go.
- ascagnel_ 6y ago
  The issue isn't QI in and of itself -- as others have said, it serves a useful purpose in protecting the personal liability of government agents acting out their official duties, which can be reasonable (one example was that a planning board member shouldn't face personal liability for denying a proposal). In my mind, there are two issues (one direct, one indirect) with QI and policing specifically: - QI has been defined as so broadly covering the police that any situation that hasn't explicitly already been defined as an overreach or overreaction will be considered as covered by QI, so officers face little to no personal accountability. - Police and civilian oversight boards are largely ineffective at doling out substantial punishments, so officers face little to no professional accountability. Such oversight is typically fought, and fought hard, by police unions. As a result of this, police officers face little pushback for misbehavior, or even patterns of misbehavior. Court decisions narrowing the scope of QI as it applies to police officers (eg: any behavior by a police officer that's not "by the book" would not be considered eligible for QI) would go a long way towards providing accountability.
ashneo76 6y ago
End qualified immunity couple with increased pay and benefits and more psych training and DEI training before hitting the ground. It is a risky job and it should valued as such. It should be selective too. We have bodycams, to reduce the chances of "he said, she said"
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-training-weeks-united-states/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-training-weeks-united-st... > Officers in [Finland and Norway] must attend their nations' three-year police universities, and leave with degrees that are equivalent to a bachelor's. > Rune Glomseth, a professor at the Norwegian police university, Politihøgskolen, said policing is approached as an academic discipline. "It's the same quality of education that we have for teachers, nurses, and so on," said Glomseth, who was also a police officer for three decades. > The first year of police education in Norway is focused on the role of police in society and ethics. In the second year, students shadow training officers, before returning full time for a third year focused on investigations and completing a thesis paper. I'd love to see this happen here.
totalminimalist 6y ago
IMHO, the US is heading down a dangerous path as regards things like this. One case I'm really looking at is this one that will be decided by SCOTUS by June 2021: https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/03/us-supreme-court-hears-arguments-on-community-caretaking-warrant-exception/ https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/03/us-supreme-court-hears-a...
eplanit 6y ago
With this, police will soon stop intervening to stop crimes from happening, and will instead focus their attention on after-the-fact data gathering and reporting. I can't blame them, but quality of life for law abiding citizens is likely to suffer. In high crime areas, I can understand police considering certain neighborhoods as "no go" zones. Why take such a risk with your own life to stop a crime against somebody else?
- Craighead 6y ago
  ... thats the job description?
- cwmma 6y ago
  Because it's literally their job to take such a risk with your own life to stop a crime against somebody else. To say that you'll refuse to do your job if there is a possibility of being liable if you commit a crime without explicitly being told it's a crime then maybe it isn't the job for you.
  - eplanit 6y ago
    Exactly, but if the city doesn't have their back, and they're liable for any mistake -- why take the risk? It's hard to have it both ways.
    - cwmma 6y ago
      Qualified immunity is unrelated to whether the city will cover the settlement for the cop (which they usually do) this is about whether if a cop does something illegal to you, that hasn't explicitly been called illegal in identical circumstances, can you sue them like you could any other person that violated your rights.
- whymauri 6y ago
  >With this, police will soon stop intervening to stop crimes from happening They already do this and are legally protected to do so. [0][1] The TL;DR is: the police is not legally required to help you, protect you, or take any action, really. Honestly, Lozito v. NYC makes me wonder what exactly the police is required to do, if anything. I'm certain that individual city's City Attorney's office decide this in their contract(s) with the police, but those provisions are unlikely to be directly related to the day-to-day job of officers AFAIK. [0] Lozito v. New York City [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAfUI_hETy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAfUI_hETy0
Igelau 6y ago
I never realized that we referred to citizens of New Mexico as New Mexicans. It makes sense, I don't know what else you'd call them, but it was confusing to see that for the first time.
SyzygistSix 6y ago
Forget qualified immunity and civil liability. Why are police not being held criminally responsible for criminal acts? I am far more concerned about that.
- jellicle 6y ago
  The existence of one problem doesn't preclude the existence of others. Both are problematic. The law being used to sue police officers - the Ku Klux Klan Act - came into being because the Federal Congress recognized that in certain states of the Union, police officers (and other public officers) were taking actions against the public that would never be prosecuted as crimes in those states, yet were egregious and in want of a remedy. The situation is not so different today.
unethical_ban 6y ago
I understand the arguments that "QI has reasonable goals in theory", but it is time to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If cops didn't want to lose QI, they should have held themselves to account for the last few decades. Maybe the unions should have spoken up when cops steal tens of thousands of dollars in cash from a suspect, and get away with it due to QI. San Antonio, TX will be voting in May on whether to disband the police union. "Back the Blue" types are saying it's Defund in disguise, that we won't be able to find good cops, and so on. Except several large cities in Texas don't have unionized police, and they do alright. Furthermore, the cops in San Antonio can commit really awful crimes, and still have months- or years-long appeals. Being a cop isn't a right, it is a privilege and a critical duty. It should be easy to fire bad cops. SAPD, if you didn't want your union to be busted, maybe you should have held yourselves to a higher standard.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  How is it legal to vote to disband a union? Could you vote to disband the Screen Actors Guild?
  - mtnGoat 6y ago
    The same way you change any other service provider. You find another vendor or renegotiate. The people will vote to instruct their officials to do so. Pretty straightforward.
  - unethical_ban 6y ago
    Short version: Texas state law establishes the right for cities to decide whether their police can engage in collective bargaining. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LG/htm/LG.174.htm https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LG/htm/LG.174.htm
  - Can_Not 6y ago
    It happens all too often: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Un...
- 6y ago
voxic11 6y ago
Just want to highlight this part of the bill since it seems that it was missed by many commenters. > INDEMNIFICATION BY PUBLIC BODY.--A judgment awarded pursuant to the New Mexico Civil Rights Act against a person acting on behalf of, under color of or within the course and scope of the authority of the public body shall be paid by the public body.

I don't know why anyone would want to be a police officer. There's no upside. Aside from the genuine affection they get from the people they help here and there. Given the nature of their job, it seems like there would be too much personal risk to get involved in any kind of physical altercation with the public. Because if you get in a fight, I mean a real fight, you better be ready to fight-to-win. Because there's a good chance that the meth'd out junkie you're fighting doesn't even know what planet he's on, let alone what are the consequences of pulling your gun off your hip and shooting you with it.

anigbrowl 6y ago
Because there's a good chance that the meth'd out junkie you're fighting Arguing from stereotypes isn't helpful.
- VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
  What do you think police officers do
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> There's no upside A San Jose, California cop makes over $120,000 a year [1]. They also get terrific benefits. [1] https://www.indeed.com/cmp/SAN-Jose-Police-Department/salaries/Police-Officer https://www.indeed.com/cmp/SAN-Jose-Police-Department/salari...
- ljp_206 6y ago
  Seattle cops similarly make bank. Of course, police pay is heavily effected by local cost of living, but Seattle cops make tons of overtime. I just learned there is a minimum three-hour overtime pay, meaning much of the overtime payout isn't even physically worked: https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/09/04/seattle-police-fleecing-city-with-overtime-audit-shows/ https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/09/04/seattle-police-fleeci...
  - int_19h 6y ago
    A lawyer friend of mine told me that it's a well known thing (at least in WA) that state patrol deliberately tries to ticket people at the end of their shift, because then they have to go through with the whole rigmarole of writing a traffic ticket, and it goes into overtime, triggering the payment. Supposedly, if you look at the statistical breakdown of tickets written by time of day, you see a clear spike there.
adgjlsfhk1 6y ago
You mean no upside other than a really cushy pension after 20 years. Also police officers aren't anywhere close to the most dangerous jobs. Above them are gardeners, construction workers, iron and steel workers, farmers, drivers, garbage collectors, roofers, aircraft engineers, fishermen, and loggers. In other words, if your a strong idiot, police work is the one of the best paying and safest jobs for you.
farrarstan 6y ago
You dipshit
croes 6y ago
So you think as a compensation for that risk police officers shouldn't be held liable for taking innocent people to prison with their misconduct?
- dumpsterdiver 6y ago
  Did you respond to the wrong comment? I’m having trouble making sense of your question in context to the comment you are responding to. I am on mobile though, so maybe I’m experiencing and off by one error.
arcticbull 6y ago
Police officers actually don't have particularly risky jobs. In this list based on BLS data [1] it makes #22 behind crane workers, delivery drivers and crossing guards. Important work? Definitely. It's not logging, though - not even close. [1] https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...
- cgriswald 6y ago
  You’re arguing police work isn’t dangerous because there are a handful of more dangerous jobs, by linking to a page that includes police officer as a dangerous job. In any case, you aren’t really offering a compelling case for several reasons: -Death is not the only negative outcome of danger. -Not all police jobs are equal so any metric that measures across the entire array of such jobs is fundamentally flawed. An undercover officer going after a drug dealer is in much more danger than a desk sergeant. -Other people are the primary danger to police officers, so even if we accept the numbers as meaningful, there is a qualitative difference. A tree doesn’t decide you need to die, it just falls and you die or you don’t and it’s over. People aren’t like that. -This is a measurement of outcomes with safety measures in place, including some that people find distasteful, like carrying fire arms.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    > You’re arguing police work isn’t dangerous because there are a handful of more dangerous jobs, by linking to a page that includes police officer as a dangerous job. No, they're arguing that it isn't particularly dangerous by naming 20 other jobs that are more dangerous, that orders of magnitude more people are employed in, and that nobody thanks for their service, leads a parade for, raises tens of thousands for, or reports on the news when they fall off the ladder and break their neck. > Other people are the primary danger to police officers, so even if we accept the numbers as meaningful, there is a qualitative difference. A tree doesn’t decide you need to die, it just falls and you die or you don’t and it’s over. People aren’t like that. What does this mean?
    - 6y ago
ddingus 6y ago
They do get paid well. Policing is generally a family income type job. Those are increasingly difficult to come by. Good policing = a better society to live in. Regarding risks: A return to robust and inclusive deescalation and related situational awareness, people awareness training can pack a big punch, as can having multiple avenues of response. Perhaps that flying high person is better met by others, not necessarily police. We can, and should, improve on the currently poor balance of income vs cost and risk exposure. Lots of ways to that, and putting a bunch of people to work cleaning up, repairing and enhancing our infrastructure would be top of my list. Stronger requirements for police to be from and or parr of the community they police can cut a lot of risk too. This also can improve reward as well as respect and consideration. All these things go a long way. Frankly, we could pay them more and invest in them more and get better policing as well as a lower risk for those police. In my town, we just hired new officers. The difference between them and the ones either leaving or who are long into their careers is striking. The training and overall readiness for all aspects of the job are not so well aligned as they have been in the past. Better policy = lower risk too. The war on drugs has been particularly brutal all around. It would be great to see those risks taken for better, more mutually agreed upon rewards. In simple terms: policing is an investment that can deliver great returns Or... not, and a lot of that is on us, as a people, as it is on the officers. Some people, well adapted to, or whose basic nature aligns with the job may feel very differently about what "upside" means too. You are not fundementally wrong. It can range from OK to pretty grim. A lot can be done. We need to have police people open to it, educating people as much as we ourselves need to be open to it, educating people. The basic want of a better, safer, appropriately secure, helpful place to live is reason to sign up just as thuggery can be. We can work on that too. Hiring criteria, bigger and more inclusive, robust training is a big part of seeing policing improve.
int_19h 6y ago
It depends on what kind of cop, obviously. But here's one example. "The officers with SWAT and dynamic-entry experience interviewed for this book say raids are orders of magnitude more intoxicating than anything else in police work. Ironically, many cops describe them with language usually used to describe the drugs the raids are conducted to confiscate. “Oh, it’s a huge rush,” Franklin says. “Those times when you do have to kick down a door, it’s just a big shot of adrenaline.” Downing agrees. “It’s a rush. And you have to be careful, because the raids themselves can be habit-forming.” Jamie Haase, a former special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who went on multiple narcotics, money laundering, and human trafficking raids, says the thrill of the raid may factor into why narcotics cops just don’t consider less volatile means of serving search warrants. “The thing is, it’s so much safer to wait the suspect out,” he says. “Waiting people out is just so much better. You’ve done your investigation, so you know their routine. So you wait until the guy leaves, and you do a routine traffic stop and you arrest him. That’s the safest way to do it. But you have to understand that a lot of these cops are meatheads. They think this stuff is cool. And they get hooked on that jolt of energy they get during a raid.”"
int_19h 6y ago
The current state of affairs is entirely of police's own making. It's not like that in many other countries, where cops are genuinely respected. And maybe we do need radical measures to fix things. Georgia (the country) had a similar problem with their traffic police. They solved it by literally firing the entire force overnight, then raising both the hiring standards and the pay, and rebuilding it all from scratch.
- VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
  I find that very hard to believe
  - int_19h 6y ago
    If you mean the story of the Georgian police reform, it happened a while ago, and there's plenty of articles on how it went and the results it produced. For example: https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/siezing-moment-rebuilding-georgias-police https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/siezing-mom...
runako 6y ago
> There's no upside. Do you know any police officers? They frequently retire in their 40s with their living expenses covered for the rest of their lives. To generate that much passive income in another job typically would require a person to accumulate $2 million or more.

deleted 6y ago

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DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

I thought that because QI was defended by the SCOTUS, that even if a state doesn't have QI at all, a police officer or department sued for malpractice could still appeal to the SCOTUS and then eventually win?

kyrra 6y ago
Lower courts would likely have to follow the SCOTUS ruling on it, but it could be argued up to the supreme court to overturn their own creation. This is the problem with creating new rules out of whole-cloth from the bench.
- xxpor 6y ago
  Lower federal courts have no say. It's a state matter up to the supreme court of NM, and then maybe SCOTUS. But also regardless, QI is an extension of sovereign immunity. Therefore, the legislature is free to waive it by statue. That's what NM has done. It's not saying QI doesn't exist, it's that this state waives its privileges.
SavantIdiot 6y ago
We'll see. Part of the Catch-22 of QI is that if it hasn't gone to trial it doesn't exist, so it doesn't go to trial. Let's see if this WinAmp's Box can be bashed open.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  "WinAmp's Box" Don't! If you bash it open, llamas will flood the world and whip everybody's ass in retaliation!
johntb86 6y ago
Supreme court rulings are always connected to the law at the time of the ruling. If a law changes (at the state, federal, or constitutional level) that can change how the supreme court will rule. The state probably couldn't invalidate QI for federal officers, but for state officers, why not?
6y ago

CA0DA 6y ago

> recover damages from the government when their constitutional rights are violated Great, so I'm paying for the sins of crappy cops via my taxes. Do I have an ability to influence my city or state to not hire unethical cops? (serious question)

jachee 6y ago
Don't vote for mayor/governor candidates that glorify the police. Choose ones who want to divert paramilitary funding to other social safety net services.
GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
Yes. Talk to your local representatives
fitblipper 6y ago
Only in a very limited capacity, I guess. IMO the important result of this legislation is that it helps align the incentives of the police department with that of the public they are supposed to serve. That means a department will be more likely to reform practices and policies which would cause frequent lawsuits instead of simply instituting policies to optimize for arrests or convictions. Asset forfeiture is another police policy which places the interests of the police at odds with that of the public. In many places the assets claimed by asset forfeiture can be used to directly fund the department's budget and there is no need to charge anyone of a crime to do so.
- unanswered 6y ago
  How does spending a greater amount of other people's money incentivize a police department or any other public body?
  - vinay427 6y ago
    They already hypothesized one possibility in their comment: > That means a department will be more likely to reform practices and policies which would cause frequent lawsuits instead of simply instituting policies to optimize for arrests or convictions.

noodlesUK 6y ago

What (if at all) does this mean about the immunity of federal officials working in New Mexico? Do the same rules apply, or is there still QI for them as they’re not state officials?

adrenalinelol 6y ago
IANAL but I'd assume this doesn't apply to them.
ghayes 6y ago
From the text[0]: > A public body or person acting on behalf of, under color of or within the course and scope of the authority of a public body shall not subject or cause to be subjected any resident of New Mexico ... to deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured pursuant to the bill of rights ... and: > [a] "public body" means a state or local government, an advisory board, a commission, an agency or an entity created by the constitution of New Mexico or any branch of government that receives public funding, including political subdivisions, special tax districts, school districts and institutions of higher education... [0] https://legiscan.com/NM/text/HB4/2021 https://legiscan.com/NM/text/HB4/2021

caseysoftware 6y ago

> “Qualified immunity is a court-created doctrine that allows public officials to escape accountability after they engage in misconduct, even when their actions send an innocent person to prison. I know this is likely impossible.. but I'd love to see prosecutors/law enforcement have to serve out the sentence or someone they convicted via misconduct. Withhold or manufacture evidence to push for a 10 year sentence? Sure but if that's ever uncovered, you get the 10 year sentence instead. It might convince everyone to be a) more forthcoming with evidence and b) reasonable in the penalties they seek. Both could be a win for the system and the public as a whole.

Aloha 6y ago
I'd be willing to go at 25% up to 10 years. To be honest though, disbarment (particularly if that disbarment was reciprocal) and fine is a more just punishment, because often the issues are so technical that a jury of non lawyers has trouble understanding the issues involved. The last thing that I'd want to do is send someone to jail for up to 30 years for a good faith mistake, that's not justice either.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Generally these are crimes of intent so good faith mistakes are unlikely to yield a sentence.
  - danielheath 6y ago
    When a jury is involved, all bets are off.
    - okwubodu 6y ago
      In that situation, a good faith mistake wouldn't be prosecuted in the first place. It's hard enough getting clear malpractice charged anyways.
      - 6y ago

coolspot 6y ago

I think that the Game theory suggests that cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility. Eat donuts, ignore the radio and you will be fine.

bigiain 6y ago
That might actually be a win overall...
- coolspot 6y ago
  I invite you to peaceful evening walk through Venice Beach, CA.
  - meroes 6y ago
    Just did it a few weeks ago. Thousands of people, never felt unsafe, and saw zero cops. Your point?
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility Police report to elected governments. They are checked the same way the rest of the state is: through elections. Police pay is high across America because they're widely seen as bringing value to the community. Their strikes are feared by politicians; the cops turning on the mayor signals instant political death in most cities. If that perception of police frays, their leverage disappears. More pointedly, if a civil servant decides it's too much legal responsibility to not break the law, they should find another line of work.
- coolspot 6y ago
  I am not sure you are familiar with usual clientele of law enforcement officer, but usual day-to-day interactions are not nice. You will have to use violence, because nice obedient people don’t cause trouble. People that cops are called on will likely fight and resist and you will have a high chance of breaking someone’s bones (or kill someone). So, a rational cop can just avoid risky situations by doing absolute minimum and not showing up or not engaging. Drug addict trashes a store that didn’t accept his fake dollar bill? Whatever, just yell “sir please stop” from distance and leave.

mike_d 6y ago

The purpose of qualified immunity is to permit officials to carry out their discretionary duties without fear of personal liability or harassing litigation. It applies to all parts of government. Didn't get the building permit for your kids horse barn? Sue the planning commission members individually. Animal control writes you a citation for Puddles not being on a leash? Unleash the lawyers. Health department gave your wine bar a bad rating? Sue the inspector personally. The way to fix policing isn't by making the rest of government worse. Reform unions for employees of the people. Create independent civilian oversight boards with the teeth to suspend and terminate. Invest more in mental health and drug rehabilitation services. Invest in educational resources to teach communities how to deal with law enforcement. Edit to add: People are confusing civil liability with criminal liability. If you are found guilty of a crime, then you can be sued.

jshen 6y ago
So a police offer that kills someone will at worst be fired?
- mike_d 6y ago
  Civil liability is not the same as criminal charges.
  - jshen 6y ago
    Thanks, I didn’t know it only applied to civil charges. “ civil suits are the only means by which individuals or their families can get compensation for the violation of their constitutional or civil rights. And, in practice, civil lawsuits are often the only means to seek justice at all because prosecutors—themselves government workers—are typically reluctant to bring criminal charges against their government colleagues, especially police officers who are crucial to the work prosecutors do on a daily basis.”
enraged_camel 6y ago
>> It applies to all parts of government. No, you are talking about something else, which is called sovereign immunity. Qualified immunity is a dumb concept the courts made up to protect police officers.

LatteLazy 6y ago

From the outside, the US has big issues with race, poverty, mental health and access to firearms. That makes policing very difficult and pushes towards a "shoot first" approach. But since the US refuses to address any of the issues, it's stuck trying to fix the problem without being able to fix the problem. What concerns me most (and I see it here in the UK too) isn't these issues themselves, it is the inability of people (media, politicians and everyday citizens) to have an adult conversation about any of it. If the US collectively said "we accept these events as a downside of our way of life" I might not agree but I'd understand. Instead people act like they're surprised or pretend they can be fixed by tinkering around the edges. It seems quite dishonest...

ianai 6y ago
Apparently the mechanisms to address mental health were largely disbanded in the 80s. Oddly this is when many financial oversights and regulations were also undone. It’s like Not A gets established, the ramifications are obviously bad, but A is never re-established.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I'm always surprised there isn't more push for mental health provision in the US. Everyone who loves guns and everyone who is anti mass-shooting should like that, and that's a lot of voters...
  - runako 6y ago
    > Everyone who loves guns and everyone who is anti mass-shooting should like that, and that's a lot of voters... Those are largely the voters who voted in the President (Reagan) who dismantled our large parts of our mental health infrastructure in the 80s, and who since have voted in Presidents that have attempted to make our healthcare system more adversarial towards patients. They are (now) a distinct minority of voters, but unfortunately we do not live in a very representative republic.
lolsal 6y ago
> But since the US refuses to address any of the issues, it's stuck trying to fix the problem without being able to fix the problem. That's a bit unfair I think. We have a lot of things to improve, but we absolutely are trying to change things all over the country. Volunteer programs for under-privileged kids on the east side of my town make sure kids have food during the day and a positive adult role model to spend time with them after school for a few hours a week. That's a slow burn kind of investment that affects poverty, racial inequalities (and kinds of intolerance), mental health, violence, and all sort of other stuff. I haven't performed a trial or a study, so I don't have any sort of peer reviewed journal to link you to. But it's happening.

lsiebert 6y ago

A frivolous lawsuit can still be dismissed without qualified immunity, and they regularly are, but the problem is that serious wrongdoing is also regularly dismissed, creating a catch 22 where the lack of existing case law and the requirement that wrongdoing be in violation of clearly established law (which generally means nearly identical facts) leads to cases being dismissed before they become case law. That's not conducive to good governance, which is why you get conservative Libertarians like The Cato Institute joining with the NAACP to argue against it.

lucb1e 6y ago

Since it's a USA-specific term and not very self-explanatory (I thought this was a COVID-related thing because it contains 'immunity', but it's not): > In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". -- Wikipedia

exabrial 6y ago

Getting rid of qualified immunity without instating a "loser pays legal fees" law seems like a a far worse situation.

bluGill 6y ago
Loser pays has negative consequences. If you have big pockets you can afford to sue, if you lose it isn't a big deal, but if you are a small guy you don't dare sue a big player: they can lawyer up, even if they only win 10% of the time via confusing legal loopholes that shouldn't apply but they can make apply anyway, that is still enough lawyer fees for the loser to pay that no regular person dares go to court. I don't know of a solution. The problem is very complex. So far every option I've heard of (including what we have now) has serious negative effects.

geogra4 6y ago

In practice police are almost entirely legally invulnerable. QI is part of that, and needs to go.

ascagnel_ 6y ago
The issue isn't QI in and of itself -- as others have said, it serves a useful purpose in protecting the personal liability of government agents acting out their official duties, which can be reasonable (one example was that a planning board member shouldn't face personal liability for denying a proposal). In my mind, there are two issues (one direct, one indirect) with QI and policing specifically: - QI has been defined as so broadly covering the police that any situation that hasn't explicitly already been defined as an overreach or overreaction will be considered as covered by QI, so officers face little to no personal accountability. - Police and civilian oversight boards are largely ineffective at doling out substantial punishments, so officers face little to no professional accountability. Such oversight is typically fought, and fought hard, by police unions. As a result of this, police officers face little pushback for misbehavior, or even patterns of misbehavior. Court decisions narrowing the scope of QI as it applies to police officers (eg: any behavior by a police officer that's not "by the book" would not be considered eligible for QI) would go a long way towards providing accountability.

ashneo76 6y ago

End qualified immunity couple with increased pay and benefits and more psych training and DEI training before hitting the ground. It is a risky job and it should valued as such. It should be selective too. We have bodycams, to reduce the chances of "he said, she said"

ceejayoz 6y ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-training-weeks-united-states/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-training-weeks-united-st... > Officers in [Finland and Norway] must attend their nations' three-year police universities, and leave with degrees that are equivalent to a bachelor's. > Rune Glomseth, a professor at the Norwegian police university, Politihøgskolen, said policing is approached as an academic discipline. "It's the same quality of education that we have for teachers, nurses, and so on," said Glomseth, who was also a police officer for three decades. > The first year of police education in Norway is focused on the role of police in society and ethics. In the second year, students shadow training officers, before returning full time for a third year focused on investigations and completing a thesis paper. I'd love to see this happen here.

totalminimalist 6y ago

IMHO, the US is heading down a dangerous path as regards things like this. One case I'm really looking at is this one that will be decided by SCOTUS by June 2021: https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/03/us-supreme-court-hears-arguments-on-community-caretaking-warrant-exception/ https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/03/us-supreme-court-hears-a...

eplanit 6y ago

With this, police will soon stop intervening to stop crimes from happening, and will instead focus their attention on after-the-fact data gathering and reporting. I can't blame them, but quality of life for law abiding citizens is likely to suffer. In high crime areas, I can understand police considering certain neighborhoods as "no go" zones. Why take such a risk with your own life to stop a crime against somebody else?

Craighead 6y ago
... thats the job description?
cwmma 6y ago
Because it's literally their job to take such a risk with your own life to stop a crime against somebody else. To say that you'll refuse to do your job if there is a possibility of being liable if you commit a crime without explicitly being told it's a crime then maybe it isn't the job for you.
- eplanit 6y ago
  Exactly, but if the city doesn't have their back, and they're liable for any mistake -- why take the risk? It's hard to have it both ways.
  - cwmma 6y ago
    Qualified immunity is unrelated to whether the city will cover the settlement for the cop (which they usually do) this is about whether if a cop does something illegal to you, that hasn't explicitly been called illegal in identical circumstances, can you sue them like you could any other person that violated your rights.
whymauri 6y ago
>With this, police will soon stop intervening to stop crimes from happening They already do this and are legally protected to do so. [0][1] The TL;DR is: the police is not legally required to help you, protect you, or take any action, really. Honestly, Lozito v. NYC makes me wonder what exactly the police is required to do, if anything. I'm certain that individual city's City Attorney's office decide this in their contract(s) with the police, but those provisions are unlikely to be directly related to the day-to-day job of officers AFAIK. [0] Lozito v. New York City [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAfUI_hETy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAfUI_hETy0

Igelau 6y ago

I never realized that we referred to citizens of New Mexico as New Mexicans. It makes sense, I don't know what else you'd call them, but it was confusing to see that for the first time.

SyzygistSix 6y ago

Forget qualified immunity and civil liability. Why are police not being held criminally responsible for criminal acts? I am far more concerned about that.

jellicle 6y ago
The existence of one problem doesn't preclude the existence of others. Both are problematic. The law being used to sue police officers - the Ku Klux Klan Act - came into being because the Federal Congress recognized that in certain states of the Union, police officers (and other public officers) were taking actions against the public that would never be prosecuted as crimes in those states, yet were egregious and in want of a remedy. The situation is not so different today.

unethical_ban 6y ago

I understand the arguments that "QI has reasonable goals in theory", but it is time to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If cops didn't want to lose QI, they should have held themselves to account for the last few decades. Maybe the unions should have spoken up when cops steal tens of thousands of dollars in cash from a suspect, and get away with it due to QI. San Antonio, TX will be voting in May on whether to disband the police union. "Back the Blue" types are saying it's Defund in disguise, that we won't be able to find good cops, and so on. Except several large cities in Texas don't have unionized police, and they do alright. Furthermore, the cops in San Antonio can commit really awful crimes, and still have months- or years-long appeals. Being a cop isn't a right, it is a privilege and a critical duty. It should be easy to fire bad cops. SAPD, if you didn't want your union to be busted, maybe you should have held yourselves to a higher standard.

tinus_hn 6y ago
How is it legal to vote to disband a union? Could you vote to disband the Screen Actors Guild?
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  The same way you change any other service provider. You find another vendor or renegotiate. The people will vote to instruct their officials to do so. Pretty straightforward.
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  Short version: Texas state law establishes the right for cities to decide whether their police can engage in collective bargaining. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LG/htm/LG.174.htm https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LG/htm/LG.174.htm
- Can_Not 6y ago
  It happens all too often: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Un...
6y ago

voxic11 6y ago

Just want to highlight this part of the bill since it seems that it was missed by many commenters. > INDEMNIFICATION BY PUBLIC BODY.--A judgment awarded pursuant to the New Mexico Civil Rights Act against a person acting on behalf of, under color of or within the course and scope of the authority of the public body shall be paid by the public body.