6 ms·

Cops Get Qualified Immunity After Jailing Florida Man for 'I Eat Ass' Sticker

55 points by throw0101a 5y ago

elmerfud 5y ago
While qualified immunity has its value in shielding officers from frivolous suits, it seems that damn near everything qualifies for immunity. What ever happened to an officers oath and that they have no duty to enforce unconstitutional or illegal laws/policies. The current method what we get is officers doing anything they want under the color of law, even when they know better, and they throw up their hands with "immunity". Like those bad movies where they kill someone and be all like "diplomatic immunity".
- tephra 5y ago
  If QI should exist it should at least be codified into law by Congress and given some rigorous rules to when it applies etc. As it stands now QI is just something made up by SCOTUS and not created by anyone representing the people.
  - AequitasOmnibus 5y ago
    Not quite true. The idea of sovereign immunity is fundamental to our constitution. While QI isn't codified in the way you're talking about, Congress and the states do have laws on the books to expose themselves to liability. That's where QI comes from - as an extension of statutory authority to hold the government legally liable. When and how the government and its agents are exposed to liability is very clearly spelled out.
    - fieldcny 5y ago
      You comment indicates you are somewhat knowledgeable about this, so a question for you. I think the first police forces were established 60+ years after the constitution was written, do you think they would have given that same level of immunity to an armed branch of the government? Seems like the restrictions on military actions within the countries borders would indicate a general skepticism towards armed agents of the government.
      - AequitasOmnibus 5y ago
        I don't think the founders would have conceptualized governmental liability the way that we do in the modern era. Even hallmark legislation like 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is a product of 20th century jurisprudence. Very early supreme court opinions took a nearly absolutist position on private right of action against the government being barred under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The court has slowly backed away from that position over time.
    - 0des 5y ago
      So are you people using the downvotes to disagree, or to voice discontent? I wish people would provide more context when an otherwise seemingly logical prompt is being greyed out and people like me who -want- to know more, and -want- to hear the counterpoint are just shrugging.
      - effingwewt 5y ago
        That's how it used to be then PG made a post about it and here we are. Flagging for egregious rule-breaking, whatever- but just because someone farmed fake points off the TOP sort, they can go around effectively muting people for sometimes no reason at all. I've often wondered about scraping HN for dead/flagged comments and see how many were actually throughout, insightful comments vs how many were just trollbait/flaming. I just feel it may be a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Maybe today will be the day, but shit that's a whole lot of comments to collate, sort and read. Every time I see a grey comment though....
eigengrau5150 5y ago
Why weren't obscenity laws tossed out along with the sodomy laws?
- version_five 5y ago
  Sodomy laws I understand have a history of used to unfairly target or persecute people. I don't agree with obscenity laws, but I think the need to get rid of the former was much more acute. (Though it supports the idea that all laws should have a sunset clause and have to be intentionally renewed rather than just stay on the books because of apathy)
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    >(Though it supports the idea that all laws should have a sunset clause and have to be intentionally renewed rather than just stay on the books because of apathy) This is honestly one of my favourite political concepts at the moment. I first became aware of it after reading an interview of Owsley Stanley of all people, but I've seen it discussed here on HN recently too. I really think it could solve a limited but very important set of society's problems. It's also neither left nor right wing in any meaningful sense, it has a broad non-partisan appeal.
    - CamTin 5y ago
      While it may be broadly popular in the electorate across party lines, it's definitely a righty policy, since having lots of old, ambiguous laws on the books increases the discretion of police and prosecutors to deal with "troublemakers" as they see fit. Also, under the US system, many broadly popular policies (marijuana legalization, public health care option) have no realistic path to enactment, so that's far from a guarantee.
      - version_five 5y ago
        > definitely a righty policy, since having lots of old, ambiguous laws on the books increases the discretion of police and prosecutors to deal with "troublemakers" as they see fit. are you saying the right is more likely to want to hassle troublemakers? If that were true, sunset clause would be a policy of the left, no? I don't think of it as left or right, it's a libertarian policy. Right now in the US the left skews authoritarian and the right libertarian but that's not a constant (e.g Texas abortion law)
teawrecks 5y ago
> a federal judge ruled that the expression might violate Florida's obscenity law and would thus be unprotected by the First Amendment. > the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled yesterday that the case is not so cut and dry, awarding qualified immunity to English and thus dooming the suit Webb brought against him for allegedly violating his free speech rights and for falsely arresting him. The lawsuit wouldn't be against the officer, though, would it? Seems like if an officer is doing the job as they were trained to, and ends up violating a citizen's rights in the process, it's the police dept that should answer for it.
- phrz 5y ago
  From the ruling: "The purpose of suing a government official in his or her individual capacity is to impose personal liability for actions taken under color of state law." This case sounds like a Section 1983 civil claim for violation of constitutional rights, where you can hold the individual official responsible for money damages if they violated a clearly-established constitutional right acting under color of state law. 42 USC § 1983. "Suing a government official in an official capacity, on the other hand, is an alternative way to assert a claim against the entity he or she represents. . . ." (citations omitted). This is really just suing the state government unit to which the official belongs, but stated differently. That's not getting into all the immunity issues that arise in suing officials/government units.
op00to 5y ago
You’d think the cops would be busy doing other things in Florida, but I guess not.
- version_five 5y ago
  You're right. We have such a weird system of government. We are literally paying the salaries of these people. If you had an employee that cost you 100k or whatever per year, and when you asked what they did today they told you they hassled a guy with an obscene bumper sticker, would you want to keep paying them? But somehow, police departments keep being able to justify and apparently receive their budgets despite cops doing all kinds of wasteful stuff that in no way contributes to public safety. Accountability should be through department budgets, i.e. they should be cut it police are wasting taxpayer money. But somehow that doesnt happen
  - jdmichal 5y ago
    Laws are a moral construct. Enforcing morality as it's encoded in law is part of policing. This is definitely a case to blame the law and lawmakers, not the officer.
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      It's both. There are states with dumb laws on the books, such as "seven or more Indians are considered a raiding or war party and it is legal to shoot them" in Montana. It's legal cruft, and needs to be formally repealed. Police officers use judgement and selective enforcement all the time, seemingly whenever it benefits them, and this case was no different. The officers wanted to rain hell on this guy, and they justified it with legal cruft.
    - version_five 5y ago
      What part of what I wrote made you think my comment had to do with blaming the officer. It's a serious question, I notice people almost never understand my comments and I'd rather that wasn't the case. I'm saying police budgets should be cut if this is how they use their people, and it surprises me that there is no feedback that actually causes these cuts despite evidence that officers are wasting their time on things like in this article.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
belorn 5y ago
The law in question has the direct qualifier that the material is attached to a motor vehicle, which seems to imply a specific purpose. Based on the traffic laws in my own country it seems strange to list specific items like that rather than intent, which from what I would guess is that drivers should not attach things which will distract other drivers and potential cause an accident. If this happened here the chain of events would look somewhat like this: The police would stop the driver and inform them of the distracting attachment, possible giving a fine. If the driver refused to remove the sticker then the police would simply revoke the drivers license and impound the car. If the driver tried to resist they would go to jail over that and/or driving without a license. The driver can then choose to appeal the decision and have a court decide if the attachment was too distracting or not.
eth0up 5y ago
This is strange. I frequently see stickers promoting implied indecent exposure and vandalism, eg the Calvin/Hobbes theme of a character urinating on Chevy/Ford/etc logos. I see, less often, the king of four letter words. It's been a while since I've seen the brazenly bulbous bovine booboos dangling beneath the rear bumper, typically of a truck, due to necessary clearance. I see conditional threats and calls for violence too. I can't say that if I was an officer I wouldn't kind of want to arrest him, if only to see the color of his lips. I wouldn't. If the guy has a steady diet of hotdogs, his veracity is unassailable. If he's really a cannibal, so are some officers[1]. If he's simply crass, he's no minority. My impression is that he's successfully self isolating, which may be good. Who wouldn't keep a distance from someone with such a bumper sticker? Let him have his ass and eat it too. Free speech. 1. https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/nypd-cannibal-cop-vs-florida-puppeteer-who-wanted-to-eat-kids-6442426 https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/nypd-cannibal-cop-vs-f... -FL Resident
- reedjosh 5y ago
  Wow, thank you for this. I can't seem to convince my wife to move to Florida, but I think Florida may be my spirit animal.

55 points by throw0101a 5y ago

While qualified immunity has its value in shielding officers from frivolous suits, it seems that damn near everything qualifies for immunity. What ever happened to an officers oath and that they have no duty to enforce unconstitutional or illegal laws/policies. The current method what we get is officers doing anything they want under the color of law, even when they know better, and they throw up their hands with "immunity". Like those bad movies where they kill someone and be all like "diplomatic immunity".

tephra 5y ago
If QI should exist it should at least be codified into law by Congress and given some rigorous rules to when it applies etc. As it stands now QI is just something made up by SCOTUS and not created by anyone representing the people.
- AequitasOmnibus 5y ago
  Not quite true. The idea of sovereign immunity is fundamental to our constitution. While QI isn't codified in the way you're talking about, Congress and the states do have laws on the books to expose themselves to liability. That's where QI comes from - as an extension of statutory authority to hold the government legally liable. When and how the government and its agents are exposed to liability is very clearly spelled out.
  - fieldcny 5y ago
    You comment indicates you are somewhat knowledgeable about this, so a question for you. I think the first police forces were established 60+ years after the constitution was written, do you think they would have given that same level of immunity to an armed branch of the government? Seems like the restrictions on military actions within the countries borders would indicate a general skepticism towards armed agents of the government.
    - AequitasOmnibus 5y ago
      I don't think the founders would have conceptualized governmental liability the way that we do in the modern era. Even hallmark legislation like 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is a product of 20th century jurisprudence. Very early supreme court opinions took a nearly absolutist position on private right of action against the government being barred under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The court has slowly backed away from that position over time.
  - 0des 5y ago
    So are you people using the downvotes to disagree, or to voice discontent? I wish people would provide more context when an otherwise seemingly logical prompt is being greyed out and people like me who -want- to know more, and -want- to hear the counterpoint are just shrugging.
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      That's how it used to be then PG made a post about it and here we are. Flagging for egregious rule-breaking, whatever- but just because someone farmed fake points off the TOP sort, they can go around effectively muting people for sometimes no reason at all. I've often wondered about scraping HN for dead/flagged comments and see how many were actually throughout, insightful comments vs how many were just trollbait/flaming. I just feel it may be a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Maybe today will be the day, but shit that's a whole lot of comments to collate, sort and read. Every time I see a grey comment though....

eigengrau5150 5y ago

Why weren't obscenity laws tossed out along with the sodomy laws?

version_five 5y ago
Sodomy laws I understand have a history of used to unfairly target or persecute people. I don't agree with obscenity laws, but I think the need to get rid of the former was much more acute. (Though it supports the idea that all laws should have a sunset clause and have to be intentionally renewed rather than just stay on the books because of apathy)
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  >(Though it supports the idea that all laws should have a sunset clause and have to be intentionally renewed rather than just stay on the books because of apathy) This is honestly one of my favourite political concepts at the moment. I first became aware of it after reading an interview of Owsley Stanley of all people, but I've seen it discussed here on HN recently too. I really think it could solve a limited but very important set of society's problems. It's also neither left nor right wing in any meaningful sense, it has a broad non-partisan appeal.
  - CamTin 5y ago
    While it may be broadly popular in the electorate across party lines, it's definitely a righty policy, since having lots of old, ambiguous laws on the books increases the discretion of police and prosecutors to deal with "troublemakers" as they see fit. Also, under the US system, many broadly popular policies (marijuana legalization, public health care option) have no realistic path to enactment, so that's far from a guarantee.
    - version_five 5y ago
      > definitely a righty policy, since having lots of old, ambiguous laws on the books increases the discretion of police and prosecutors to deal with "troublemakers" as they see fit. are you saying the right is more likely to want to hassle troublemakers? If that were true, sunset clause would be a policy of the left, no? I don't think of it as left or right, it's a libertarian policy. Right now in the US the left skews authoritarian and the right libertarian but that's not a constant (e.g Texas abortion law)

teawrecks 5y ago

> a federal judge ruled that the expression might violate Florida's obscenity law and would thus be unprotected by the First Amendment. > the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled yesterday that the case is not so cut and dry, awarding qualified immunity to English and thus dooming the suit Webb brought against him for allegedly violating his free speech rights and for falsely arresting him. The lawsuit wouldn't be against the officer, though, would it? Seems like if an officer is doing the job as they were trained to, and ends up violating a citizen's rights in the process, it's the police dept that should answer for it.

phrz 5y ago
From the ruling: "The purpose of suing a government official in his or her individual capacity is to impose personal liability for actions taken under color of state law." This case sounds like a Section 1983 civil claim for violation of constitutional rights, where you can hold the individual official responsible for money damages if they violated a clearly-established constitutional right acting under color of state law. 42 USC § 1983. "Suing a government official in an official capacity, on the other hand, is an alternative way to assert a claim against the entity he or she represents. . . ." (citations omitted). This is really just suing the state government unit to which the official belongs, but stated differently. That's not getting into all the immunity issues that arise in suing officials/government units.

op00to 5y ago

You’d think the cops would be busy doing other things in Florida, but I guess not.

version_five 5y ago
You're right. We have such a weird system of government. We are literally paying the salaries of these people. If you had an employee that cost you 100k or whatever per year, and when you asked what they did today they told you they hassled a guy with an obscene bumper sticker, would you want to keep paying them? But somehow, police departments keep being able to justify and apparently receive their budgets despite cops doing all kinds of wasteful stuff that in no way contributes to public safety. Accountability should be through department budgets, i.e. they should be cut it police are wasting taxpayer money. But somehow that doesnt happen
- jdmichal 5y ago
  Laws are a moral construct. Enforcing morality as it's encoded in law is part of policing. This is definitely a case to blame the law and lawmakers, not the officer.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    It's both. There are states with dumb laws on the books, such as "seven or more Indians are considered a raiding or war party and it is legal to shoot them" in Montana. It's legal cruft, and needs to be formally repealed. Police officers use judgement and selective enforcement all the time, seemingly whenever it benefits them, and this case was no different. The officers wanted to rain hell on this guy, and they justified it with legal cruft.
  - version_five 5y ago
    What part of what I wrote made you think my comment had to do with blaming the officer. It's a serious question, I notice people almost never understand my comments and I'd rather that wasn't the case. I'm saying police budgets should be cut if this is how they use their people, and it surprises me that there is no feedback that actually causes these cuts despite evidence that officers are wasting their time on things like in this article.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

belorn 5y ago

The law in question has the direct qualifier that the material is attached to a motor vehicle, which seems to imply a specific purpose. Based on the traffic laws in my own country it seems strange to list specific items like that rather than intent, which from what I would guess is that drivers should not attach things which will distract other drivers and potential cause an accident. If this happened here the chain of events would look somewhat like this: The police would stop the driver and inform them of the distracting attachment, possible giving a fine. If the driver refused to remove the sticker then the police would simply revoke the drivers license and impound the car. If the driver tried to resist they would go to jail over that and/or driving without a license. The driver can then choose to appeal the decision and have a court decide if the attachment was too distracting or not.

eth0up 5y ago

This is strange. I frequently see stickers promoting implied indecent exposure and vandalism, eg the Calvin/Hobbes theme of a character urinating on Chevy/Ford/etc logos. I see, less often, the king of four letter words. It's been a while since I've seen the brazenly bulbous bovine booboos dangling beneath the rear bumper, typically of a truck, due to necessary clearance. I see conditional threats and calls for violence too. I can't say that if I was an officer I wouldn't kind of want to arrest him, if only to see the color of his lips. I wouldn't. If the guy has a steady diet of hotdogs, his veracity is unassailable. If he's really a cannibal, so are some officers[1]. If he's simply crass, he's no minority. My impression is that he's successfully self isolating, which may be good. Who wouldn't keep a distance from someone with such a bumper sticker? Let him have his ass and eat it too. Free speech. 1. https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/nypd-cannibal-cop-vs-florida-puppeteer-who-wanted-to-eat-kids-6442426 https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/nypd-cannibal-cop-vs-f... -FL Resident

reedjosh 5y ago
Wow, thank you for this. I can't seem to convince my wife to move to Florida, but I think Florida may be my spirit animal.