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New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

innocenceproject.org

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

#171

Post by LatteLazy »

ianai wrote: post #150
LatteLazy wrote: post #122

From the outside, the US has big issues with race, poverty, mental health and access to firearms. That makes policing very difficult and pushes towards a "shoot first" approach. But since the US refuses to address any of the issues, it's stuck trying to fix the problem without being able to fix the problem. What concerns me most (and I see it here in the UK too) isn't these issues themselves, it is the inability of p…

Apparently the mechanisms to address mental health were largely disbanded in the 80s. Oddly this is when many financial oversights and regulations were also undone. It’s like Not A gets established, the ramifications are obviously bad, but A is never re-established.

I'm always surprised there isn't more push for mental health provision in the US. Everyone who loves guns and everyone who is anti mass-shooting should like that, and that's a lot of voters...

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

#172

Post by ceejayoz »

austincheney wrote: post #160
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It allows for harassment, though, and for folks to arrest people willy-nilly. And as the other person said, you are never really responsible for the assault or murder like you would be if you were a private person.

Qualified immunity does not shield police from wrongful detention or arrest. An arrest must be valid according to a given charge and evidence even if those do not survive to trial.

In practice, it does.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/they-get-a-get-out-of-jail...

> “In such cases, when the court declines to establish whether police used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, it avoids setting a clearly established precedent for future cases, even for the most egregious acts of police violence,” the report said. “In effect, the same conduct can repeatedly go unpunished.”

> For example, there’s Jessop v. City of Fresno, Calif., in which a pair of businessmen alleged that police officers had stolen some $225,000 in cash and rare coins they had seized while executing search warrants. The officers were deemed entitled to qualified immunity because “at the time of the incident, there was no clearly established law holding that officers violate the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment when they steal property seized pursuant to a warrant.”

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

#173

Post by jmull »

austincheney wrote: post #159
ookdatnog wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game theory is an abstract mathematical model. Citing mathematical models is not science: science requires experiment to verify whether your model holds up in practice. In this case, one could gather data from different countries to see if there's any correlation between the effectiveness of police and their level of legal protection. AFAIK, police forces in other rich nations function just fine without qualified imm…

Are police in other countries without qualified immunity more or less likely to be sued? Your argument ignores the rather important consideration of civil litigation frequency, which is a question of torts not policing.

I’m not sure that’s the right question.

What we want is for the police to behave better.

The mechanism is increased legal liability. That is, both the fear and effects off law suits.

Presumably, law suits would have to rise, especially at first, for this to work because I’m pretty sure the fear of increased legal liability alone will not change police behavior significantly. They will need to feel the teeth of this.

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

#174

Post by kstenerud »

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…

Since other countries get by just fine without qualified immunity, one has to wonder what real-world calamity such a doctrine is defending against?

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

#175

Post by chrisseaton »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26
coolspot wrote: post #17

I think that the Game theory suggests that cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility. Eat donuts, ignore the radio and you will be fine.

> cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility Police report to elected governments. They are checked the same way the rest of the state is: through elections. Police pay is high across America because they're widely seen as bringing value to the community. Their strikes are feared by politicians; the cops turning on the mayor sign…

> Police pay is high

Lol what?

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

#176

Post by ceejayoz »

austincheney wrote: post #162
dragonwriter wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 act…

> No, its not. There is no qualified immunity protection upon the conviction of a criminal act regardless of how narrow or broad underlying factors are.

That’s what you have friendly prosecutors for.

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

#177

Post by DocTomoe »

nindalf wrote: post #143
DocTomoe wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of creating yet another special case for government officials, the solution for the US problem is to go and take some ideas from Europe. In Germany, all costs associated with a lawsuit have to be paid/reimbursed by the losing party. This quickly solves the "I know I won't win, but lets ruin the other guy" problem.

This rule change makes it potentially very expensive to sue large corporations. They are already more likely to win because they can afford larger, better resourced legal teams. Now the little guy also needs to pay for that legal team when they lose? You might see most people opting not to sue Comcast, McDonalds, Amazon to avoid being financially ruined. It’s probably just best to leave it to the discretion of the co…

There are additional rules that lock how much lawyers can cost per case, based on "case value", to limit megacorp lawyers to set up fantasy fees.

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

#178

Post by ceejayoz »

jeltz wrote: post #164
sneak wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that then when a police officer breaks the law and harms you, and you later sue them, the taxpayers end up paying the settlement due to the fact that you have to sue the whole department rather than the criminal themselves. There are no consequences, criminal or civil, for the person who actually broke the law. New York City taxpayers pay $300M a year or so (IIRC) paying out civil judgements against th…

How is that a problem? It was after all the tax payers who voted for politicians who are in favor of violent policing. I feel the issue here is that the courts are corrupt and do not convict police for their crimes. Not that you cannot sue employees. I feel fixing a broken criminal justice system with civil lawsuits only creates more issues than it solves.

> It was after all the tax payers who voted for politicians who are in favor of violent policing.

It's often not so simple.

The police retaliate against politicians who don't toe the line. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/nyregion/chiara-de-blasio...

Bad cops often can't be gotten rid of: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/30/police-union...

> A court in 2009 convicted Washington DC police officer Michael Sugg-Edwards of sexually assaulting a teenage woman in his squad car. After conducting its own internal investigation, the department quickly fired the then 35-year-old officer.

> But, six years later, Sugg-Edwards was back on the force. A provision in the police union’s contract allowed him to appeal against the decision to a union-selected arbitrator who reversed the department’s firing and reinstated him – with back pay.

> In San Antonio, an officer fired twice for challenging handcuffed suspects to fight him for their freedom was reinstated by an arbitrator both times. A second San Antonio officer who engaged in unauthorized car chases was also reinstated twice. In Columbus and Oklahoma, officers who kicked men in the head were rehired.

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

#179

Post by austincheney »

petertodd wrote: post #165
austincheney wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is already how it works in US civil litigation.

No it's not. Both because courts don't always give you costs, and because even when they do award costs, actually collecting is tough, and finally, because courts don't always award the full amount of your costs. Source: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/attorney-fees-does-l... "To further this goal, the losing side doesn’t usually pay the winning side's attorney's fees. In the United States, the rule (called t…

You are over complicating the issue and misunderstanding it. Quite simply the loser of a law suit typically bears the costs of court fees and legal expenses for both parties unless a different arrangement is negotiated. How high those expenses are are irrelevant to this issue and are generally not known before or during trial.

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

#180

Post by CPLX »

austincheney wrote: post #151
DocTomoe wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of creating yet another special case for government officials, the solution for the US problem is to go and take some ideas from Europe. In Germany, all costs associated with a lawsuit have to be paid/reimbursed by the losing party. This quickly solves the "I know I won't win, but lets ruin the other guy" problem.

That is already how it works in US civil litigation.

It absolutely isn’t. The loser pays system is extremely uncommon in American civil practice.
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