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

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

#261

Post by throwawaydeitz1 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

scrozart wrote: post #228

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…

> Invest in educational resources to teach communities how to deal with law enforcement. You have this exactly backwards. It's telling that instead of mentioning doing away with warrior training, for instance, you list things we, the people, need to do to deal with poorly trained cops with licenses to kill, which, in the case of the police, is exactly what this immunity grants. The police need better training to hand…

I agree with all of your points, except for your idea of "the people they serve and protect."

If you read about the historical origins of the US police force, their (verifiably documented) lineage goes back to the days of English colonialism. Those original patrol groups were created to "protect" the damage/loss of property- namely to prevent runaway slaves from escaping their owner's control.

The US police force has, quite literally, always been first and foremost a way for the richest upper class to protect their wealth, power, and assets. They are a way to keep the status quo. The fact that they (sometimes) help poor and working class citizens is merely a by-product of their primary goal.

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

#262

Post by AlexTWithBeard » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #203

jmull wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> who's job it is to confront people in the public

You mean bouncers, train conductors, cabin crew members and hotel receptionists?

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

#263

Post by Workaccount2 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

ramphastidae wrote: post #192

austincheney wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it does. I don’t want paramedics prematurely giving up on saving peoples lives because there is fear of a lawsuit. Software developers don’t have this fear, so we get to kill people through releasing buggy bloated applications without any fear of personal liability.

Pure nonsense. Cite these cases where software engineers have built a decades-long track record of abusing power and murdering innocents under the guise of civil service and directly abusing qualified immunity to get away with it. Or maybe tone things down.

You can't even do that for civil servants though. The actual number of "encounters gone wrong" vs total encounters is vanishingly small.

People think there is an epidemic of police murdering minorities, but in reality the number of unarmed black men killed by police is somewhere between bear attacks and babies drowning in buckets in terms of annual deaths.

That's not to downplay the horror of such killings, but to put it into perspective of the pervasiveness of the problem. The media and especially social media of turned it into a full blown public health crisis.

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

#264

Post by ric2b » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:46 PM 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…

Should we apply that logic to the private sector as well?

Make all employees have qualified immunity, can't be sued for things you did while working, what could go wrong?

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

#265

Post by runako » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

landemva wrote: post #253

runako wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software developers don’t have this fear We should. A software engineer was one of a handful of people sentenced in the Volkswagen emissions scandal.

It was fraud, and submission of false documents to further their conspiracy. There was code involved, to further the fraud. Not a hapless software dev.

Correct, and the push for accountability in police work isn't about punishing hapless officers. It's about creating some mechanism by which offenders like Chauvin can effectively be sanctioned in civil courts.

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

#266

Post by unethical_ban » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

I understand the arguments that "QI has reasonable goals in theory", but it is time to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If cops didn't want to lose QI, they should have held themselves to account for the last few decades. Maybe the unions should have spoken up when cops steal tens of thousands of dollars in cash from a suspect, and get away with it due to QI.

San Antonio, TX will be voting in May on whether to disband the police union. "Back the Blue" types are saying it's Defund in disguise, that we won't be able to find good cops, and so on.

Except several large cities in Texas don't have unionized police, and they do alright. Furthermore, the cops in San Antonio can commit really awful crimes, and still have months- or years-long appeals.

Being a cop isn't a right, it is a privilege and a critical duty. It should be easy to fire bad cops. SAPD, if you didn't want your union to be busted, maybe you should have held yourselves to a higher standard.

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

#267

Post by cwmma » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

eplanit wrote: post #246

cwmma wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's literally their job to take such a risk with your own life to stop a crime against somebody else. To say that you'll refuse to do your job if there is a possibility of being liable if you commit a crime without explicitly being told it's a crime then maybe it isn't the job for you.

Exactly, but if the city doesn't have their back, and they're liable for any mistake -- why take the risk? It's hard to have it both ways.

Qualified immunity is unrelated to whether the city will cover the settlement for the cop (which they usually do) this is about whether if a cop does something illegal to you, that hasn't explicitly been called illegal in identical circumstances, can you sue them like you could any other person that violated your rights.

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

#268

Post by zepto » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

throwawaydeitz1 wrote: post #261

scrozart wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Invest in educational resources to teach communities how to deal with law enforcement. You have this exactly backwards. It's telling that instead of mentioning doing away with warrior training, for instance, you list things we, the people, need to do to deal with poorly trained cops with licenses to kill, which, in the case of the police, is exactly what this immunity grants. The police need better training to hand…

I agree with all of your points, except for your idea of "the people they serve and protect." If you read about the historical origins of the US police force, their (verifiably documented) lineage goes back to the days of English colonialism. Those original patrol groups were created to "protect" the damage/loss of property- namely to prevent runaway slaves from escaping their owner's control. The US police force has…

> their (verifiably documented) lineage

Where are these documents, and what do they verify?

Saying that an institution today goes back to an institution from the past doesn’t mean that it shares the same traits. Institutions change over time.

What you need to show is that the same purpose can be documented today as was there when the police were established.

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

#269

Post by kaibee » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

brnt wrote: post #254

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay (a lawyer) to play is a heck of a lot more democratic than the current system where if you're given crap service at the discretion of the government (as opposed to the bureaucrats doing their job wrong) you need to find a string you can pull to go over the head of whatever bureaucrat screwed you. Money for a lawyer isn't perfect but it is far more accessible to a far broader cross section of the population than t…

You're probably posting under a throwaway for a reason, but let me just say that none of what you say is in favor of your solution: improving the quality of the democracy you live in would be. Money by definition is not far more accessible to a far broader cross section of the population, your vote is. The problem with requiring connections to go around a bureaucrat who has screwed you at their discretion is that you…

> Money by definition is not far more accessible to a far broader cross section of the population

Many lawyers will work on contingency, so it kind of is much more accessible.

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

#270

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

ashneo76 wrote: post #226

End qualified immunity couple with increased pay and benefits and more psych training and DEI training before hitting the ground. It is a risky job and it should valued as such. It should be selective too. We have bodycams, to reduce the chances of "he said, she said"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-training-weeks-united-st...

> Officers in [Finland and Norway] must attend their nations' three-year police universities, and leave with degrees that are equivalent to a bachelor's.

> Rune Glomseth, a professor at the Norwegian police university, Politihøgskolen, said policing is approached as an academic discipline. "It's the same quality of education that we have for teachers, nurses, and so on," said Glomseth, who was also a police officer for three decades.

> The first year of police education in Norway is focused on the role of police in society and ethics. In the second year, students shadow training officers, before returning full time for a third year focused on investigations and completing a thesis paper.

I'd love to see this happen here.