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Supreme Court asked to strike down immunity for police who brutally beat student

268 points by stefan_ 4y ago

quercusa 4y ago
As it currently stands, qualified immunity means that officers are immune from lawsuits unless their behavior (e.g., beating the hell out of a guy to whom you never identified yourself) has previously been found to be unworthy of immunity.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  That's a recursive definition, it precludes expansion of not-immune behavior. Any behavior you think should be unworthy of immunity by definition has not yet been demonstrated as being unworthy of immunity? And therefore is worthy of immunity?
  - firstlink 4y ago
    Congratulations, you now understand how qualified immunity works in the US!
  - gwd 4y ago
    I think the idea is similar to the "ex post facto" provision of the constitution. In "ex post facto", you can't be convicted for something if, when you did it, it was legal. The idea here is that police can't be sued for something if, when they did it, there was no court ruling explicitly saying "that's a violation of constitutional rights". So a court could say, "Yes, this court is now declaring what those officers did to be unconstitutional. But there was no clear court case at that time, so they can't be sued unless they do it again." Which leads to really bizzare outcomes, like this instance -- or an instance where police just outright stole stuff from a guy [1]. A court had never ruled that stealing from citizens was unconstitutional, so he couldn't sue them for it. [1] https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-court-jessop-theft-kelsay-police-brutality/ https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-cou...
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      there's a really big difference between ex post facto and specific existing case-law.
    - bradleyjg 4y ago
      Note that qualified immunity is entirely a matter of statutory interpretation and not at all constitutional law. Congress can change any part of the doctrine or get rid of it altogether at any time.
      - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        And yet somehow this statutory interpretation trumps Constitutional prohibitions. What does "supreme law of the land" even mean if the Supreme Court can privilege a statute over redress for the violation of Constitutional rights?
        bradleyjg 4y ago
        The Supreme Court rarely implies a cause of action for money damages. The inherent constitutional remedies are things like the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine that forbids things found in an illegal search to be introduced at a criminal trial. Because Congress created the cause of action, it can control its contours (whether QI is a reasonable interpretation of the statute is a different question.)
        anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        This is a good point. I understand what you're saying. But it makes various rights toothless in all ways, since there's effectively no way to enforce them. For instance, how do you post facto enforce the third amendment without a tort claim? > Because Congress created the cause of action I've seen this rationale stated before, but in common law, and natural law before that ("natural" as in how it functions, not the political philosophy), didn't some of these causes of action pre-exist Congress, and thus should be grandfathered in as ninth amendment rights?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  No, it's worse than that. QI means officers are immune from lawsuits unless their behavior has been previously found to be unworthy of immunity and they were aware or should have been aware of this fact. This is, by design, an impossible standard to meet, so in practice QI is unlimited and absolute.
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    So we should expect zero lawsuits against police officers to have been won at trial or settled last year, right?
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      ~ zero. Tangent: are settlements not typically paid by the city or the union? (And the union will get the money from the city in the end, anyway.)
      - bradleyjg 4y ago
        Always the city. There’s universal indemnification de facto or de jure. This is a bigger issue than QI but gets virtually no attention. I suspect the plaintiff’s bar is behind that as they’d prefer QI go but indemnification stay.
        adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        if you fix QI, cities would fix indemnification themselves pretty quickly. The problem with QI is that since the suits never even get started, the police and the cities get to ignore the problem.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      the actual figure is way lower than it should be. there are, however police officers dumb enough and violent enough to meet the ridiculously high bar that is required.
- mindslight 4y ago
  Qualified immunity is just part of the problem, and it is only relevant to civil suits. While it would be nice for the victim to get some sort of legal vindication and compensation, what we really need is for this gang of violent criminals to go to prison for a long time. The larger problem is that sovereign immunity is being extended to people who happen to work for the government, rather than only applying to the government itself. This convention needs to be completely eliminated.
badrequest 4y ago
It's honestly mind boggling that we grant such tremendous grace to abuses of power from folks who don't consistently experience any form of accredited training, and who much of the time have been on the job an amount of time that would make them an apprentice in any other profession.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - badrequest 4y ago
    FWIW I agree, I just think the only even semi-reasonable argument for granting them such authority would rooted in the supposition that they're at least well-trained, but they don't even have that.
  - femiagbabiaka 4y ago
    That's right, or almost right. The training is actually the problem, that's where the indoctrination starts. All you need to do is hear the rhetoric of the Thin Blue Line folks like David Grossman (who is very popular) to know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VxvixMQPbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VxvixMQPbE. They're being trained on "killing", on "combat", on escalation and self-protection, not enforcement of the law.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      Yes agreed with all of this.
    - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
      Half an hour into it. This guy is a fucking weirdo and authoritarian.
  - commandlinefan 4y ago
    > Their job is to beat the shit out of and terrorize certain people I know that this isn't actually true, but I fear that having it repeated so often by people with agendas to push will end up making it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
blindriver 4y ago
Police who brutally beat an innocent person like this aren't just not doing their job, they are doing the exact opposite of their job. Even if they brutally beat a criminal, they are going far beyond incompetence. What these cops did wasn't just incompetence or a mistake, it was corruption and pure evil. Why the FUCK are we protecting these criminals? Why do we want this as a society? Giving the police qualified immunity in situations like this is unlicensed freedom for them to not only be incompetent, but be corrupt and destroy the foundations of what our society is supposed to be about. Are we really okay with allowing fucking cops to ruthlessly beat people for no reason and think that's just part of their job?
- ep103 4y ago
  We shouldn't be, but the majority of this Supreme Court does in fact want this, yes. They have been systematically expanding qualified immunity over the last few years
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    Maybe it's the tone of this comment that is rubbing people the wrong way but its basic content is correct. Since the major court rulings of the mid-century which created our modern concept of protection for the accused, there has been a slow and consistent chipping away at those rulings. Various forms of immunity being expanded little by little in case after case is a big part of that.
    - ep103 4y ago
      You are correct, and this Supreme Court in particular has made large changes to the concept, furthering the degree to which qualified immunity can be applied, and have done so in a time when there is a large, popular pushback to the concept. :)
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  They are doing their job, this is their job. The mistake here was who they did it to not what they did. > Why do we want this as a society? This is a very very good question to spend some time with. Understand just how routine this sort of activity is for police, understand that it is not a mistake or anomaly. Why do we want this? It's an interesting question.
jimbob45 4y ago
>police I feel like the lede was a bit buried with this one because one of them was an FBI agent.
- syzarian 4y ago
  In common parlance “police” and “member of a law enforcement agency with powers of arrest” mean the same thing
- steele 4y ago
  Law enforcement. FBI are cops and the distinction is increasingly becoming political. Yes, one of them may not have a punisher decal on their compensationmobile.
whitemary 4y ago
I don't think the US has nearly enough court capacity to hear the sheer amount of cases this decision would give precedent to.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  sounds like we need to dramatically increase court capacity then.
- springogeek 4y ago
  That's actually why Qualified Immunity was originally introduced: To prevent courts filling up with potentially spurious cases raised by defendants of other cases or participants of interactions with police. It was originally conceived to have a much less heavy-handed scope though, but has been strengthened over time to something near-impossible to thwart.
- AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
  Then maybe the police should stop brutally beating unarmed suspects?
  - whitemary 4y ago
    That would be the better solution imo, but we got Qualified Immunity instead.
- Clubber 4y ago
  The main problem is the machine protects itself. Prosecutors won't prosecute because they work hand in hand with the police. The police feed prosecutors cases, the prosecutors prosecute and look good. When the prosecutors refuse to bring charges against police, the only remedy is civil court, which QI forbids in most cases. There are exceptions, but there should be more. Having said that, nothing prevents you from suing the police department, city or government. It's just that the people who commit these acts have no repercussions because the prosecutors don't bring charges and their superiors support that type of activity. I can't overstate how dangerous and what a powder keg this is right now. If we ever had a hot civil war, I suspect it would be citizens vs police, not liberal vs conservative.
syzarian 4y ago
This is an example of where conflicting policy goals of a political movement clash. Conservatives in the U.S. decry big government and have a general distaste for unrestricted government. Their justices on the Supreme Court seem to be in favor of unrestricted government when it comes to the anything in the military/intelligence/police sphere. They oddly hold the view that the EPA can’t regulate emissions that weren’t specifically legislated but police can purposefully violate our civil rights with what is in effect impunity. It’s sort of like how they didn’t like pro abortion demonstrations at their homes but saw no problem with legalizing that harassment at abortion doctors’ homes. You don’t have civil rights if the police can beat you with impunity when you dare to exercise them. This idiocy is effectively tyrannical. One police officer I know said that his chief of police would do what he calls “releasing the dogs”. When that happened they could beat people without fear of negative consequences at work.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  There is a reason for this. I remember initially watching BLM protest with a sense not dissimilar to watching to OWS protests, but as they were becoming a little more fiery if your permit this little joke, my disposition started to change rather drastically. I am sympathetic, but there are limits and, to be perfectly honest, if you look at historical records, police is nowhere near as aggressive as they have once been ( for a good reason, as a society we see some things as not acceptable now ). I dislike police having too much power ( but I dislike any group having too much power ). I want balance. It does mean some consequences, but it also does mean cops have the power to do what needs to be done when it is necessary ( one's definition of 'necessary' will differ.. and here likely we will disagree ). edit: changed need to do
  - syzarian 4y ago
    Quashing a riot and beating a detained suspect are drastically different exertions of police violence. Police should not mete out extra judicial punishment with impunity.
- LanceH 4y ago
  You need to take a look at who is in charge of the cities and states where these incidents happen most, and realize this is more than republicans.
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
[flagged]
- ryan93 4y ago
  That actually perfectly describes the behavior of lower class predators(of all races!) who destroy their communities with violence and drugs
  - steele 4y ago
    Yes, yes, we are all talking about the police
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > Conservatism It isn't even difficult to find prominent liberals who want to (and are increasingly succeeding in) do this, too.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
    Liberalism in most places other than the US is considered centrist or conservative.
euroderf 4y ago
I would expect this kind of police behavior from... oh I dunno... Russia?
- ModernMech 4y ago
  Why? You should absolutely expect this behavior from America. Russia has a smaller prison population than America and spends much less than America on policing and prisons. America has more prisoners than than any other country in the world, and they aren't all there for good reasons. A lot of people are actually as a consequence of scenarios similar to this story, where police overextend their authority, intentionally create a "resisting arrest" or "obstructing official police business" scenario, and then trump up an arrest charge. I mean, the biggest story about Russian prisons recently was that they had falsely imprisoned an American celebrity athlete over a trumped up marijuana charge. She is now free after a prisoner swap. And yet, there are tens of thousands of Americans in prison today for similarly trumped up marijuana offenses. You should absolutely expect this behavior in America, and if you don't it's time for a wakeup call. Edit: I just checked and the most recent stats are better for America, we are now tied for top prison population with China, and we are now the 6th highest in rate. We no longer have a rate worse than such bastions of freedom as El Salvador, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan. Unfortunately we are still behind the rest of the first, second, and third worlds. Progress, but still more people in American prisons/jails than most countries.
  - euroderf 4y ago
    If you're looking for disagreement... you're not getting it from me :)
nobodyandproud 4y ago
I hope the Supreme Court treats this differently While I want strong law enforcement, logically when law enforcement isn’t required to identify themselves when using force then citizens are inclined to defend themselves including use of deadly force. This would be counter to law enforcement’s self interests, at least in the Ivory Tower perspective. Obviously I am not a lawyer, so none of this matters.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  Yeah. The Michigan stand your ground law allows bystanders to use deadly force to protect the life of another. It's crazy that neither of the two even yelled "police" or "FBI". https://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(hvjaycoaabfuusgipd1rveks))/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=mcl-780-972 https://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(hvjaycoaabfuusgipd1rveks))... > (a) The individual honestly and reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death of or imminent great bodily harm to himself or herself or to another individual.
- rationalist 4y ago
  In Texas, the law specifically states that you can use force to protect yourself if a peace officer uses unlawful force. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm. Sec. 9.31.c Sec. 9.32 and 9.33 goes on to say, that you can use lethal force against a peace officer in protection of yourself or of a third person whom the peace officer is using unlawful force against. I wonder how many peace officers actually know about that law though. And regardless if it was legal to use force against the peace officer, there's a saying: "you may beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride" (in the back of a police car, or if it was against a police officer, probably in the back of a coroner's vehicle).
rqtwteye 4y ago
If the case really went down as described in the article, this country is really f...ed up if the cops get away with this.
- FpUser 4y ago
  >"this country is really f...ed up" It is. You can console yourself with the thought that many countries are fucked up even more
avgDev 4y ago
There needs to be a police reform. Before I became a programmer, I wanted to be a cop, studied criminal justice....as I was going to school I had some cops in class. I befriended many cops and started meeting outside of school with them. That has resulted in me switching to computer science. I saw cops drinking, telling me to have a drink and not worry....telling me to just call them if I get pulled over. This really didn't sit right with me, and bothers me even today. Then, I heard a story from one cop being out with cop buddies and driving wasted, smashing into car and running away. I also ran into extremely racist narcs in Chicago. Who would loudly say the N word around African-Americans. This was like 10+ years ago. I actually have a cop close to me now, he is a sergeant. He recently told me all his new recruits cannot write, and his job is to rewrite their reports. They have a hard time hiring people now, and this is in one of the most affluent areas in the US. It seems that younger generation have a very negative view of the police, and rightfully so. There really needs to be an overhaul, however, I really don't know how can you fix something so rotten.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  Start by not hiring anyone with a history in law enforcement.
  - throwanma 4y ago
    That will only make it worse, what decent person would go into a job that blacklists you from other jobs?
    - teaearlgraycold 4y ago
      Not sure why that matters. If you're a town and you don't want terrible law enforcement then you could fire all of the cops, hire new ones that are actually just social workers, lawyers, etc. and go from there. Other towns would be hiring people that you never would but that doesn't affect your local area.
giantg2 4y ago
"The officers never identified themselves as law enforcement to James, and bystanders who witnessed the beating were equally in the dark, calling 911 to report what they believed to be an attempted murder in broad daylight." Sounds like the officers got lucky. Plain clothes, not identifying themselves, onlookers thinking it's attempted murder... in some parts of the country that will get you shot.
- soco 4y ago
  Maybe it also depends on the skin of the attackers. But even without it, I'm still baffled (as many other commenters here) by the holy statute of the police in the States. They're no lambs in other places either, for sure, and they will also fight tooth and nail against any accusations of wrongdoing, but there's still a huge difference...
- ssalka 4y ago
  Most of the time, when officers do this, they get paid vacation.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  This reminds me of when people were being rounded up and shoved into white panel vans by people who refused to identify themselves during the portland protests. If an officer refuses to identify themselves, it's not a lawful arrest, it's a kidnapping. I argued at the time that someone would be entirely within their rights to defend themselves in this circumstance. No doubt the DA would press charges but do you really think a jury would convict?
  - notch898a 4y ago
    The people doing that were CBP deployed in Portland under statutory authorization passed in the wake of 9/11. CBP are a federal police force who aren't required to follow the constitution within 100 miles of the border (so no need to follow constitution in portland) and any case would go to federal courts where 99% of cases end up in plea deal.
  - giantg2 4y ago
rayiner 4y ago
This write-up is pretty confusing, because it doesn't address the actual legal issue or what happened in the court system earlier. That's covered in the actual petition: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cert-Petition_FINAL.pdf https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cert-Petition_FINA..., and the decision the first time this case was before the Supreme Court: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-546_7mip.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-546_7mip.pdf The Question Presented is: > This case returns after remand from Brownback v. King, 141 S. Ct. 740 (2021), where this Court flagged for future review the question presented: > Whether the Federal Tort Claims Act’s judgment bar, 28 U.S.C. 2676, which this Court has repeatedly said functions in much the same way as the common- law doctrine of res judicata, nevertheless operates to bar claims brought together in the same action. The actual question before the Supreme Court is an odd procedural issue. King sued the police officers, raising FTCA and Bivens claims for constitutional violations. The district court dismissed both claims. King appealed only the Bivens claims to the Sixth Circuit, which found that the officers did not have immunity under federal law and allowed that claim to proceed. Back in the district court, however, the government invoked Section 2676, a provision of the FTCA that bars subsequent litigation involving the same facts after a decision on the FTCA claim. The government argued that the unappealed dismissal of the FTCA claim barred the Bivens claims from proceeding. The first time around, the Supreme Court held that the FTCA's judgment bar could be triggered by a dismissal (for weird reasons specific to the FTCA), but left the question open as to whether the bar could apply to another claim in the same action. (In this case, whether dismissal of the FTCA claim could bar the Bivens claim.) The Sixth Circuit decided that the section 2676 bar could apply to other claims brought in the same action. So now King is seeking to have the Supreme Court decide that question.
janalsncm 4y ago
I’ve had a dark and terrifying thought recently. John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who lived outside of Chicago appeared to be an upstanding citizen, and preyed upon the most vulnerable boys and young men in society. And I started to think about how vulnerable many of the high-profile victims of police were. The conclusion that I just can’t shake is that by far the obvious career choice for a legitimately pathological serial killer would be the police. It’s a position with authority, and that is largely respected. Not only would such a person likely not be arrested, but they would be vigorously defended.
- pjc50 4y ago
  The so-called "Golden State Killer" was a cop, which excluded him from investigations for decades.
- devsda 4y ago
  *spoiler alert*: The television show Mentalist explores this idea of serial killer law enforcement officer. But, the crimes are committed with support from a network of accomplices (some coerced).
JackFr 4y ago
This article is weirdly written. Unlike most news article they refer to the plaintiff throughout as 'James', his given name rather than 'King' his surname. The author also capitalizes 'High Court' when referring to the Supreme Court, which is not correct and had me checking to make sure this was in the US. All that aside, this is a grave miscarriage of justice. I would advise anyone interested to read the 6th Court of Appeals decision https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0219p-06.pdf https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0219p-06.pd..., especially the dissent: "The majority’s holding is a profound and frightening miscarriage of justice. That federal officers who refuse to identify themselves can spontaneously, and unprovoked, beat an individual nearly to death and be entirely free from civil liability simply because the individual chooses not to waste judicial resources on a frivolous appeal is not compatible with notions of an ordered and civilized society. Because the majority follows outdated law and dismisses King’s claims, I strongly dissent."
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
I was always confused by the contradiction that you are have legal rights, but if those rights are violated by the government, they are have legal immunity. You don't actually have those rights if they can be violated without consequence.
whb07 4y ago
Sovereign immunity needs to be rid off entirely. This all stems from the idea that God anointed the king, therefore he can do no wrong. Except we know that humans are corrupt, malevolent, etc. All individuals/offices in government should be liable for their actions.

268 points by stefan_ 4y ago

As it currently stands, qualified immunity means that officers are immune from lawsuits unless their behavior (e.g., beating the hell out of a guy to whom you never identified yourself) has previously been found to be unworthy of immunity.

jvanderbot 4y ago
That's a recursive definition, it precludes expansion of not-immune behavior. Any behavior you think should be unworthy of immunity by definition has not yet been demonstrated as being unworthy of immunity? And therefore is worthy of immunity?
- firstlink 4y ago
  Congratulations, you now understand how qualified immunity works in the US!
- gwd 4y ago
  I think the idea is similar to the "ex post facto" provision of the constitution. In "ex post facto", you can't be convicted for something if, when you did it, it was legal. The idea here is that police can't be sued for something if, when they did it, there was no court ruling explicitly saying "that's a violation of constitutional rights". So a court could say, "Yes, this court is now declaring what those officers did to be unconstitutional. But there was no clear court case at that time, so they can't be sued unless they do it again." Which leads to really bizzare outcomes, like this instance -- or an instance where police just outright stole stuff from a guy [1]. A court had never ruled that stealing from citizens was unconstitutional, so he couldn't sue them for it. [1] https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-court-jessop-theft-kelsay-police-brutality/ https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-cou...
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    there's a really big difference between ex post facto and specific existing case-law.
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    Note that qualified immunity is entirely a matter of statutory interpretation and not at all constitutional law. Congress can change any part of the doctrine or get rid of it altogether at any time.
    - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
      And yet somehow this statutory interpretation trumps Constitutional prohibitions. What does "supreme law of the land" even mean if the Supreme Court can privilege a statute over redress for the violation of Constitutional rights?
      - bradleyjg 4y ago
        The Supreme Court rarely implies a cause of action for money damages. The inherent constitutional remedies are things like the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine that forbids things found in an illegal search to be introduced at a criminal trial. Because Congress created the cause of action, it can control its contours (whether QI is a reasonable interpretation of the statute is a different question.)
        anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        This is a good point. I understand what you're saying. But it makes various rights toothless in all ways, since there's effectively no way to enforce them. For instance, how do you post facto enforce the third amendment without a tort claim? > Because Congress created the cause of action I've seen this rationale stated before, but in common law, and natural law before that ("natural" as in how it functions, not the political philosophy), didn't some of these causes of action pre-exist Congress, and thus should be grandfathered in as ninth amendment rights?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Analemma_ 4y ago
No, it's worse than that. QI means officers are immune from lawsuits unless their behavior has been previously found to be unworthy of immunity and they were aware or should have been aware of this fact. This is, by design, an impossible standard to meet, so in practice QI is unlimited and absolute.
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  So we should expect zero lawsuits against police officers to have been won at trial or settled last year, right?
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    ~ zero. Tangent: are settlements not typically paid by the city or the union? (And the union will get the money from the city in the end, anyway.)
    - bradleyjg 4y ago
      Always the city. There’s universal indemnification de facto or de jure. This is a bigger issue than QI but gets virtually no attention. I suspect the plaintiff’s bar is behind that as they’d prefer QI go but indemnification stay.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        if you fix QI, cities would fix indemnification themselves pretty quickly. The problem with QI is that since the suits never even get started, the police and the cities get to ignore the problem.
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    the actual figure is way lower than it should be. there are, however police officers dumb enough and violent enough to meet the ridiculously high bar that is required.
mindslight 4y ago
Qualified immunity is just part of the problem, and it is only relevant to civil suits. While it would be nice for the victim to get some sort of legal vindication and compensation, what we really need is for this gang of violent criminals to go to prison for a long time. The larger problem is that sovereign immunity is being extended to people who happen to work for the government, rather than only applying to the government itself. This convention needs to be completely eliminated.

badrequest 4y ago

It's honestly mind boggling that we grant such tremendous grace to abuses of power from folks who don't consistently experience any form of accredited training, and who much of the time have been on the job an amount of time that would make them an apprentice in any other profession.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
[flagged]
- badrequest 4y ago
  FWIW I agree, I just think the only even semi-reasonable argument for granting them such authority would rooted in the supposition that they're at least well-trained, but they don't even have that.
- femiagbabiaka 4y ago
  That's right, or almost right. The training is actually the problem, that's where the indoctrination starts. All you need to do is hear the rhetoric of the Thin Blue Line folks like David Grossman (who is very popular) to know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VxvixMQPbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VxvixMQPbE. They're being trained on "killing", on "combat", on escalation and self-protection, not enforcement of the law.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Yes agreed with all of this.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    Half an hour into it. This guy is a fucking weirdo and authoritarian.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > Their job is to beat the shit out of and terrorize certain people I know that this isn't actually true, but I fear that having it repeated so often by people with agendas to push will end up making it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

blindriver 4y ago

Police who brutally beat an innocent person like this aren't just not doing their job, they are doing the exact opposite of their job. Even if they brutally beat a criminal, they are going far beyond incompetence. What these cops did wasn't just incompetence or a mistake, it was corruption and pure evil. Why the FUCK are we protecting these criminals? Why do we want this as a society? Giving the police qualified immunity in situations like this is unlicensed freedom for them to not only be incompetent, but be corrupt and destroy the foundations of what our society is supposed to be about. Are we really okay with allowing fucking cops to ruthlessly beat people for no reason and think that's just part of their job?

ep103 4y ago
We shouldn't be, but the majority of this Supreme Court does in fact want this, yes. They have been systematically expanding qualified immunity over the last few years
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  Maybe it's the tone of this comment that is rubbing people the wrong way but its basic content is correct. Since the major court rulings of the mid-century which created our modern concept of protection for the accused, there has been a slow and consistent chipping away at those rulings. Various forms of immunity being expanded little by little in case after case is a big part of that.
  - ep103 4y ago
    You are correct, and this Supreme Court in particular has made large changes to the concept, furthering the degree to which qualified immunity can be applied, and have done so in a time when there is a large, popular pushback to the concept. :)
giraffe_lady 4y ago
They are doing their job, this is their job. The mistake here was who they did it to not what they did. > Why do we want this as a society? This is a very very good question to spend some time with. Understand just how routine this sort of activity is for police, understand that it is not a mistake or anomaly. Why do we want this? It's an interesting question.

jimbob45 4y ago

>police I feel like the lede was a bit buried with this one because one of them was an FBI agent.

syzarian 4y ago
In common parlance “police” and “member of a law enforcement agency with powers of arrest” mean the same thing
steele 4y ago
Law enforcement. FBI are cops and the distinction is increasingly becoming political. Yes, one of them may not have a punisher decal on their compensationmobile.

whitemary 4y ago

I don't think the US has nearly enough court capacity to hear the sheer amount of cases this decision would give precedent to.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
sounds like we need to dramatically increase court capacity then.
springogeek 4y ago
That's actually why Qualified Immunity was originally introduced: To prevent courts filling up with potentially spurious cases raised by defendants of other cases or participants of interactions with police. It was originally conceived to have a much less heavy-handed scope though, but has been strengthened over time to something near-impossible to thwart.
AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
Then maybe the police should stop brutally beating unarmed suspects?
- whitemary 4y ago
  That would be the better solution imo, but we got Qualified Immunity instead.
Clubber 4y ago
The main problem is the machine protects itself. Prosecutors won't prosecute because they work hand in hand with the police. The police feed prosecutors cases, the prosecutors prosecute and look good. When the prosecutors refuse to bring charges against police, the only remedy is civil court, which QI forbids in most cases. There are exceptions, but there should be more. Having said that, nothing prevents you from suing the police department, city or government. It's just that the people who commit these acts have no repercussions because the prosecutors don't bring charges and their superiors support that type of activity. I can't overstate how dangerous and what a powder keg this is right now. If we ever had a hot civil war, I suspect it would be citizens vs police, not liberal vs conservative.

syzarian 4y ago

This is an example of where conflicting policy goals of a political movement clash. Conservatives in the U.S. decry big government and have a general distaste for unrestricted government. Their justices on the Supreme Court seem to be in favor of unrestricted government when it comes to the anything in the military/intelligence/police sphere. They oddly hold the view that the EPA can’t regulate emissions that weren’t specifically legislated but police can purposefully violate our civil rights with what is in effect impunity. It’s sort of like how they didn’t like pro abortion demonstrations at their homes but saw no problem with legalizing that harassment at abortion doctors’ homes. You don’t have civil rights if the police can beat you with impunity when you dare to exercise them. This idiocy is effectively tyrannical. One police officer I know said that his chief of police would do what he calls “releasing the dogs”. When that happened they could beat people without fear of negative consequences at work.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
There is a reason for this. I remember initially watching BLM protest with a sense not dissimilar to watching to OWS protests, but as they were becoming a little more fiery if your permit this little joke, my disposition started to change rather drastically. I am sympathetic, but there are limits and, to be perfectly honest, if you look at historical records, police is nowhere near as aggressive as they have once been ( for a good reason, as a society we see some things as not acceptable now ). I dislike police having too much power ( but I dislike any group having too much power ). I want balance. It does mean some consequences, but it also does mean cops have the power to do what needs to be done when it is necessary ( one's definition of 'necessary' will differ.. and here likely we will disagree ). edit: changed need to do
- syzarian 4y ago
  Quashing a riot and beating a detained suspect are drastically different exertions of police violence. Police should not mete out extra judicial punishment with impunity.
LanceH 4y ago
You need to take a look at who is in charge of the cities and states where these incidents happen most, and realize this is more than republicans.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

[flagged]

ryan93 4y ago
That actually perfectly describes the behavior of lower class predators(of all races!) who destroy their communities with violence and drugs
- steele 4y ago
  Yes, yes, we are all talking about the police
commandlinefan 4y ago
> Conservatism It isn't even difficult to find prominent liberals who want to (and are increasingly succeeding in) do this, too.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
  Liberalism in most places other than the US is considered centrist or conservative.

euroderf 4y ago

I would expect this kind of police behavior from... oh I dunno... Russia?

ModernMech 4y ago
Why? You should absolutely expect this behavior from America. Russia has a smaller prison population than America and spends much less than America on policing and prisons. America has more prisoners than than any other country in the world, and they aren't all there for good reasons. A lot of people are actually as a consequence of scenarios similar to this story, where police overextend their authority, intentionally create a "resisting arrest" or "obstructing official police business" scenario, and then trump up an arrest charge. I mean, the biggest story about Russian prisons recently was that they had falsely imprisoned an American celebrity athlete over a trumped up marijuana charge. She is now free after a prisoner swap. And yet, there are tens of thousands of Americans in prison today for similarly trumped up marijuana offenses. You should absolutely expect this behavior in America, and if you don't it's time for a wakeup call. Edit: I just checked and the most recent stats are better for America, we are now tied for top prison population with China, and we are now the 6th highest in rate. We no longer have a rate worse than such bastions of freedom as El Salvador, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan. Unfortunately we are still behind the rest of the first, second, and third worlds. Progress, but still more people in American prisons/jails than most countries.
- euroderf 4y ago
  If you're looking for disagreement... you're not getting it from me :)

nobodyandproud 4y ago

I hope the Supreme Court treats this differently While I want strong law enforcement, logically when law enforcement isn’t required to identify themselves when using force then citizens are inclined to defend themselves including use of deadly force. This would be counter to law enforcement’s self interests, at least in the Ivory Tower perspective. Obviously I am not a lawyer, so none of this matters.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
Yeah. The Michigan stand your ground law allows bystanders to use deadly force to protect the life of another. It's crazy that neither of the two even yelled "police" or "FBI". https://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(hvjaycoaabfuusgipd1rveks))/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=mcl-780-972 https://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(hvjaycoaabfuusgipd1rveks))... > (a) The individual honestly and reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death of or imminent great bodily harm to himself or herself or to another individual.
rationalist 4y ago
In Texas, the law specifically states that you can use force to protect yourself if a peace officer uses unlawful force. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm. Sec. 9.31.c Sec. 9.32 and 9.33 goes on to say, that you can use lethal force against a peace officer in protection of yourself or of a third person whom the peace officer is using unlawful force against. I wonder how many peace officers actually know about that law though. And regardless if it was legal to use force against the peace officer, there's a saying: "you may beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride" (in the back of a police car, or if it was against a police officer, probably in the back of a coroner's vehicle).

rqtwteye 4y ago

If the case really went down as described in the article, this country is really f...ed up if the cops get away with this.

FpUser 4y ago
>"this country is really f...ed up" It is. You can console yourself with the thought that many countries are fucked up even more

avgDev 4y ago

There needs to be a police reform. Before I became a programmer, I wanted to be a cop, studied criminal justice....as I was going to school I had some cops in class. I befriended many cops and started meeting outside of school with them. That has resulted in me switching to computer science. I saw cops drinking, telling me to have a drink and not worry....telling me to just call them if I get pulled over. This really didn't sit right with me, and bothers me even today. Then, I heard a story from one cop being out with cop buddies and driving wasted, smashing into car and running away. I also ran into extremely racist narcs in Chicago. Who would loudly say the N word around African-Americans. This was like 10+ years ago. I actually have a cop close to me now, he is a sergeant. He recently told me all his new recruits cannot write, and his job is to rewrite their reports. They have a hard time hiring people now, and this is in one of the most affluent areas in the US. It seems that younger generation have a very negative view of the police, and rightfully so. There really needs to be an overhaul, however, I really don't know how can you fix something so rotten.

deleted 4y ago
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teaearlgraycold 4y ago
Start by not hiring anyone with a history in law enforcement.
- throwanma 4y ago
  That will only make it worse, what decent person would go into a job that blacklists you from other jobs?
  - teaearlgraycold 4y ago
    Not sure why that matters. If you're a town and you don't want terrible law enforcement then you could fire all of the cops, hire new ones that are actually just social workers, lawyers, etc. and go from there. Other towns would be hiring people that you never would but that doesn't affect your local area.

giantg2 4y ago

"The officers never identified themselves as law enforcement to James, and bystanders who witnessed the beating were equally in the dark, calling 911 to report what they believed to be an attempted murder in broad daylight." Sounds like the officers got lucky. Plain clothes, not identifying themselves, onlookers thinking it's attempted murder... in some parts of the country that will get you shot.

soco 4y ago
Maybe it also depends on the skin of the attackers. But even without it, I'm still baffled (as many other commenters here) by the holy statute of the police in the States. They're no lambs in other places either, for sure, and they will also fight tooth and nail against any accusations of wrongdoing, but there's still a huge difference...
ssalka 4y ago
Most of the time, when officers do this, they get paid vacation.
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
This reminds me of when people were being rounded up and shoved into white panel vans by people who refused to identify themselves during the portland protests. If an officer refuses to identify themselves, it's not a lawful arrest, it's a kidnapping. I argued at the time that someone would be entirely within their rights to defend themselves in this circumstance. No doubt the DA would press charges but do you really think a jury would convict?
- notch898a 4y ago
  The people doing that were CBP deployed in Portland under statutory authorization passed in the wake of 9/11. CBP are a federal police force who aren't required to follow the constitution within 100 miles of the border (so no need to follow constitution in portland) and any case would go to federal courts where 99% of cases end up in plea deal.
- giantg2 4y ago

rayiner 4y ago

This write-up is pretty confusing, because it doesn't address the actual legal issue or what happened in the court system earlier. That's covered in the actual petition: https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cert-Petition_FINAL.pdf https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cert-Petition_FINA..., and the decision the first time this case was before the Supreme Court: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-546_7mip.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-546_7mip.pdf The Question Presented is: > This case returns after remand from Brownback v. King, 141 S. Ct. 740 (2021), where this Court flagged for future review the question presented: > Whether the Federal Tort Claims Act’s judgment bar, 28 U.S.C. 2676, which this Court has repeatedly said functions in much the same way as the common- law doctrine of res judicata, nevertheless operates to bar claims brought together in the same action. The actual question before the Supreme Court is an odd procedural issue. King sued the police officers, raising FTCA and Bivens claims for constitutional violations. The district court dismissed both claims. King appealed only the Bivens claims to the Sixth Circuit, which found that the officers did not have immunity under federal law and allowed that claim to proceed. Back in the district court, however, the government invoked Section 2676, a provision of the FTCA that bars subsequent litigation involving the same facts after a decision on the FTCA claim. The government argued that the unappealed dismissal of the FTCA claim barred the Bivens claims from proceeding. The first time around, the Supreme Court held that the FTCA's judgment bar could be triggered by a dismissal (for weird reasons specific to the FTCA), but left the question open as to whether the bar could apply to another claim in the same action. (In this case, whether dismissal of the FTCA claim could bar the Bivens claim.) The Sixth Circuit decided that the section 2676 bar could apply to other claims brought in the same action. So now King is seeking to have the Supreme Court decide that question.

janalsncm 4y ago

I’ve had a dark and terrifying thought recently. John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who lived outside of Chicago appeared to be an upstanding citizen, and preyed upon the most vulnerable boys and young men in society. And I started to think about how vulnerable many of the high-profile victims of police were. The conclusion that I just can’t shake is that by far the obvious career choice for a legitimately pathological serial killer would be the police. It’s a position with authority, and that is largely respected. Not only would such a person likely not be arrested, but they would be vigorously defended.

pjc50 4y ago
The so-called "Golden State Killer" was a cop, which excluded him from investigations for decades.
devsda 4y ago
*spoiler alert*: The television show Mentalist explores this idea of serial killer law enforcement officer. But, the crimes are committed with support from a network of accomplices (some coerced).

JackFr 4y ago

This article is weirdly written. Unlike most news article they refer to the plaintiff throughout as 'James', his given name rather than 'King' his surname. The author also capitalizes 'High Court' when referring to the Supreme Court, which is not correct and had me checking to make sure this was in the US. All that aside, this is a grave miscarriage of justice. I would advise anyone interested to read the 6th Court of Appeals decision https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0219p-06.pdf https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0219p-06.pd..., especially the dissent: "The majority’s holding is a profound and frightening miscarriage of justice. That federal officers who refuse to identify themselves can spontaneously, and unprovoked, beat an individual nearly to death and be entirely free from civil liability simply because the individual chooses not to waste judicial resources on a frivolous appeal is not compatible with notions of an ordered and civilized society. Because the majority follows outdated law and dismisses King’s claims, I strongly dissent."

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

I was always confused by the contradiction that you are have legal rights, but if those rights are violated by the government, they are have legal immunity. You don't actually have those rights if they can be violated without consequence.

whb07 4y ago

Sovereign immunity needs to be rid off entirely. This all stems from the idea that God anointed the king, therefore he can do no wrong. Except we know that humans are corrupt, malevolent, etc. All individuals/offices in government should be liable for their actions.