10 ms·
Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
- laidoffamazon 6mo agoI’ll be honest this seems low for what he’s been through.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoI would voluntarily go to jail for 37 days for that amount. I think it's a shame this doesn't come with criminal charges, though. False imprisonment? Kidnapping?
- jfyi 6mo agoWould you do that if you were an ex-law enforcement officer who's racial profile puts you under the protection of criminals on the yard that largely support the person you heckled while not knowing that it was only going to be 37 days?
- wccrawford 6mo agoI wouldn't, but that does really put some perspective on it. His trouble isn't just from the time in jail, though. It's from all the Trump supporters who harass him as well. Previously, and in the future.
- lotsofpulp 6mo agoWould you live through the stress of a legal case with unknown legal costs and unknown incarceration time for that amount of money?
- ceejayoz 6mo agoNo. I'm just saying said amount seems fair from the monetary side of this case's specifics. (And let's face it, the outcome here was guaranteed, and the inevitable settlement was always gonna include attorney fees or be done pro-bono.)
- Filligree 6mo agoThe outcome wasn't guaranteed; that's the scary part. If Trump had decided to take a hand then it could have been drawn out for months at a minimum.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoAt some point, barring him getting beaten to death in jail, this was always going to get in front of a judge who'd go "uh what the fuck?!" It's about as slam-dunk of a situation as you could come up with.
- lotsofpulp 6mo agoI could say that about a litany of court cases in the previous decade, yet here we are, our president winning immunity for all tax evasion, in the past and future, for his whole family, and getting seditious white supremacists paid while doing it.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoIt is my fervent hope that said fund will, when it encounters a judge, collapse for similar reasons.
- whycome 6mo agoHe wasn’t jailed for 37 days. He was jailed indefinitely. Every day he didn’t know if things would get worse. He didn’t know how long he was staying. He was already in the absurd scenario for being jailed for a meme so anything was possible at that point. He happened to get out after 37 days.
- sowbug 6mo agoAnd in cases like this, the actual perpetrators typically don't pay a cent out of their own pockets. Instead, the city or county indemnifies the defendant, either directly or through insurance. Which means that taxpayers (possibly including the injured party) are the ones who pay.
- pear01 6mo agoIndeed. Qualified immunity is a stain on American jurisprudence. You can almost never hold anyone in government accountable. You are forced to sue your own community to get some shred of justice while the actual people who violated your rights face zero accountability. Tell lawmakers who want your vote this November that you want an end to qualified immunity. Agents of the state should not be less accountable to the laws of the land than regular individuals.
- chociej 6mo agoIMO this case is a good example of one that ought to void qualified immunity as it currently stands, though I know in practice it's more difficult. I think it's plain that a "clearly established" constitutional right was knowingly violated here.
- glouwbug 6mo agoIt’s about what your average senior engineer makes here at hackernews per month
- missedthecue 6mo agoI would say it seems unbelievably high! I've known people t-boned by Semi Trucks that ran a red light and they couldn't get 1/10th of that because you can only prove so many actual damages. A single month in the slammer caused this guy $835k in proven damages? You'd probably lose your job, go into arrears on rent/car/mortgage, but it's hard to believe that every day in prison was costing this guy $22k
- dfxm12 6mo agoThis was settled out of court. Nothing was proven. For the county to settle for this much, there must be some things going on behind closed doors that the people involved do not want to be made public.
- jimt1234 6mo agoNot an expert here, but after his lawyer's cut and taxes, my guess is he'll take home around $250K ???
- jubilanti 6mo agoThis was the meme he posted that got him jailed: https://www.fire.org/sites/default/files/styles/417xy/public/2026/05/Screenshot%20of%20Larry%20Bushart%20social%20media%20post%20with%20Donald%20Trump%20meme.png.webp?itok=x1Xsq8pg https://www.fire.org/sites/default/files/styles/417xy/public...
- laweijfmvo 6mo agoso the "meme" was a photo and a quote
- josefritzishere 6mo agoA judgement isn't enough. Those behind the warrant should be in prison, and fined personally. The tax payers of Tennessee shouldn't have to foot the bill for their malfeasance.
- adrr 6mo agoImagine if he said "we need a patriot to bail out the guy who killed charlie kirk" like Charlie kirk said about the guy who tried to murder Paul Pelosi and was at Nancy Pelosi's house to torture her.
- selectodude 6mo agoSometimes I feel like I live in an alternative reality because I very clearly remember thousands of people saying shit like that.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoAre you sure they weren’t ironically referencing the Pelosi case to make a point about the double standard?
- selectodude 6mo agoThey very well could be. If so, great. Poe’s law and all.
- strictnein 6mo agoImagine you added this context to that statement which was a broader statement about bail and not about how he supported the attacker? I don't agree with Kirk, but your "quote" of him is purposefully misleading. “I’m not qualifying it. I think it’s awful. It’s not right,” Kirk said about the attack on Pelosi, who suffered a skull fracture after being hit in the head with a hammer. “But why is it that in Chicago you’re able to commit murder and be out the next day? Why is it that you’re able to trespass, second-degree murder, arson, threaten a public official, cashless bail. This happens all over San Francisco. But if you go after the Pelosis, oh, you’re [not] let out immediately. Got it.” https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/viral-claims-about-charlie-kirks-words/ https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/viral-claims-about-charlie... Here's the actual video, which I think makes it clear that he's joking and he follows it up with the point he made above. https://x.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1587127536122732544 https://x.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1587127536122732544
- ikeboy 6mo agoThe path to solving a culture that overincarcerates is not by incarcerating those involved in perpetuating that culture. We need to tame the impulse to throw people in jail for doing things we dislike, not just point it at different targets. I see several comments saying that criminal charges should be brought over this. That is not the way.
- gdilla 6mo agothat is literally the way. these maga law breakers need accountability. They got off scott free for j6. we're still fighting the civil war and white fragility because they suffered no consequences the last time.
- malfist 6mo agoNot just scott free, but they might be getting a million dollars each from tax payers due to that asinine "settlement" from Trump suing the government.
- ikeboy 6mo agoThis is another example of the kind of partisan thinking I'm criticizing. It's nearly impossible to get paid for malicious prosecution by the federal government. Read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Amendment_(1997) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Amendment_(1997) >A 2010 investigation by USA Today "found the law has left innocent people... coping not only with ruined careers and reputations but with heavy legal costs. And it hasn't stopped federal prosecutors from committing misconduct or pursuing legally questionable cases."[5] The investigation "documented 201 cases in the years since the law's passage in which federal judges found that Justice Department prosecutors violated laws or ethics rules. Although those represent a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of federal criminal cases filed each year, the problems were so grave that judges dismissed indictments, reversed convictions or rebuked prosecutors for misconduct. Still, USA Today found only 13 cases in which the government paid anything toward defendants' legal bills. Most people never seek compensation. Most who do end up emptyhanded."[5] The case in OP would never have settled if it was against the federal government rather than a state. Also, the feds cap the amount paid for wrongful imprisonment at $50k/year, by statute. We need a way to make the federal government pay out for malicious prosecution cases, just as OP got paid. See e.g. Douglass Mackey. He posted some misleading memes on Twitter about the election, falsely claiming that people could vote by text, and got arrested and found guilty at trial until eventually the 2nd circuit said that what he did wasn't a crime. Should he be compensated? Should the prosecutor and judge in his case face their own criminal prosecutions?
- arein3 6mo agoThank god 1st amendment works. But it should not get paid from taxpayer money, instea the offending officer ahould pay it
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- FireBeyond 6mo agoCops generally don't care because it's not coming out of their pocket. And around where I live for a multitude of reasons, cops don't generally work in their hometown but the next one over. So it's not even their tax dollars paying for their fuckups (directly or indirectly through insurance and premiums).
- bbor 6mo agoEh, I’d prefer they get punished. Imagine if you misconfigured a service and then had to pay out the fee for breaking your company’s reliability contract… And to say the least, I doubt the officer has $800K.
- pseudalopex 6mo agoThis was not an accident.
- chociej 6mo agoI at least partly disagree, speaking from my perspective as a small-time city council member. I agree that ideally taxpayers shouldn't pay money for this kind of misconduct. But in practice, misconduct must face consequences, those affected must be made whole, the offending employee likely can't pay the judgment in full, and most importantly, the monetary judgment is the most effective way to motivate city governments and their constituents to effect change to prevent further misconduct. I know it gets more complicated, especially with larger cities--and doubly so where states have control over police departments or similar. But in general, in a great number of cities and localities, this judgment alone would have a big impact on oversight and governance of the department, probably even if the governing body also disliked the plaintiff's political views. $835k is almost 3 mills of property tax revenue in my city. So, that's my $0.02.
- contubernio 6mo agoThe sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.
- vitally3643 6mo agoIt's not a structural weakness, it's an intentional feature. Our legislature specifically and intentionally made it impossible for citizens (or anyone) to hold police responsible for anything.
- idle_zealot 6mo agoIt is a weakness, but yes, an intentional one. Why a weakness? It leads to structural instability.
- db48x 6mo agoThis is a misunderstanding. In most cases you cannot sue the federal and state governments, with very important exceptions, but you can definitely sue the police. Government officials, such as the police, usually only have _qualified_ immunity rather than absolute or sovereign immunity, and even then only when they were acting in good faith and are not being accused of violating someone’s constitutional rights. The real problem right now is how the courts determine if an official was acting in good faith. Right now they are assumed to have acted in good faith unless it has already been “clearly established” that what they did was illegal. This means that the official can argue that they didn’t know that their actions were illegal because no prior case ever dealt with that exact fact pattern. This works far too often and has let a lot of very guilty police get away with their crimes. Still, some police officers _are_ held to account, so it is not actually impossible.
- petsfed 6mo agoWhich has led to police officers using "the punishment I received is far in excess of the last time an officer of this department was punished for habitually arresting and raping minors!" as a defense, and it works.
- Aurornis 6mo ago> retired Tennessee law enforcement officer Larry Bushart has won a substantial settlement from the county and sheriff behind his arrest. I did not expect to read that the victim was a retired law enforcement officer. This whole case is weird. I’m glad he won a settlement but I would like to see some actual accountability.
- ourmandave 6mo agoEven being a retired FBI director doesn't save you from this kind of stupid sh*t.
- cute_boi 6mo agoAt the end taxpayer lost money and nothing happened to sheriff......
- hermannj314 6mo agoMost people would spend 40 days in jail for $800k. Why wouldn't police collude together to arrest one another? This feels like a free money glitch. I agree without accountability this provides a huge incentive to enrich your friends quite easily off the taxpayer.
- RIMR 6mo agoThis is an extremely paranoid take. Sure, $800k for 40 days is good money, but it also makes the department look terrible, and sets a precident that they have violated rights in the past. It isn't exactly a "free money glitch", since this wasn't just some automatic "$20k/day" judgment, this was damages for violating his freedom of speech.
- laurenciumalloy 6mo ago[flagged]
- enoint 6mo agoIsn’t Jan 6 a better example? The next Jan 6 will be full of those seeking eligibility into a potential slush fund
- bko 6mo agoReminds me of Douglass Mackey, who was convicted for sharing deceptive memes before the 2016 election that falsely told Clinton supporters they could vote by text message. He was sentenced to 7 months in federal prison in 2023.
- reillyse 6mo agoWhy does it remind you of that case? The two seem quite different.
- quickthrowman 6mo agoThere’s a large difference between tampering with an election by spreading misinformation (illegal) and posting a picture that expresses an opinion (free speech)
- trollbridge 6mo agoWell, his conviction was eventually overturned on appeal.
- strictnein 6mo ago> There’s a large difference between tampering with an election by spreading misinformation (illegal) Spreading misinformation about elections is broadly legal. "Are election-related false statements protected by the First Amendment? Generally yes, but not if they seek to interfere with the process of voting." https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2024/08/Fact-Sheet-False-Misleading-and-Intimidating-Election-Information.pdf https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites...
- billfor 6mo agoNo there isn't, according to the appeals court which overturned it.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- 6mo ago
- elicash 6mo agoI’ll cut against the grain here and say it’s ABSOLUTELY appropriate for taxpayers to pay the bill here. It’s pretty toxic that people don’t want to take responsibility for their own government in a democracy. In this case, it’s especially bad, given the sheriff is elected by the people directly. But I’d go even further and say even where control is less direct, we need incentives for voters to take this stuff seriously.
- avs733 6mo agoI'm with you and have said this a long time. We* are responsible for the government that acts in our name and we should bear the costs of its abuse. The Sheriff did not have the power of arrest that he abused here when we has a regular citizen. We gave him that power and we are responsible for its misuse. That is not to say the Sheriff should not be punished and our criminal laws and criminal system are woefully inadequate for a myriad of reasons at punishing abuse. There is a term for what the Sheriff did - kidnapping. That is never gonna happen, but the civil litigation and damages is rightly against Sheriff Nick Weems not Nick Weems. * We does not mean everyon every time - it means the people from whom an official vests their power.
- ryandrake 6mo agoTaxpayers should get a line item on their tax bills that specifically counts the amount of their bill that went toward settlements arising out of police misconduct, so they can see in numeric terms what they're voting for.
- horsawlarway 6mo agoI'd vote for that in a heartbeat. I think part of the problem here is that this is usually hidden from visibility (intentionally) by officials because it reflects negatively on them. It may make the news for a day or two, never get seen by the majority of voters, and get swept away later under the deluge of distraction most "infotainment pretending to be news" provides. --- Go further and just list all government settlements/court judgements underneath the elected official in charge of the branch responsible.
- 6mo ago
- mlmonkey 6mo agoGiving some of the taxpayers' money back as a fine is no victory. Victory would be if the Sheriff and others involved actually went to jail. Until that happens, expect other power-trippers to keep doing such things. After all, what do they have to lose? Not a penny! Since the fine comes out of the pool of money that taxpayers collected!
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Cider9986 6mo agoVictory news...
- epolanski 6mo agoWhy's everyone picking (rightfully) on the sheriff alone and ignoring that he got a legal warrant from a judge, and that the defendant was then later kept in prison by a judge?
- ceejayoz 6mo agoThat'll be because of this bit: > Weems admitted in a later interview that he knew at the time of the arrest that Larry’s Facebook post was a pre-existing meme that referred to an actual shooting that took place in a different state, over 500 miles away. But Weems and Morrow left out that extremely important context from their warrant application.
- goodluckchuck 6mo agoThat’s relevant and should have been included in the warrant, but I still blame the Judge here. When it comes to whether a meme is a threat, the image largely speaks for itself and there’s no way you can reasonably read that meme to be a threat. It’s clearly political and taking sides and potentially offensive, but there’s nothing to suggest anyone is going to take to violence. The judge should have seen the picture and denied the warrant.
- thrance 6mo agoAnd don't forget the Sheriff's electoral mandate. The locals played a part in it too.
- freediddy 6mo agoThe fact that taxpayers and not the police themselves have to pay the settlement is the worst part of this. Every settlement against the police should be taken from their pension fund. This is something I've been advocating for decades now, because it creates an incentive not to do things like this. Right now, good cops don't patrol bad cops because it won't affect them. By aligning the incentives right, it will mean good cops will force out the bad cops quickly.
- cdrnsf 6mo agoAccountability for police in the United States? That'll never happen.
- kvnhn 6mo agoWhat does your username mean?
- kadushka 6mo agoHow would this work? Where do the money for their pension fund come from? Would taking money from it result in them receiving smaller pensions?
- bearjaws 6mo agoMaybe it would make officers turn in the bad apples, since they insist "one bad apple" each time these issues arise.
- saratogacx 6mo agoDo they still insist that? My unstudied feeling is that the current go to is "The officer acted in line with established department guidelines. We commit to reviewing the guidelines in light of this situation" with no accountability on any side to actually do anything.
- breezybottom 6mo agoHow do you "turn in" a sheriff? It's an elected position
- mrandish 6mo agoI have tremendous respect for FIRE's commitment to defending free speech equally whether attacked from the left or the right.
- appstorelottery 6mo agoNew business model apparently. USD$22,567.56 per day. 1. Make Trump meme 2. Go to jail for N days 3. Profit ($22k per day) Nice ;-)
- shevy-java 6mo ago[flagged]
- IAmBroom 6mo agoJust a note to the many commentors hear gnashing their teeth that "the sheriff should have to pay, not the taxpayers!"... The article makes it pretty clear that the settlement was against the sheriff and others involved. Digging further[0]: "Morrow and Weems have been sued in their personal capacities and could “be on the hook for monetary damages,” a press release from Bushart’s legal team at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said. Perry County, Tennessee, is also a defendant since it’s liable for unconstitutional acts of its sheriffs." So, it sounds like most of the burden is placed directly on the shoulders of the guilty "officers of the law". 0: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/man-sues-cops-who-jailed-him-for-37-days-for-trolling-a-charlie-kirk-vigil/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/man-sues-cops-wh...
- bmitch3020 6mo agoThe sheriff isn't paying the settlement, the local government is (just about always does). The settlement comes with the agreement to drop the lawsuit.
- IAmBroom 6mo agoCite?
- bmitch3020 6mo agoThe settlement agreement was linked from the original post from FIRE: https://www.fire.org/research-learn/settlement-agreement-and-general-release-bushart-v-perry-county https://www.fire.org/research-learn/settlement-agreement-and...
- dylan604 6mo ago"Today, the parties announced in a joint statement that Larry will receive $835,000 in exchange for dismissing his complaint. " They do not mention what their cut of that will be, but since they also do not specifically state they were working pro bono, I'd imagine it'll be around 40-50%.
- elicash 6mo ago"Larry will receive" answers your question. But elsewhere on their website, on the Submit a Case FAQ, they do say very clearly: "Will this cost me anything? No. FIRE is a charitable, non-profit organization and does not charge for any of its services." https://www.fire.org/research-learn/submit-case-faq https://www.fire.org/research-learn/submit-case-faq
- dylan604 6mo agoOkay, that's for FIRE's part, but they worked with another law firm: "Represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and Phillips & Phillips, PLLC"
- pseudalopex 6mo ago> "Larry will receive" answers your question. Settlement reports are top line in my experience. Not bottom line.
- m3kw9 6mo agowhat a pay out!
- fortran77 6mo agoI'm still not seeing how that "meme" could in any way be a threat. I've dissected it every possible way. It would never have occurred to me that the point that meme was trying to make was to threated violence. What am I missing?
- bmitch3020 6mo agoThere's more than one Perry High School, and the claim is that someone thought this was a reference to a future school shooting at their local school. The fact that the police knew that it wasn't, but arrested him anyway, and held him with a ridiculous bond, all weighed into the lawsuit.
- duxup 6mo agoIt’s horrifying that this went on for 37 days… complete madness.
- rbanffy 6mo agoI’d be happy if Trump was forced to pay it from his pocket. After all, inciting police officers (or anyone) to commit crimes is also a crime and he should be held accountable. But this is a civil case.
- malshe 6mo agoOn a related note, if you want to know more about the power of sheriffs in the US, I strongly recommend this book- The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy by Jessica Pishko
- iugtmkbdfil834 6mo agoHuh? It is the opposite. It is the local enforcement and consideration that keeps the reckless federal encroachment from happening more often.
- malshe 6mo agoIf that’s what you believe, you must read this book to gain an alternative perspective
- TrnsltLife 6mo agoThe elected office of sheriff, being a law enforcement office, can push back at the county level to overreaching state government, in a similar way to how state government through states' rights can push back against an encroaching federal government. It's a power of government that is closer to the people and more accountable to them, theoretically. Not to say it can't be abused but it can also serve a valuable role in checks and balances. Look up the principle of the Lesser Magistrate.
- malshe 6mo agoSheriffs can push back but how often they do? Many sheriffs in the US are strongly aligned with Trump making it very difficult to see how they will push back against him. It’s more likely that they will push back against the state governors who are pushing back against the federal government
- jandom 6mo agoBest country in the wooooorrldd
- UltraSane 6mo agoAt least the US has working courts that gave the wrongly arrested man some redress. Almost $900,000 for 37 days in prison isn't bad at all.
- jmatthews 6mo agoThat's great compensation. I'm glad justice was served but couldn't have happened to a bigger piece of crap.