7 ms·

Police in the US have no obligation to serve the public or prevent crime due to Warren vs DC.

by thrillgore 4y ago

IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
Can you elaborate? id like To understand what you mean.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Court found that if there’s a crime in progress, police aware of it don’t need to do anything about it. They aren’t crime stoppers. The court case was from when police were alerted to an ongoing break in and rape/battery against several women, the police arrived and left after the attackers told them it was ok (with the women tied up upstairs). One of the women had called the police, which then alerted the attackers that there was another woman in the house they hadn’t known about, who they then found and attacked as well. Court found the police had done nothing wrong by trusting the men and leaving without entering the home or doing anything else, after the woman’s 911 call. The ruling said that the police have no obligation to follow up on reported and active crimes, even if they’re already present at the scene - it’s simply not their purpose.
- krisoft 4y ago
  They are talking about "Warren v. District of Columbia" court case. To quote from wikipedia: "Warren v. District of Columbia[1] (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981) is a District of Columbia Court of Appeals case that held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine." It kinda means (very loosely): If you call the police to help you, but they don't show up, tough luck. You can't sue them over that.
- loeg 4y ago
  "Protect and serve" is a slogan not backed up by anything. Police can observe, e.g., a mass shooter, and take no action. They have no responsibility to take any action.
ch4s3 4y ago
This applies to constitutional law only. Any state or municipality can legislate more specific requirements for policing if they choose, because that’s how federalism works.
- chimeracoder 4y ago
  > This applies to constitutional law only. Any state or municipality can legislate more specific requirements for policing if they choose, because that’s how federalism works. When it comes to restricting police powers, they actually cannot. That was a key determination in Scalia's majority opinion in Castle Rock v. Gonzalez. People are always shocked by this, because it goes against how they understand the legal system to work. And they're right to be surprised, because it is a truly incomprehensible ruling when you pick it apart. But it's right there in the text of the ruling. And it has been treated as binding precedent and applied as such by lower courts in the years since.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    I don't think that's what Castle Rock v. Gonzalez means. It pretty narrowly addresses "legitimate claim of entitlement" related to enforcement of a restraining order. Scalia specifically held that "enforcement of the restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law," which means that a state COULD mandate enforcement, but that Colorado had not. That said, I still think it was a shitty way to slice due process law.
    - chimeracoder 4y ago
      > I don't think that's what Castle Rock v. Gonzalez means. It pretty narrowly addresses "legitimate claim of entitlement" related to enforcement of a restraining order. Scalia specifically held that "enforcement of the restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law," which means that a state COULD mandate enforcement, but that Colorado had not. That's actually not true! Read the ruling itself and you'll see. Or if you can't read the ruling, read the legal analysis of it. The ruling is incredibly broad and exhaustive. It basically said "Colorado didn't, but even if they had, they couldn't because that would be unconstitutional, and even if it weren't, the Due Process clause wouldn't apply, and even if it did, the value would be $0". It basically preempted five levels of rebuttals to the law, making it difficult or impossible to overturn it without directly abandoning stare decisis. Scalia'a argument for why the law was unconstitutional basically boils down to "police have always enjoyed near-unlimited freedom, and this law is too recent in the scale of US history, so it contradicts historical precedent". Which is another way of saying that states can't pass laws to restrict police discretion, because any law that is passed is by definition... "recent". The ruling did that because the Colorado law was quite explicit in how it mandated a right to enforcement, so there was no other way to overturn the law. And as if that's not enough, the precedent applied is quite clear: courts including in New York City have specifically used Castle Rock to rule that police do not have a duty to protect, serve, prevent crime, or intervene in a crime that is taking place, even if they were specifically dispatched to arrest that particular criminal for that particular crime. (Yes, that last part was an NYC court ruling that cited Castle Rock as precedent).
pwinnski 4y ago
This is a bad reading of the case. The ruling on appeal was that the police in that case had no special duty to that particular person, but still had a duty to the public at large. Specifically, "the duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists."[0] People like to extrapolate from that, saying that if no specific legal duty exists toward individual 1, and no specific legal duty exists toward individual 2, and so on, then ultimately, no specific legal duty exists toward any individuals at all, but again, the first part of that sentence restates that there is a duty to provide services to the public. I mean, look, the story of the crime itself is horrifying, but if the ruling had gone the other way, the concern was that cops would essentially be held to a standard of perfection, and any cop who ever didn't investigate any crime aggressively enough would be liable in court for their lack of aggressiveness. I think it's a bad ruling, but it doesn't say what people claim it does, and it also doesn't seem to apply particularly strongly outside of the District of Columbia. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
- teachrdan 4y ago
  > The ruling on appeal was that the police in that case had no special duty to that particular person, but still had a duty to the public at large. But "duty to the public at large" doesn't mean anything, right? Duty to an individual can be litigated when the police fail to perform it. There's no way to hold the police accountable to "the public at large." I agree that, taken to its extreme, it would be problematic to hold the police responsible to serving every single call perfectly. But we seem to be nowhere near that standard.
  - yowzadave 4y ago
    Could one use statistical means to show that the police are not providing adequate service to the public at large, and could therefore be prosecuted/held accountable?
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
chimeracoder 4y ago
> Police in the US have no obligation to serve the public or prevent crime due to Warren vs DC. Actually it's due to Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, but you have the right idea.

Police in the US have no obligation to serve the public or prevent crime due to Warren vs DC.

IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago

Can you elaborate? id like To understand what you mean.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
Court found that if there’s a crime in progress, police aware of it don’t need to do anything about it. They aren’t crime stoppers. The court case was from when police were alerted to an ongoing break in and rape/battery against several women, the police arrived and left after the attackers told them it was ok (with the women tied up upstairs). One of the women had called the police, which then alerted the attackers that there was another woman in the house they hadn’t known about, who they then found and attacked as well. Court found the police had done nothing wrong by trusting the men and leaving without entering the home or doing anything else, after the woman’s 911 call. The ruling said that the police have no obligation to follow up on reported and active crimes, even if they’re already present at the scene - it’s simply not their purpose.
krisoft 4y ago
They are talking about "Warren v. District of Columbia" court case. To quote from wikipedia: "Warren v. District of Columbia[1] (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981) is a District of Columbia Court of Appeals case that held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine." It kinda means (very loosely): If you call the police to help you, but they don't show up, tough luck. You can't sue them over that.
loeg 4y ago
"Protect and serve" is a slogan not backed up by anything. Police can observe, e.g., a mass shooter, and take no action. They have no responsibility to take any action.

ch4s3 4y ago

This applies to constitutional law only. Any state or municipality can legislate more specific requirements for policing if they choose, because that’s how federalism works.

chimeracoder 4y ago
> This applies to constitutional law only. Any state or municipality can legislate more specific requirements for policing if they choose, because that’s how federalism works. When it comes to restricting police powers, they actually cannot. That was a key determination in Scalia's majority opinion in Castle Rock v. Gonzalez. People are always shocked by this, because it goes against how they understand the legal system to work. And they're right to be surprised, because it is a truly incomprehensible ruling when you pick it apart. But it's right there in the text of the ruling. And it has been treated as binding precedent and applied as such by lower courts in the years since.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  I don't think that's what Castle Rock v. Gonzalez means. It pretty narrowly addresses "legitimate claim of entitlement" related to enforcement of a restraining order. Scalia specifically held that "enforcement of the restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law," which means that a state COULD mandate enforcement, but that Colorado had not. That said, I still think it was a shitty way to slice due process law.
  - chimeracoder 4y ago
    > I don't think that's what Castle Rock v. Gonzalez means. It pretty narrowly addresses "legitimate claim of entitlement" related to enforcement of a restraining order. Scalia specifically held that "enforcement of the restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law," which means that a state COULD mandate enforcement, but that Colorado had not. That's actually not true! Read the ruling itself and you'll see. Or if you can't read the ruling, read the legal analysis of it. The ruling is incredibly broad and exhaustive. It basically said "Colorado didn't, but even if they had, they couldn't because that would be unconstitutional, and even if it weren't, the Due Process clause wouldn't apply, and even if it did, the value would be $0". It basically preempted five levels of rebuttals to the law, making it difficult or impossible to overturn it without directly abandoning stare decisis. Scalia'a argument for why the law was unconstitutional basically boils down to "police have always enjoyed near-unlimited freedom, and this law is too recent in the scale of US history, so it contradicts historical precedent". Which is another way of saying that states can't pass laws to restrict police discretion, because any law that is passed is by definition... "recent". The ruling did that because the Colorado law was quite explicit in how it mandated a right to enforcement, so there was no other way to overturn the law. And as if that's not enough, the precedent applied is quite clear: courts including in New York City have specifically used Castle Rock to rule that police do not have a duty to protect, serve, prevent crime, or intervene in a crime that is taking place, even if they were specifically dispatched to arrest that particular criminal for that particular crime. (Yes, that last part was an NYC court ruling that cited Castle Rock as precedent).

pwinnski 4y ago

This is a bad reading of the case. The ruling on appeal was that the police in that case had no special duty to that particular person, but still had a duty to the public at large. Specifically, "the duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists."[0] People like to extrapolate from that, saying that if no specific legal duty exists toward individual 1, and no specific legal duty exists toward individual 2, and so on, then ultimately, no specific legal duty exists toward any individuals at all, but again, the first part of that sentence restates that there is a duty to provide services to the public. I mean, look, the story of the crime itself is horrifying, but if the ruling had gone the other way, the concern was that cops would essentially be held to a standard of perfection, and any cop who ever didn't investigate any crime aggressively enough would be liable in court for their lack of aggressiveness. I think it's a bad ruling, but it doesn't say what people claim it does, and it also doesn't seem to apply particularly strongly outside of the District of Columbia. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

teachrdan 4y ago
> The ruling on appeal was that the police in that case had no special duty to that particular person, but still had a duty to the public at large. But "duty to the public at large" doesn't mean anything, right? Duty to an individual can be litigated when the police fail to perform it. There's no way to hold the police accountable to "the public at large." I agree that, taken to its extreme, it would be problematic to hold the police responsible to serving every single call perfectly. But we seem to be nowhere near that standard.
- yowzadave 4y ago
  Could one use statistical means to show that the police are not providing adequate service to the public at large, and could therefore be prosecuted/held accountable?
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago

chimeracoder 4y ago

> Police in the US have no obligation to serve the public or prevent crime due to Warren vs DC. Actually it's due to Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, but you have the right idea.