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> 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
by 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 agoWell 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 agoIt 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 agoIgnorance 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.