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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

#201

Post by pessimizer »

cgriswald wrote: post #64
arcticbull wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police officers actually don't have particularly risky jobs. In this list based on BLS data [1] it makes #22 behind crane workers, delivery drivers and crossing guards. Important work? Definitely. It's not logging, though - not even close. [1] https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...

You’re arguing police work isn’t dangerous because there are a handful of more dangerous jobs, by linking to a page that includes police officer as a dangerous job. In any case, you aren’t really offering a compelling case for several reasons: -Death is not the only negative outcome of danger. -Not all police jobs are equal so any metric that measures across the entire array of such jobs is fundamentally flawed. An u…

> You’re arguing police work isn’t dangerous because there are a handful of more dangerous jobs, by linking to a page that includes police officer as a dangerous job.

No, they're arguing that it isn't particularly dangerous by naming 20 other jobs that are more dangerous, that orders of magnitude more people are employed in, and that nobody thanks for their service, leads a parade for, raises tens of thousands for, or reports on the news when they fall off the ladder and break their neck.

> Other people are the primary danger to police officers, so even if we accept the numbers as meaningful, there is a qualitative difference. A tree doesn’t decide you need to die, it just falls and you die or you don’t and it’s over. People aren’t like that.

What does this mean?

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

#202

Post by petertodd »

GavinMcG wrote: post #196
austincheney wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nonsensical as it might be, "costs" does not mean net expenditures , but rather costs associated with filing fees, document production, etc. The loser may well pay "costs," but attorney time, which is by far the biggest expenditure in a lawsuit, is not included.

Note that in my comment, when I said "costs" I was referring to the loose layman definition, not the legal definition. Depending on the circumstances if you are awarded anything, it could be for the costs you refer to, attorney fees, both, or some other mixture (it's particularly frequent to see judges award less than what attorneys charged on the basis that you overpaid).

And of course, nothing at all. And yes, I agree that having only some types of costs awarded and not others can easily be absurd.

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

#203

Post by koheripbal »

jmull wrote: post #181
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…

> The purpose of qualified immunity is to permit officials to carry out their discretionary duties without fear of personal liability or harassing litigation. Shouldn’t we all be able to carry out our lives without undue fear of personal liability or harassing litigation? It makes no sense to provide a special civil liberty for government employees and no one else. If we need to reign in law suits, then let’s do that…

Yes, but certain groups of people who's job it is to confront people in the public are the recipients of orders of magnitude more complaints than the average individual.

The legal system is unfortunately set up such that there is a significant burden (time and cost) on defendants, even when cases are brought without merit.

In that way, the legal system can be "weaponized" and public employees can be influenced to act a certain way under the threat of a sea of PERSONAL lawsuits. ...something that seldom happens to individuals.

For that reason, immunity was created. I think we'll see a very sharp increase in lawsuits as a result of this change. ...and a lot of resignations. I wouldn't be a police officer if I didn't have immunity. At the very least, I would refuse to work shifts/neighborhoods with high crime.

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

#204

Post by aseipp »

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 violate citizens rights, but if we stop them their feelings might get hurt and then they might willfully stop doing their jobs, can't you see that cops are the good guys" isn't exactly the slam dunk defense you think it is.

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

#205

Post by lucb1e »

Since it's a USA-specific term and not very self-explanatory (I thought this was a COVID-related thing because it contains 'immunity', but it's not):

> In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known".

-- Wikipedia

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

#206

Post by koheripbal »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103
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 inactio…

[flagged]

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

#207

Post by Kalium »

spicybright wrote: post #188
michaelt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the German legal system is actually different in a bunch of ways: 1. They don't use precedent, judges rule based on legislation alone. 2. Germany criminal and administrative law uses an "inquisitorial" system where the judges perform fact-finding and question witnesses (in contrast to the "adversarial" system used in common law countries) 3. German lawyers have their fees set by the "RVG" (Act on the Remunerati…

It's too bad the US is too hard headed to adopt some of these practices.

You're absolutely right! The US is pretty hard-headed on any number of subjects, reasonable or otherwise. A lot of these are great ideas.

Formalizing into law the system where a judge decides what is a reasonable amount of attorney's fees definitely sounds like an improvement! Though I can see where revamping the fundamental structure of a legal system could be challenging, time-consuming, and probably messy.

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

#208

Post by chrisseaton »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #197
chrisseaton wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police pay is high Lol what?

Police earn more than teachers, and the median income in America. Training to be a cop often is less than to become a Teacher. Cops aren't even in the top 20 most dangerous job in America. Loggers, Sailors, Fishers, pilots, construction, oil-industry, roofers, drivers, farmers, etc are all more dangerous jobs. Honestly, cops should be paid somewhere around what a security guard at a bank is paid. Below is a list of t…

> Police earn more than teachers

Have you considered maybe teachers are poorly paid, rather than police are highly paid?

> Cops aren't even in the top 20 most dangerous job in America

Did I say they were? Did I say they should be paid based on danger? So why do you think this is relevant?

> national average: $67,600 .. median household income was $61,937

All your numbers say they earn roughly a basic middle income for their locations. That's not 'highly paid'.

> cops should be paid somewhere around what a security guard at a bank is paid

Why would anyone take the job of being the officer over being the security guard in that case? Why take on the additional duties and responsibilities, the being in hazardous environments like messy crime scenes, and why take on the intellectual work of detection?

I don't get why any member of society would argue for another memory of society to get less money for their job.

‘What we need is lower wages for the working class!’

Baffles me.

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

#209

Post by vimax »

spicybright wrote: post #188
michaelt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the German legal system is actually different in a bunch of ways: 1. They don't use precedent, judges rule based on legislation alone. 2. Germany criminal and administrative law uses an "inquisitorial" system where the judges perform fact-finding and question witnesses (in contrast to the "adversarial" system used in common law countries) 3. German lawyers have their fees set by the "RVG" (Act on the Remunerati…

It's too bad the US is too hard headed to adopt some of these practices.

I don't think it is just being hard headed. I don't know of a practical non-disruptive way to change the basis of the US legal system away from common law.

Edit: not that I support the legal status quo, I just don't see the public bipartisan will to make that level of systemic reform

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

#210

Post by staticautomatic »

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…

Costs and fees are completely different.
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