New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity • Hacker News Board

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#101

Post by nitwit005 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #90

devwastaken wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qualified immunity was made up by courts, their legislating from the bench should have no merit, and therefore revoking qualified immunity is the right thing to do under checks and balances. We need a replacement, one written in legislation, that puts fixed narrow limits on how immunity applies. If you break the law - you should receive no protections. There is no excuse for enforcers of law to not know the law. This…

> Qualified immunity was made up by courts That is how our whole system works. The first amendment for example doesn't have an explicit "yelling fire in a movie theatre" exemption, yet the courts have defined tests that determine if speech is protected. > We need a replacement [...] If you break the law - you should receive no protections That is exactly how it works today. Once you have been found guilty in a crimin…

If it's how the system is supposed to work, it's strange that members of the supreme court have complained about the lack of legal basis.

Interpreting the law, such as what the first amendment is supposed to mean, is indeed what the courts are supposed to do. Making up new laws wholesale is supposed to be the legislature's job.

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#102

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:21 AM UTC

reportt wrote: post #88

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cops need to hold individual "malpractice" insurance (like doctors) or that settlements need to come out of the union retirement fund The insurance idea is stupid. It will just end up being bought by the union, removing the individual incentive component, and added as a line item the next time pay negotiations come up.

But underwriters don't necessarily need to insure every officer, and not every officer will be insured the same. If they are deemed too risky, it doesn't matter if the union is backing their premiums or not -- if they don't have insurance, they can't work (or can't do fieldwork or something).

> underwriters don't necessarily need to insure every officer, and not every officer will be insured the same

They don't need to, but that's not how insurance is sold. Unions collectively buy and negotiate benefits for their members. And a requirement from the union would be, no doubt, universal coverage and pricing.

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#103

Post by Cthulhu_ » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:21 AM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #40

The purpose of qualified immunity is to permit officials to carry out their discretionary duties without fear of personal liability or harassing litigation. It applies to all parts of government. Didn't get the building permit for your kids horse barn? Sue the planning commission members individually. Animal control writes you a citation for Puddles not being on a leash? Unleash the lawyers. Health department gave yo…

You're not including the reasons why qualified immunity is bad though, is this a "devil's advocate" post?

I mean the examples you mentioned would get thrown out by a judge because the examples cited are people doing their jobs.

They're getting rid of qualified immunity because the police is abusing their power to assault and murder people.

I'm not even going to soften that one by saying 'some' police, because inaction is complicity. If one in ten cops are bad, the other nine are complicit for not acting and correcting the one.

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#104

Post by meroes » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:26 AM UTC

coolspot wrote: post #32

bigiain wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might actually be a win overall...

I invite you to peaceful evening walk through Venice Beach, CA.

Just did it a few weeks ago. Thousands of people, never felt unsafe, and saw zero cops.

Your point?

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#105

Post by marvin » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:26 AM UTC

tjs8rj wrote: post #79

barnaclejive wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without fear of personal liability" You see no issue with that, seriously?

To be clear: qualified immunity is about civil liability. It doesn’t protect from criminal liability. Qualified immunity isn’t the reason cops don’t go to jail for murder, because it doesn’t apply at all for criminal procedures

That’s interesting. I thought it gave immunity against criminal prosecution if the officer «accidentally» did something criminal.

The obvious solution is to ensure that police are actually tried and sentenced like regular citizens if they break criminal law, but I suppose we can’t have nice things.

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#106

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:42 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #75

barnaclejive wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without fear of personal liability" You see no issue with that, seriously?

> You see no issue with that, seriously? Qualified immunity isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. It is released, for example, when a government official breaks clearly established law. (Counterfactual: the courts have been very narrow in interpreting what "clearly established" means.)

> Qualified immunity isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.

No, its a get-out-of-civil-liability-free card.

> It is released, for example, when a government official breaks clearly established law.

No, its not. As well as meeting the extremely narrow standard established for violating “clearly established law” and act must also fail to meet the extremely broad standard established for being an “objectively reasonable action”; otherwise, even if it violates a clearly established legal right, it remains protected by QI.

While some protection loosely similar to QI may make sense, the actual rules around QI, both at the high level and in the details of how the high-level rules are applied, are particularly bad, especially, in practice, in the case of law enforcement officials, who practice within the law enforcement community puts at greatly reduced likelihood of being held criminally accountable for violations of rights than non-law-enforcement government agents.

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#107

Post by watwut » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:43 AM UTC

torstenvl wrote: post #93

thebradbain wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because they are required to The government is not requiring cops to send innocent people to jail, kill extrajudicially, or otherwise ruin peoples’ lives simply because they felt like it. In fact, that’s the exact opposite of justice, which is actually their mandate. > There’s no rational distinction between [police officers and health inspectors] One has leeway to kill innocent people outside of the court system b…

> Again, it is antithetical to their job to carry out injustice, and when people mess up their job bad enough, such a killing or framing an innocent person (intentionally or not), there should be consequences. You can't talk about justice in one breath and vengeance against the fall guy in the next. If a police officer unintentionally kills an innocent person because they were, e.g., ordered to perform an armed no-kn…

If gun possession is legal, then it should not be ok to kill an innocent person just because they possess a gun.

Yes state is guilty too. But, seriously, you accept that death of innocent person in a raid is normal result of normal police behavior? Even if there is reason for no-knock raid, cops dont have to kill everything that moves.

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#108

Post by bryanrasmussen » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #42

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

getting rid of unions is also a problem, maybe limit the powers of public service unions. They are allowed to work for pension increase, wages, vacation time, but not allowed to touch disciplinary situations?

Police unions are much worse than other public unions. If other public unions take illegal action, the police can arrest them. When the police union does something illegal, no one is going to do anything about it.

as a normal rule the illegal actions I associate with unions are stuff like leadership skimming from the pension funds which would probably get them arrested.

the negative actions I associate with police unions is stepping in to protect corrupt or violent cops from disciplinary actions / firing / arrest.

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#109

Post by twhb » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #40

The purpose of qualified immunity is to permit officials to carry out their discretionary duties without fear of personal liability or harassing litigation. It applies to all parts of government. Didn't get the building permit for your kids horse barn? Sue the planning commission members individually. Animal control writes you a citation for Puddles not being on a leash? Unleash the lawyers. Health department gave yo…

> Didn't get the building permit for your kids horse barn? Sue the planning commission members individually. Animal control writes you a citation for Puddles not being on a leash? Unleash the lawyers. Health department gave your wine bar a bad rating? Sue the inspector personally.

That’s exactly the way it should work! If an animal control guy has it in for you and writes you off-leash citations every week while you’re in your own back yard, if the health inspector says he won’t permit black people to stay in business, then you absolutely should be protected by the law. Anything else is plain classism: an implicit assumption that members of a certain class are always in the right, and a requirement to deal with conflict with them not from a position of equal power and rights, but only by hoping to convince them to have mercy.

Certainly getting sued over every little thing would be impracticable, too. But that’s also true for citizens. If the laws that protect us aren’t good enough, then the solution is better laws, not to exempt some classes from the law!

Re: New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

#110

Post by brnt » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:51 AM UTC

twhb wrote: post #109

mike_d wrote: post #40

The purpose of qualified immunity is to permit officials to carry out their discretionary duties without fear of personal liability or harassing litigation. It applies to all parts of government. Didn't get the building permit for your kids horse barn? Sue the planning commission members individually. Animal control writes you a citation for Puddles not being on a leash? Unleash the lawyers. Health department gave yo…

> Didn't get the building permit for your kids horse barn? Sue the planning commission members individually. Animal control writes you a citation for Puddles not being on a leash? Unleash the lawyers. Health department gave your wine bar a bad rating? Sue the inspector personally. That’s exactly the way it should work! If an animal control guy has it in for you and writes you off-leash citations every week while you’…

It's undemocratic, because unless all lawyers are great and free for all, this path is a matter of money. Now, you may have bought into the libertarian marketing of freedom without democracy, after all so many Americans have, but there are extremely good reasons for why this is problematic, which are actually not that difficult to cobble together with some spare time.