5 ms·

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 exis

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the priests refused to leave, Captain J. L. Ray arrested and jailed all 15 priests for breach of peace, using a now-repealed section of the Mississippi code § 2087.5 that "makes guilty of a misdemeanor anyone who congregates with others in a public place under circumstances such that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
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dx034 4y ago
  I guess in this case I'd kind of agree? I fully believe police officers should know the law and act within it. But it's certainly not their job to judge if a law might be unconstitutional. That's what courts are for. And if a lower judge thinks a law might be unconstitutional, they also cannot just repeal it but instead send it to a higher court. So if someone is in breach of a law, police should act. The case discussed in the article is very different as police officers just believed they acted within the law. That should certainly not be enough.
  - Someone 4y ago
    Agree, but I would leave out that “kind of”. As an example, there’s Roe v. Wade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade), which was partly overruled in 1992, “allowing states to implement abortion restrictions that apply during the first trimester of pregnancy” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey), and fully in 2022 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Hea...) As a police officer in 1950, being informed of an, according to then current state law, illegal abortion, how on earth could you know what would happen later? Today, could you be sure that last ruling won’t be overturned again?
    - komali2 4y ago
      This is where ACAB rhetoric comes into play. This is why cops aren't welcome at LGBT parades. People will debate, "oh, but what if a cop happens to live in a state that made gay marriage illegal again? And then they're told to arrest people that got publicly married at an LGBT rally? Shouldn't they 'just follow orders' rather than be held responsible for determining the constitutionality of a state re-banning gay marriage?" Isn't that such an interestingly insane question? Qualified immunity lets people walk around unironically debating whether "just following orders" should be a valid thing that cops get away with doing. As for the cop that "just follows orders" and arrests a newlywed gay couple in 2023 (an entirely feasible thing considering what's happening with women seeking healthcare in Texas), is that a Good Cop, or a Bad Cop?
Gunax 4y ago
Qualified immunity only protects individuals (that is, people who are acting as official roles). It has no bearing on suing organizations or departments, such as this lawsuit, AFAIK
- iudqnolq 4y ago
  Not quite. From the appeals court opinion that the Supreme Court left standing. > What’s more, the officers had good reason to believe they had probable cause. Both the City’s Law Director and the judges who issued the warrants agreed with them. Reassurance from no fewer than three other officials further supports finding that the officers “reasonably,” even if “mistakenly,” concluded that probable cause existed. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. at 591 (cleaned up). That’s enough to shield Riley and Connor [the cops who arrested him] from liability. The reason qualified immunity is such a huge problem is that it's even harder to sue departments. There's a bunch of weird rulings that have the result that in America people who's rights are violated tend to need to sue individuals, who are then defended by the government. (If a cop loses a lawsuit the only consequence tends to be that the city's police misconduct insurance premium goes up) In this case he also tried to sue the municipality, but that lost too > Finally, Novak contends that Parma had an establ ished custom and pattern of “indifference to protected speech in criminal investigations.” Appellant’s Br. 57. And he runs through a list of cases where Parma had to reverse course over protected does not explain how this list of cspeech claims. But he ases could form a “clear and persistent pattern” so strong that it resembles official policy condoned by the City. 432 (6th Cir. 2005). Thomas v. City of Chattanooga , 398 F.3d 426, Perhaps unsurprising, since it’s a “heavy burden” to show municipal liabi lity based on custom. Id. at 433. Novak doesn’t even suggest (as he must) that this pattern resulted from a deliberate choice “from among various alternatives” that amounts to an unwritten “legal institution.” 507Doe v. Claiborne County ex rel. Claiborne C nty. Bd. of Educ. 08 (6th Cir. 1996) (cleaned up). Nor does he explain how that policy — , 103 F.3d 495, despite independent warrants from Magistrate Judge Fink and Judge O’Donnell See Thomas , 398 F.3d at 429 (quoting Doe — caused a constitutional violation. , 103 F.3d at 508). He simply argues that “Parma should have known better.” Appellant’s Br. 58. This is not enough to support a finding of municipal liability, so we affirm. https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0090p-06.pdf https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0090p-06.pd...
londons_explore 4y ago
I'm fine with the police personally not being liable as long as they believe they are acting according to the law. But where they make a mistake, the police department should be paying any compensation for places their behaviour falls short of the actual law.
- masklinn 4y ago
  > I'm fine with the police personally not being liable as long as they believe they are acting according to the law. That translates to cops never being liable, because they’d have to be caught confessing to it on tape for a “honest belief” defense to fail > But where they make a mistake, the police department should be paying any compensation for places their behaviour falls short of the actual law. That translates to the taxpayer paying for it, when odds are the taxpayer is also affected by it. So cop remains unbothered and taxes are used to compensate taxpayers for cop errors.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    Well cop gets berated by his boss for his behaviour being so expensive, and eventually fired... Same as if you repeatedly break stuff at work... At some point your boss decides enough is enough and fires you.
    - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
      It isn't the same, though. In general, if I break the law at work, I'm probably gonna lose my job. If I break stuff on purpose I'm gonna get fired. If I "break" stuff that just breaks as part of my job (or was in ill repair), I don't expect to get fired and if I do, I have a claim. About the only "eventually fired" that I can think of is by operating something in a way that it breaks despite being trained (repeatedly) in the correct manner.
  - cormacrelf 4y ago
    Ignorance of the law is no excuse in criminal law. The logic is that we want people to think about whether things are illegal, and we don’t want a loophole where you just have never watch the news and you can never be found guilty of a crime. The same applies to police. They need an incentive to know the law, not an incentive to ignore it. This isn’t what qualified immunity is about at all, but you know, that’s why.

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

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dx034 4y ago
I guess in this case I'd kind of agree? I fully believe police officers should know the law and act within it. But it's certainly not their job to judge if a law might be unconstitutional. That's what courts are for. And if a lower judge thinks a law might be unconstitutional, they also cannot just repeal it but instead send it to a higher court. So if someone is in breach of a law, police should act. The case discussed in the article is very different as police officers just believed they acted within the law. That should certainly not be enough.
- Someone 4y ago
  Agree, but I would leave out that “kind of”. As an example, there’s Roe v. Wade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade), which was partly overruled in 1992, “allowing states to implement abortion restrictions that apply during the first trimester of pregnancy” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey), and fully in 2022 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Hea...) As a police officer in 1950, being informed of an, according to then current state law, illegal abortion, how on earth could you know what would happen later? Today, could you be sure that last ruling won’t be overturned again?
  - komali2 4y ago
    This is where ACAB rhetoric comes into play. This is why cops aren't welcome at LGBT parades. People will debate, "oh, but what if a cop happens to live in a state that made gay marriage illegal again? And then they're told to arrest people that got publicly married at an LGBT rally? Shouldn't they 'just follow orders' rather than be held responsible for determining the constitutionality of a state re-banning gay marriage?" Isn't that such an interestingly insane question? Qualified immunity lets people walk around unironically debating whether "just following orders" should be a valid thing that cops get away with doing. As for the cop that "just follows orders" and arrests a newlywed gay couple in 2023 (an entirely feasible thing considering what's happening with women seeking healthcare in Texas), is that a Good Cop, or a Bad Cop?

Gunax 4y ago

Qualified immunity only protects individuals (that is, people who are acting as official roles). It has no bearing on suing organizations or departments, such as this lawsuit, AFAIK

iudqnolq 4y ago
Not quite. From the appeals court opinion that the Supreme Court left standing. > What’s more, the officers had good reason to believe they had probable cause. Both the City’s Law Director and the judges who issued the warrants agreed with them. Reassurance from no fewer than three other officials further supports finding that the officers “reasonably,” even if “mistakenly,” concluded that probable cause existed. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. at 591 (cleaned up). That’s enough to shield Riley and Connor [the cops who arrested him] from liability. The reason qualified immunity is such a huge problem is that it's even harder to sue departments. There's a bunch of weird rulings that have the result that in America people who's rights are violated tend to need to sue individuals, who are then defended by the government. (If a cop loses a lawsuit the only consequence tends to be that the city's police misconduct insurance premium goes up) In this case he also tried to sue the municipality, but that lost too > Finally, Novak contends that Parma had an establ ished custom and pattern of “indifference to protected speech in criminal investigations.” Appellant’s Br. 57. And he runs through a list of cases where Parma had to reverse course over protected does not explain how this list of cspeech claims. But he ases could form a “clear and persistent pattern” so strong that it resembles official policy condoned by the City. 432 (6th Cir. 2005). Thomas v. City of Chattanooga , 398 F.3d 426, Perhaps unsurprising, since it’s a “heavy burden” to show municipal liabi lity based on custom. Id. at 433. Novak doesn’t even suggest (as he must) that this pattern resulted from a deliberate choice “from among various alternatives” that amounts to an unwritten “legal institution.” 507Doe v. Claiborne County ex rel. Claiborne C nty. Bd. of Educ. 08 (6th Cir. 1996) (cleaned up). Nor does he explain how that policy — , 103 F.3d 495, despite independent warrants from Magistrate Judge Fink and Judge O’Donnell See Thomas , 398 F.3d at 429 (quoting Doe — caused a constitutional violation. , 103 F.3d at 508). He simply argues that “Parma should have known better.” Appellant’s Br. 58. This is not enough to support a finding of municipal liability, so we affirm. https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0090p-06.pdf https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0090p-06.pd...

londons_explore 4y ago

I'm fine with the police personally not being liable as long as they believe they are acting according to the law. But where they make a mistake, the police department should be paying any compensation for places their behaviour falls short of the actual law.

masklinn 4y ago
> I'm fine with the police personally not being liable as long as they believe they are acting according to the law. That translates to cops never being liable, because they’d have to be caught confessing to it on tape for a “honest belief” defense to fail > But where they make a mistake, the police department should be paying any compensation for places their behaviour falls short of the actual law. That translates to the taxpayer paying for it, when odds are the taxpayer is also affected by it. So cop remains unbothered and taxes are used to compensate taxpayers for cop errors.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Well cop gets berated by his boss for his behaviour being so expensive, and eventually fired... Same as if you repeatedly break stuff at work... At some point your boss decides enough is enough and fires you.
  - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    It isn't the same, though. In general, if I break the law at work, I'm probably gonna lose my job. If I break stuff on purpose I'm gonna get fired. If I "break" stuff that just breaks as part of my job (or was in ill repair), I don't expect to get fired and if I do, I have a claim. About the only "eventually fired" that I can think of is by operating something in a way that it breaks despite being trained (repeatedly) in the correct manner.
- cormacrelf 4y ago
  Ignorance of the law is no excuse in criminal law. The logic is that we want people to think about whether things are illegal, and we don’t want a loophole where you just have never watch the news and you can never be found guilty of a crime. The same applies to police. They need an incentive to know the law, not an incentive to ignore it. This isn’t what qualified immunity is about at all, but you know, that’s why.