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

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

#301

Post by Ceezy » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #292

Ceezy wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most police officers don't get murder charges anyway. Civil court exist for something. Saying that people should sue criminal instead of civil is up to the victim team not you. If people don't want to be sued civil they should do a better job first. Removing bs laws that don't regulate anything anyway would be good also. Laws are meant to be respected not to be dodge because your job is important. Everybody job is.

> Civil court exist for something. Sure, but that something isn't criminal law.

What you are saying is factually wrong. If I can sue a mall security for something. I should be able to sue a police officer for the same. The job of the defendant doesn't change the status of the charge/request. Most public servant don't work as a spy imbedded in Russia.

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

#302

Post by arcticbull » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

cgriswald wrote: post #240

pessimizer wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, o…

The existence of more dangerous jobs is not an indicator that the job in question is not dangerous. This is especially true when the number of more dangerous jobs are a small percentage of all jobs. The linked article is literally titled “Top 25 Most Dangerous Jobs in the United States,” so his own source says the job is dangerous. Whether the job is dangerous or not is in part fact (by whatever metric you choose) an…

I could rephrase what I said as "being a police officer is slightly less dangerous than being a crossing guard"

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

#303

Post by m-p-3 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:15 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…

> 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.

Law and "order" can also mean keeping the order of classes as is.

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

#304

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #266

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…

Stop with the anti-union FUD. The worst civil forfeiture abuses are in states where the law enforcement aren't unionized.

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

#305

Post by magwa101 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #266

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…

Texas, yeah, disguising union busting as "police reform".

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

#306

Post by anaerobicover » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #263

ramphastidae wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

> the number of unarmed black men killed by police is somewhere between bear attacks and babies drowning in buckets in terms of annual deaths.

You're comparing accidents to murder¹.

We can and should try to prevent deaths from bear attacks. But we should also have higher standards for human behavior than for bears.

---

¹Or at best manslaughter

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

#307

Post by ksquarekumar » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #304

unethical_ban wrote: post #266

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…

Stop with the anti-union FUD. The worst civil forfeiture abuses are in states where the law enforcement aren't unionized.

And I am assuming you don't have any credible data to back that claim up?

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

#308

Post by handoflixue » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #304

unethical_ban wrote: post #266

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…

Stop with the anti-union FUD. The worst civil forfeiture abuses are in states where the law enforcement aren't unionized.

Do you have any evidence for your claim?

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

#309

Post by billytetrud » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:10 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…

You say "sue the inspector" like it's obviously a bad thing. If the inspector used their special government appointed powers to intentionally or negligently screw you over, they should be sued. Prohibiting individuals from being sued created two perverse incentives:

1. It emboldens those who do harm and allows that kind of behavior to become systemic (as it has in police culture) 2. It removes an incentive to improve our court systems and legal processes, because those closest to those legal systems have generally been immune.

> If you are found guilty of a crime, then you can be sued.

?? Generally, people want justice to be served. If a police officer had already been found guilty, they've already been given a sentence. That rarely happens because police departments and their unions stonewall efforts to determine truth and charge appropriately.

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

#310

Post by unethical_ban » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #304

unethical_ban wrote: post #266

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…

Stop with the anti-union FUD. The worst civil forfeiture abuses are in states where the law enforcement aren't unionized.

Tell me how that correlation is a causation.

Public unions, and police unions specifically, are distinct in their impact on society from other unions.

Police have negotiated the right to beat and murder people and keep their jobs with pay for months.

There are cities where Derek Chauvin would have been on paid leave for weeks after killing george floyd. Minneapolis had the right to fire his ass when they saw how bad a cop he was.