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> The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a ruling in April that "the officers reasonably believed they were acting within the law" eve

> The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a ruling in April that "the officers reasonably believed they were acting within the law" even if his Facebook page was obviously a parody. So police officers do not have to follow the law? They just have to believe that they are doing it?

kwhitefoot 4y ago
A step in the right direction surely? After all it seems from reading the news that previously they didn't even believe they were following the law! :-)
rnk 4y ago
This is exactly right. And even in many many cases where they have been shown to know they were actually violating it they have immunity too.
- eYrKEC2 4y ago
  It's better than that. They can even NOT BE A POLICE OFFICER, then act like a police officer, and then get qualified immunity. https://ij.org/press-release/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-case-of-government-engineer-who-acted-like-a-police-officer-got-qualified-immunity-anyway/ https://ij.org/press-release/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-c... Out. Of. Control.
  - rnk 4y ago
    Okay, that's absurd even to cynical me. Pretend to be a cop and have qualified immunity?
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      Does this mean I get qualified immunity too? I'm not pretending to be a cop but I think I should get it. This court will probably agree with me. Maybe all Americans should have qualified immunity!
      - rnk 4y ago
        [flagged]
        weard_beard 4y ago
        Actually you need to be a government employee too.
  - corndoge 4y ago
    I don't see anything in this article that indicates that the government official in question received qualified immunity because they acted like a police officer. It seems they already had it as part of their own job. Correct if wrong.
    - pavon 4y ago
      That is correct, but qualified immunity is supposed to apply to government officials acting withing the scope of their official responsibilities. We emphasize that our decision applies only to suits for civil damages arising from actions within the scope of an official's duties and in "objective" good faith. - Harlow v. Fitzgerald [1] For the courts to uphold that impersonating a police officer (which is a felony!) is with the scope of an engineer's duties is absurd. [1]https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/800/#F34 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/800/#F34
      - zuminator 4y ago
        Part of that is that we're being misled by this whole 'impersonated a police officer' spin. He didn't pull the trucks over and say, "I'm a cop! You're under arrest." Rather, he claimed (and presumably believed) that he possessed, as a highway engineer, the authority to detain trucks that were violating a statute. Consider, in carrying out his official dutues, he has some degree of discretion in doing so. For example, some engineers might decide the best tool for their job that day is a slide rule. Others might decide on a given day to use an autoleveling level. And some, particularly Mr. Large, might decide on exercising the "detain trucks that are interfering with road work" provision. It turned out there was no such provision, and Large's job didn't have the authority to detain vehicles. But the absence of a statute specifically forbidding state employees (other than police officers) to detain trucks meant that he was entitled to qualified immunity. Keep in mind that QI doesn't mean that the injured party isn't entitled to damages at all, it just means they have to sue the state and not individual officers/officials. Of course, suing the state has its own hurdles. Some government bodies have very short statutes of limitations for filing lawsuits against them, and they must receive advance notice before the claim can even commence. And the claim might need to be filed in a special court. And the state may be protected from liability if it had no advance knowledge of a condition, or by a statute limiting the amount of damages.
  - cvoss 4y ago
    Why do you believe that qualified immunity only applies to police officers? I won't pretend to be an expert---today being the first day I've read about it---but, the very first Wikipedia article I read about the topic discusses qualified immunity w.r.t. "government officials", not "officers", which is a much bigger category of people. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity
    - olliej 4y ago
      QI typically comes up in the context of police officers, so people don't understand the QI was extended from legislators, etc to police officers despite no legislative basis for such.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - runnerup 4y ago
      Teachers and school administrators also have qualified immmunity. They just tend to get fired when they egregiously screw up!
      - kmonsen 4y ago
        I think this is part of it, police officers have the double-whammy of QI and the police unions protecting them from any consequence.
        runnerup 4y ago
        It's interesting that teacher unions dont seem to have the same degree of absolute power.
        kevviiinn 4y ago
        People are scared of crime, they usually aren't scared of students (unless the students are black, they put cops in those schools to arrest kids ofc)
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  Which is exactly the opposite of how it should be. I've thought for a long time that, if a cop is convicted as a crime, the simple fact that they are a cop should be considered an aggravating factor in sentencing, and even more harshly if the offense had any hint of abuse of their legal authority.
  - thecrash 4y ago
    This makes sense in principle, but in practice police cannot both carefully adhere to the law and serve their intended function. Police are expected to be the security force of the powerful and influential against society's undesirables. If cops were required to strictly obey the law, they would be much less effective at this job. Most officers would understandably opt simply not to get involved in situations which might lead to someone's rights being violated. If the powerful want a force which is willing to knock heads for them, they need to assure that force it will not be held responsible for the mess it makes along the way.
    - BarryMilo 4y ago
      Ergo the difference between official and actual purpose
    - interactivecode 4y ago
      In civilized countries the police should have rules for how to act under certain conditions. For example how to de-escalate and then it’s allowed to drive through a red stoplight. In those countries if a police officer would drive through a red light without reason the should get a fine, suspension or other consequences. And I agree with an earlier commenter, since they should be extremely aware if the rules and boundaries, violations should be punished stricter.
    - magicalist 4y ago
      You say "but in practice..." but then proceed to handwave generalities. For instance, are you arguing we can preemptively say they don't have to follow any law on the off chance one of them might come up in the performance of their duties? It sounds an awful lot like you are, and there's essentially no "in practice" evidence to motivate that.
schneems 4y ago
> So police officers do not have to follow the law? Space_meme.jpg “never have” https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/what-is-qualified-immunity-for-police-and-why-are-there-calls-to-end-it/ https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/what-is-quali...
ElfinTrousers 4y ago
No, they just have to claim that they believe it. It's not like the judge can read their mind and prove they're lying. Another example of how, although small-scale corruption is rare in the US government (i.e. we don't have a culture where it's normal for ordinary folks to bribe cops or other officials), we have plenty of large-scale corruption baked right into the system. For further information, I refer you to the works of Messrs. E, Ren, and Cube, and Dr. Dre.
AdrianB1 4y ago
It does not matter, police officers have qualified immunity in all cases except when they don't, and they don't only if there is already a legal precedent telling they don't. Yes, circular reasoning.
__derek__ 4y ago
It's not even that strong because of the "reasonably believed" bit: they just have to plausibly deny knowledge of precedent explicitly barring their (hyper-specific) action.
- schoen 4y ago
  Could there be an impact from putting up some billboards about the legality of certain actions, where police officers would be likely to see them frequently?
  - ars 4y ago
    Interesting idea. Although the cops might claim they did not believe the billboards were accurate.
  - joelfried 4y ago
    I doubt it. There's too many ways for this not to work - the police testifies "I never saw that billboard". Even if they admit they saw it, so what? Anybody can say anything on a billboard, the police officer could say "Oh yeah, I saw it, but I have no idea if it's true" - and plausible deniability is sufficient as I understand it.
    - petsfed 4y ago
      "Oh yeah, I saw [the satirical facebook page about us], but I have no idea if its true" It's infuriating that this farce is what our legal system hinges on.
      - rnk 4y ago
        You can even put it on their qualification tests so you have documentation that they heard something was illegal and it doesn't matter. For many things they are effectively immune to prosecution. Add on that most prosecutors don't want to go after cops because they won't cooperate in cases after that.
    - 4y ago
fzeroracer 4y ago
Yes, correct. That's been the case for a while now and is part of the reason why they've gotten away with murder, theft etc even in circumstances where video evidence obviously implicates them. Policing as an institution in the US is incredibly rotten and backed up by the abuse of qualified immunity.
6gvONxR4sf7o 4y ago
It's ludicrous that ignorance of the law excuses them from following it, when it famously doesn't excuse the rest of us.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Yet another instance where the police demand to be held to lower standards than the rest of us little people, rather than higher standards.
jackmott42 4y ago
The citizens should revolt over a state of affairs like this.
- mandmandam 4y ago
  In unrelated news, police forces across the country have been trained to view the public as enemies who might kill them at any time [see Dave Grossman], and supplied with alarming amounts of military / SWAT level equipment. Also wholly unrelated, districts have hired huge numbers of PR people to shine up their image; for example, 67 full time PR and propaganda people for the LA area alone - https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1484966547244433416 https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1484966547244433416
cpncrunch 4y ago
>even if his Facebook page was obviously a parody. Here is the page in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8h4PIC4HhI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8h4PIC4HhI It had the police department logo, with no mention that it was a parody. The post said people would be arrested if they went outside at certain times. I would like to think that most people would question and fact check clearly weird shit like this. But, as we now know, the vast majority of people do not fact check. They take dumb shit like this at face value, hook line and sinker.
- humanistbot 4y ago
  Read the brief filed by The Onion. It is hilarious, but also a masterwork in arguing that parody only works by initially fooling people into believing it is real, which is illustrated by its own parodies of a legal brief. People have been trying to sue parody creators for not including a disclaimer since before the US existed, see Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. They cite ample precedents that US courts have consistently held that disclaimers are not needed to distinguish parody from sincere libel/slander for a "reasonable person," who precedent holds is not the average person or a "lowest-common denominator, but of reasonable intelligence and learning." https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/20221003125252896_35295545_1-22.10.03%20-%20Novak-Parma%20-%20Onion%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...
  - js2 4y ago
    Relevant TAL episode prologue: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/775/the-possum-experiment https://www.thisamericanlife.org/775/the-possum-experiment Lady puts up "Cat Found" posters around her L.A. neighborhood with pictures of a possum, as a stunt: https://hw4.thisamericanlife.org/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/episodes/images/cat-found-poster-jlw-3.jpg https://hw4.thisamericanlife.org/sites/default/files/styles/... Her voice mail explodes with callers from all over the country after the poster gets shared online. Hundreds of calls. She gets three types of messages, which she catalogued: 1. Those who didn't realize it was a joke or weren't sure and called to politely let her know she had found a possum, not a cat. About 70% of callers. 2. Those who realized it was obviously a joke and called to tell her she had found their cat. About 20% of callers. 3. Those who didn't realize it was a joke and called to tell her how dumb she was. She got some really mean messages. About 10% of callers.
ajross 4y ago
Stated more correctly: police officers cannot be found personally liable in civil court for breaking the law. They can be prosecuted by the state for crimes they commit, and the agencies that employ them can be sued for damages. But no, in practice you can't personally sue a cop in civil court in the United States for anything that can be even vaguely understood as police work, no matter how terrible an abuse it is.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  Actually, there is at least one case showing you can't sue a government employee of any kind for anything that can even be vaguely understood as police work, no matter how terrible an abuse it is. The case was about a government engineer who legally acted as a police officer, but still got QI in his capacity as a government engineer for it, and it is settled (SCOTUS declined to hear it).
  - anticensor 4y ago
    > SCOTUS declined to hear it That counts as case dismissed, not as settled.
idontpost 4y ago
[dead]
8note 4y ago
The expectation is that they are held responsible by their employers.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
  Does the court honestly believe this expectation?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Which never happens unless it gets lots of attention. Good apples get punished if they speak up so the bad apples do what whatever they want.
danShumway 4y ago
Qualified immunity, a doctrine that I think was largely just wholesale invented by the Supreme Court out of nowhere because "it would be bad if this didn't exist." Left, right, center, whatever. Everyone should be on board with getting rid of it regardless of political affiliation, there are reasons for everyone to hate that qualified immunity for government workers/agents is a thing.
- Madmallard 4y ago
  Qualified Immunity is a step toward tyranny
  - backtoyoujim 4y ago
    It is tyrannical, and it engenders American capitalism with neofeudalism with chivalry being replaced with QI.
  - ghoogl 4y ago
    [dead]
- shrimpx 4y ago
  It maybe says that laws are too strict, since they can’t apply in “sticky but necessary” situations, so maybe we should delegislate down to the baseline level of QI.
  - zwkrt 4y ago
    Screw that. Unless I can refuse to be tried in a sticky but necessary situation, the cops don’t get that option.
- kolanos 4y ago
  It's way worse than that. Qualified immunity arose out of Pierson v. Ray: > The case refers to the incident in Jackson, Mississippi where 15 Episcopal priests were arrested after entering the coffee shop at the local Trailways bus terminal. The group were part of 28 priests from Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, ... > On September 13, 1961, a group of 15 including three black priests took taxis from Tougaloo into the nearby Jackson Trailways bus terminal to catch the bus to Chattanooga. When entering the coffee shop to have lunch before their departure, they were stopped by two policemen, Officers David Allison Nichols and Joseph David Griffith, who asked them to leave. After the priests refused to leave, Captain J. L. Ray arrested and jailed all 15 priests for breach of peace, using a now-repealed section of the Mississippi code § 2087.5 that "makes guilty of a misdemeanor anyone who congregates with others in a public place under circumstances such that a breach of the peace may be occasioned thereby, and refuses to move on when ordered to do so by a police officer." > The group included 35-year-old Reverend Robert L. Pierson, who was son-in-law to the Republican Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller. They were brought to trial before the local judge James Spencer who found them guilty of breach of peace and sentenced them to four months in jail and $200 fine. > Represented by Carl Rachlin, the chief legal counsel at Congress of Racial Equality, they sought damages in the Jackson district court before Judge Sidney Mize, alleging the police and the local judge had violated Title 42, Section 1983 of the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act by false arrest and imprisonment for exercising their civil rights. However, the jury found in favor of the police who said they were trying to prevent imminent violence from a gathered crowd, contradicting the evidence of the priests. > On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the local judge was immune from liability for his decision. Although the appeal court found the Mississippi code unconstitutional, it found that "Mississippi law does not require police officers to predict at their peril which state laws are constitutional and which are not." [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray
beardedwizard 4y ago
Imagine you are operating with good intent, and are now personally liable for every call you make under duress trying to fight crime. Batman has to crack a few eggs. Nobody would want to be a cop without some form of protection, but having this protection covers the worst cops. A tough situation, but if we make police work unappealing, what will we achieve? Are there successful examples of this? It is also interesting that software engineering is one of the only engineering professions that has no industry regulation or personal accountability for negligence.
- stonogo 4y ago
  Other professions have surety bonds and professional liability insurance. Right now if a cop does wrong the community pays. Rescinding qualified immunity and requiring sworn officers to personally bond and insure themselves would incentivise good behavior and appropriately redirect negative consequences to the actual problem sources.
- babelfish 4y ago
  Do you think the officers in this case were actually trying to fight crime, or make a petty arrest to a local citizen for an activity protected by 1A?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - creato 4y ago
    There are two groups of officers described by the parent post: ones who try to fight crime, and "the worst cops". They aren't the same group. The challenge is how to protect the first group and not the second. Would you want to be a cop if every shitbag you arrest is going to sue you for some frivolous crap? You will lose some of those cases even if you are a saint of a police officer.
    - karmelapple 4y ago
      Have medical doctors already solved this through insurance? Not a fantastic solution, and it increases costs, but it does provide due process for people making claims, and allows a court to decide whether a doctor did something wrong. Apply the same to police.
mtrower 4y ago
Intent is a large part of law to begin with.
vishnugupta 4y ago
Yes. And obligatory advice, “Don’t talk to the police.” https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE
nxm 4y ago
They do follow the law. Also the guys was arrested, and not criminally convicted. Police arrest criminals before they’re trialed all the time…e.g. someone arrested for murder or robbery is not guilty until a trial, yet he or she was still arrested

kwhitefoot 4y ago

A step in the right direction surely? After all it seems from reading the news that previously they didn't even believe they were following the law! :-)

rnk 4y ago

This is exactly right. And even in many many cases where they have been shown to know they were actually violating it they have immunity too.

eYrKEC2 4y ago
It's better than that. They can even NOT BE A POLICE OFFICER, then act like a police officer, and then get qualified immunity. https://ij.org/press-release/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-case-of-government-engineer-who-acted-like-a-police-officer-got-qualified-immunity-anyway/ https://ij.org/press-release/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-c... Out. Of. Control.
- rnk 4y ago
  Okay, that's absurd even to cynical me. Pretend to be a cop and have qualified immunity?
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    Does this mean I get qualified immunity too? I'm not pretending to be a cop but I think I should get it. This court will probably agree with me. Maybe all Americans should have qualified immunity!
    - rnk 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - weard_beard 4y ago
        Actually you need to be a government employee too.
- corndoge 4y ago
  I don't see anything in this article that indicates that the government official in question received qualified immunity because they acted like a police officer. It seems they already had it as part of their own job. Correct if wrong.
  - pavon 4y ago
    That is correct, but qualified immunity is supposed to apply to government officials acting withing the scope of their official responsibilities. We emphasize that our decision applies only to suits for civil damages arising from actions within the scope of an official's duties and in "objective" good faith. - Harlow v. Fitzgerald [1] For the courts to uphold that impersonating a police officer (which is a felony!) is with the scope of an engineer's duties is absurd. [1]https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/800/#F34 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/800/#F34
    - zuminator 4y ago
      Part of that is that we're being misled by this whole 'impersonated a police officer' spin. He didn't pull the trucks over and say, "I'm a cop! You're under arrest." Rather, he claimed (and presumably believed) that he possessed, as a highway engineer, the authority to detain trucks that were violating a statute. Consider, in carrying out his official dutues, he has some degree of discretion in doing so. For example, some engineers might decide the best tool for their job that day is a slide rule. Others might decide on a given day to use an autoleveling level. And some, particularly Mr. Large, might decide on exercising the "detain trucks that are interfering with road work" provision. It turned out there was no such provision, and Large's job didn't have the authority to detain vehicles. But the absence of a statute specifically forbidding state employees (other than police officers) to detain trucks meant that he was entitled to qualified immunity. Keep in mind that QI doesn't mean that the injured party isn't entitled to damages at all, it just means they have to sue the state and not individual officers/officials. Of course, suing the state has its own hurdles. Some government bodies have very short statutes of limitations for filing lawsuits against them, and they must receive advance notice before the claim can even commence. And the claim might need to be filed in a special court. And the state may be protected from liability if it had no advance knowledge of a condition, or by a statute limiting the amount of damages.
- cvoss 4y ago
  Why do you believe that qualified immunity only applies to police officers? I won't pretend to be an expert---today being the first day I've read about it---but, the very first Wikipedia article I read about the topic discusses qualified immunity w.r.t. "government officials", not "officers", which is a much bigger category of people. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity
  - olliej 4y ago
    QI typically comes up in the context of police officers, so people don't understand the QI was extended from legislators, etc to police officers despite no legislative basis for such.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - runnerup 4y ago
    Teachers and school administrators also have qualified immmunity. They just tend to get fired when they egregiously screw up!
    - kmonsen 4y ago
      I think this is part of it, police officers have the double-whammy of QI and the police unions protecting them from any consequence.
      - runnerup 4y ago
        It's interesting that teacher unions dont seem to have the same degree of absolute power.
        kevviiinn 4y ago
        People are scared of crime, they usually aren't scared of students (unless the students are black, they put cops in those schools to arrest kids ofc)
ElfinTrousers 4y ago
Which is exactly the opposite of how it should be. I've thought for a long time that, if a cop is convicted as a crime, the simple fact that they are a cop should be considered an aggravating factor in sentencing, and even more harshly if the offense had any hint of abuse of their legal authority.
- thecrash 4y ago
  This makes sense in principle, but in practice police cannot both carefully adhere to the law and serve their intended function. Police are expected to be the security force of the powerful and influential against society's undesirables. If cops were required to strictly obey the law, they would be much less effective at this job. Most officers would understandably opt simply not to get involved in situations which might lead to someone's rights being violated. If the powerful want a force which is willing to knock heads for them, they need to assure that force it will not be held responsible for the mess it makes along the way.
  - BarryMilo 4y ago
    Ergo the difference between official and actual purpose
  - interactivecode 4y ago
    In civilized countries the police should have rules for how to act under certain conditions. For example how to de-escalate and then it’s allowed to drive through a red stoplight. In those countries if a police officer would drive through a red light without reason the should get a fine, suspension or other consequences. And I agree with an earlier commenter, since they should be extremely aware if the rules and boundaries, violations should be punished stricter.
  - magicalist 4y ago
    You say "but in practice..." but then proceed to handwave generalities. For instance, are you arguing we can preemptively say they don't have to follow any law on the off chance one of them might come up in the performance of their duties? It sounds an awful lot like you are, and there's essentially no "in practice" evidence to motivate that.

schneems 4y ago

> So police officers do not have to follow the law? Space_meme.jpg “never have” https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/what-is-qualified-immunity-for-police-and-why-are-there-calls-to-end-it/ https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/what-is-quali...

ElfinTrousers 4y ago

No, they just have to claim that they believe it. It's not like the judge can read their mind and prove they're lying. Another example of how, although small-scale corruption is rare in the US government (i.e. we don't have a culture where it's normal for ordinary folks to bribe cops or other officials), we have plenty of large-scale corruption baked right into the system. For further information, I refer you to the works of Messrs. E, Ren, and Cube, and Dr. Dre.

AdrianB1 4y ago

It does not matter, police officers have qualified immunity in all cases except when they don't, and they don't only if there is already a legal precedent telling they don't. Yes, circular reasoning.

__derek__ 4y ago

It's not even that strong because of the "reasonably believed" bit: they just have to plausibly deny knowledge of precedent explicitly barring their (hyper-specific) action.

schoen 4y ago
Could there be an impact from putting up some billboards about the legality of certain actions, where police officers would be likely to see them frequently?
- ars 4y ago
  Interesting idea. Although the cops might claim they did not believe the billboards were accurate.
- joelfried 4y ago
  I doubt it. There's too many ways for this not to work - the police testifies "I never saw that billboard". Even if they admit they saw it, so what? Anybody can say anything on a billboard, the police officer could say "Oh yeah, I saw it, but I have no idea if it's true" - and plausible deniability is sufficient as I understand it.
  - petsfed 4y ago
    "Oh yeah, I saw [the satirical facebook page about us], but I have no idea if its true" It's infuriating that this farce is what our legal system hinges on.
    - rnk 4y ago
      You can even put it on their qualification tests so you have documentation that they heard something was illegal and it doesn't matter. For many things they are effectively immune to prosecution. Add on that most prosecutors don't want to go after cops because they won't cooperate in cases after that.
  - 4y ago

fzeroracer 4y ago

Yes, correct. That's been the case for a while now and is part of the reason why they've gotten away with murder, theft etc even in circumstances where video evidence obviously implicates them. Policing as an institution in the US is incredibly rotten and backed up by the abuse of qualified immunity.

6gvONxR4sf7o 4y ago

It's ludicrous that ignorance of the law excuses them from following it, when it famously doesn't excuse the rest of us.

CamperBob2 4y ago
Yet another instance where the police demand to be held to lower standards than the rest of us little people, rather than higher standards.

jackmott42 4y ago

The citizens should revolt over a state of affairs like this.

mandmandam 4y ago
In unrelated news, police forces across the country have been trained to view the public as enemies who might kill them at any time [see Dave Grossman], and supplied with alarming amounts of military / SWAT level equipment. Also wholly unrelated, districts have hired huge numbers of PR people to shine up their image; for example, 67 full time PR and propaganda people for the LA area alone - https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1484966547244433416 https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1484966547244433416

cpncrunch 4y ago

>even if his Facebook page was obviously a parody. Here is the page in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8h4PIC4HhI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8h4PIC4HhI It had the police department logo, with no mention that it was a parody. The post said people would be arrested if they went outside at certain times. I would like to think that most people would question and fact check clearly weird shit like this. But, as we now know, the vast majority of people do not fact check. They take dumb shit like this at face value, hook line and sinker.

humanistbot 4y ago
Read the brief filed by The Onion. It is hilarious, but also a masterwork in arguing that parody only works by initially fooling people into believing it is real, which is illustrated by its own parodies of a legal brief. People have been trying to sue parody creators for not including a disclaimer since before the US existed, see Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. They cite ample precedents that US courts have consistently held that disclaimers are not needed to distinguish parody from sincere libel/slander for a "reasonable person," who precedent holds is not the average person or a "lowest-common denominator, but of reasonable intelligence and learning." https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/20221003125252896_35295545_1-22.10.03%20-%20Novak-Parma%20-%20Onion%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...
- js2 4y ago
  Relevant TAL episode prologue: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/775/the-possum-experiment https://www.thisamericanlife.org/775/the-possum-experiment Lady puts up "Cat Found" posters around her L.A. neighborhood with pictures of a possum, as a stunt: https://hw4.thisamericanlife.org/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/episodes/images/cat-found-poster-jlw-3.jpg https://hw4.thisamericanlife.org/sites/default/files/styles/... Her voice mail explodes with callers from all over the country after the poster gets shared online. Hundreds of calls. She gets three types of messages, which she catalogued: 1. Those who didn't realize it was a joke or weren't sure and called to politely let her know she had found a possum, not a cat. About 70% of callers. 2. Those who realized it was obviously a joke and called to tell her she had found their cat. About 20% of callers. 3. Those who didn't realize it was a joke and called to tell her how dumb she was. She got some really mean messages. About 10% of callers.

ajross 4y ago

Stated more correctly: police officers cannot be found personally liable in civil court for breaking the law. They can be prosecuted by the state for crimes they commit, and the agencies that employ them can be sued for damages. But no, in practice you can't personally sue a cop in civil court in the United States for anything that can be even vaguely understood as police work, no matter how terrible an abuse it is.

tsimionescu 4y ago
Actually, there is at least one case showing you can't sue a government employee of any kind for anything that can even be vaguely understood as police work, no matter how terrible an abuse it is. The case was about a government engineer who legally acted as a police officer, but still got QI in his capacity as a government engineer for it, and it is settled (SCOTUS declined to hear it).
- anticensor 4y ago
  > SCOTUS declined to hear it That counts as case dismissed, not as settled.

idontpost 4y ago

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8note 4y ago

The expectation is that they are held responsible by their employers.

thatguy0900 4y ago
Does the court honestly believe this expectation?
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Which never happens unless it gets lots of attention. Good apples get punished if they speak up so the bad apples do what whatever they want.

danShumway 4y ago

Qualified immunity, a doctrine that I think was largely just wholesale invented by the Supreme Court out of nowhere because "it would be bad if this didn't exist." Left, right, center, whatever. Everyone should be on board with getting rid of it regardless of political affiliation, there are reasons for everyone to hate that qualified immunity for government workers/agents is a thing.

Madmallard 4y ago
Qualified Immunity is a step toward tyranny
- backtoyoujim 4y ago
  It is tyrannical, and it engenders American capitalism with neofeudalism with chivalry being replaced with QI.
- ghoogl 4y ago
  [dead]
shrimpx 4y ago
It maybe says that laws are too strict, since they can’t apply in “sticky but necessary” situations, so maybe we should delegislate down to the baseline level of QI.
- zwkrt 4y ago
  Screw that. Unless I can refuse to be tried in a sticky but necessary situation, the cops don’t get that option.
kolanos 4y ago
It's way worse than that. Qualified immunity arose out of Pierson v. Ray: > The case refers to the incident in Jackson, Mississippi where 15 Episcopal priests were arrested after entering the coffee shop at the local Trailways bus terminal. The group were part of 28 priests from Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, ... > On September 13, 1961, a group of 15 including three black priests took taxis from Tougaloo into the nearby Jackson Trailways bus terminal to catch the bus to Chattanooga. When entering the coffee shop to have lunch before their departure, they were stopped by two policemen, Officers David Allison Nichols and Joseph David Griffith, who asked them to leave. After the priests refused to leave, Captain J. L. Ray arrested and jailed all 15 priests for breach of peace, using a now-repealed section of the Mississippi code § 2087.5 that "makes guilty of a misdemeanor anyone who congregates with others in a public place under circumstances such that a breach of the peace may be occasioned thereby, and refuses to move on when ordered to do so by a police officer." > The group included 35-year-old Reverend Robert L. Pierson, who was son-in-law to the Republican Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller. They were brought to trial before the local judge James Spencer who found them guilty of breach of peace and sentenced them to four months in jail and $200 fine. > Represented by Carl Rachlin, the chief legal counsel at Congress of Racial Equality, they sought damages in the Jackson district court before Judge Sidney Mize, alleging the police and the local judge had violated Title 42, Section 1983 of the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act by false arrest and imprisonment for exercising their civil rights. However, the jury found in favor of the police who said they were trying to prevent imminent violence from a gathered crowd, contradicting the evidence of the priests. > On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the local judge was immune from liability for his decision. Although the appeal court found the Mississippi code unconstitutional, it found that "Mississippi law does not require police officers to predict at their peril which state laws are constitutional and which are not." [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray

beardedwizard 4y ago

Imagine you are operating with good intent, and are now personally liable for every call you make under duress trying to fight crime. Batman has to crack a few eggs. Nobody would want to be a cop without some form of protection, but having this protection covers the worst cops. A tough situation, but if we make police work unappealing, what will we achieve? Are there successful examples of this? It is also interesting that software engineering is one of the only engineering professions that has no industry regulation or personal accountability for negligence.

stonogo 4y ago
Other professions have surety bonds and professional liability insurance. Right now if a cop does wrong the community pays. Rescinding qualified immunity and requiring sworn officers to personally bond and insure themselves would incentivise good behavior and appropriately redirect negative consequences to the actual problem sources.
babelfish 4y ago
Do you think the officers in this case were actually trying to fight crime, or make a petty arrest to a local citizen for an activity protected by 1A?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- creato 4y ago
  There are two groups of officers described by the parent post: ones who try to fight crime, and "the worst cops". They aren't the same group. The challenge is how to protect the first group and not the second. Would you want to be a cop if every shitbag you arrest is going to sue you for some frivolous crap? You will lose some of those cases even if you are a saint of a police officer.
  - karmelapple 4y ago
    Have medical doctors already solved this through insurance? Not a fantastic solution, and it increases costs, but it does provide due process for people making claims, and allows a court to decide whether a doctor did something wrong. Apply the same to police.

mtrower 4y ago

Intent is a large part of law to begin with.

vishnugupta 4y ago

Yes. And obligatory advice, “Don’t talk to the police.” https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE https://youtu.be/d-7o9xYp7eE

nxm 4y ago

They do follow the law. Also the guys was arrested, and not criminally convicted. Police arrest criminals before they’re trialed all the time…e.g. someone arrested for murder or robbery is not guilty until a trial, yet he or she was still arrested