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This is all true, but those points don't apply well here. This was a Qualified Immunity case[1], and one of the clearest abuses of that broken paradigm. There
by ajross 4y ago
This is all true, but those points don't apply well here. This was a Qualified Immunity case[1], and one of the clearest abuses of that broken paradigm. There was genuine hope that this, finally, would be the case SCOTUS would take to clear up this mess. But I guess we have to keep waiting.
[1] Essentially, as interpreted: you can't sue a cop unless some other court found another cop liable for exactly the same abuse. And since other courts are bound by the same principle, there aren't any such rulings. Obviously wikipedia will explain this more dryly, but the actual principle as applied really is this circular. It's a disaster.
- anticensor 4y agoThen the US congress should make a statute to better delineate the limits of the qualified immunity.
- ajross 4y agoQI isn't a law, though, that's the thing. SCOTUS just made it up in 1967. I mean, actually there already is a law. A common sense reading of "No State shall [...] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" would be interpreted to mean that cops and non-cops can be liable for the same things in the same ways. But no, cops are special, and not because congress legislated a particular regulation regime, but just because the civil rights era court thought it was unfair to cops to hold them liable for arresting black protesters without cause. [1] Too lazy to cite the actual law. Finding it is left as an exercise for the reader.