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Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

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Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#111

Post by dfxm12 »

ikeboy wrote: post #9

The path to solving a culture that overincarcerates is not by incarcerating those involved in perpetuating that culture. We need to tame the impulse to throw people in jail for doing things we dislike, not just point it at different targets. I see several comments saying that criminal charges should be brought over this. That is not the way.

This is a grossly disingenuous strawman. The top comment as of posting clearly states "The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority." False imprisonment is against the law, this situation is far from merely doing something we dislike.

Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#112

Post by throwworhtthrow »

mandevil wrote: post #83
vitally3643 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a structural weakness, it's an intentional feature . Our legislature specifically and intentionally made it impossible for citizens (or anyone) to hold police responsible for anything.

Not the legislature: the Supreme Court. Qualified Immunity was created out of whole cloth by the Supreme Court back in the 1960's when a police officer arrested- and then a judge convicted- a group of black and white Episcopal priests for "making a disturbance of the peace"- that is, having black and white people out in public together as equals. This was Pierson v. Ray, decided by the Supreme Court in 1967. The curr…

What's your source for:

> California [has] removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#State_law, it's Connecticut, not California, as the third state which limited qualified immunity.

Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#113

Post by ikeboy »

ceejayoz wrote: post #104
ikeboy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP says that they left out information (which cops do all the time) but that the warrant shouldn't have been granted either way because of SCOTUS precedent. Would welcome reform that makes it harder to lie on warrant affidavits, although again, that should be civil in nature.

> they left out information Yes, we call that lying by omission. They knew that information would result in the warrant not being granted, so they left it out.

I doubt that. The magistrate judge already granted an unconstitutional warrant, why assume the result would be different with more info?

Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#114

Post by ceejayoz »

ikeboy wrote: post #110
ceejayoz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem so hard. Per this article: > That meme — which Larry didn’t create or alter... > Weems admitted in a later interview that he knew at the time of the arrest that Larry’s Facebook post was a pre-existing meme that referred to an actual shooting that took place in a different state, over 500 miles away… He didn't create it, the meme was accurate , and the cops knew that. Every bit of the conduct they a…

When an appeals court rules on one issue that's enough to decide the case, they often don't rule on the remaining issues. Anyway I don't see how you'd word a law that only applies to the cases you like and not the ones you don't. Also, other people will like different cases than you, including the judge and jury in whatever case gets brought based on the statute you're proposing.

> Anyway I don't see how you'd word a law that only applies to the cases you like and not the ones you don't.

Terms like "willful" and "intent" are all over our laws and would work just fine here. Assessing that is why we have juries.

Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#115

Post by ajross »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #88
contubernio wrote: post #28

The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

The Sheriff absolutely should face some consequences, at least to his career. The money paid to Bushart ultimately is no skin off the government's back. It's taxpayer money, they will just underfund a good thing, raise taxes, or print debt to pay it if there's a shortfall. It'd be an interesting thing to see garnishing of wages, deductions from pension funds, or loss of some kind of bonus system to help balance the s…

> The money paid to Bushart ultimately is no skin off the government's back.

The suit was filed against Perry County, TN, not the state or federal government. A quick google says that its budget is $33M, so in fact this is a very impactful settlement for the county.

Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#116

Post by ceejayoz »

ikeboy wrote: post #113
ceejayoz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they left out information Yes, we call that lying by omission. They knew that information would result in the warrant not being granted, so they left it out.

I doubt that. The magistrate judge already granted an unconstitutional warrant, why assume the result would be different with more info?

As you are well aware, they kept important facts from the magistrate judge to obtain said warrant.

Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#117

Post by ikeboy »

malfist wrote: post #109
ikeboy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another example of the kind of partisan thinking I'm criticizing. It's nearly impossible to get paid for malicious prosecution by the federal government. Read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Amendment_(1997) >A 2010 investigation by USA Today "found the law has left innocent people... coping not only with ruined careers and reputations but with heavy legal costs. And it hasn't stopped federal prosecu…

I'm sure that the DOJ, headed by Trump's personal attorney, will get right on the Trump administration to prevent them from violating the Hyde amendment. This comment has too much snark, but anybody who says the Trump administration won't do something because it's illegal/against norms __hasn't been paying attention__

That's not at all what I said.

I'm saying that for decades, people who were maliciously prosecuted by the federal government had effectively no recourse.

It's good to change that, and I'm hopeful that the new fund does some of that. I would prefer to change the system to vastly reduce the threshold for finding the federal government liable in such cases.

Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#118

Post by mandevil »

throwworhtthrow wrote: post #112
mandevil wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the legislature: the Supreme Court. Qualified Immunity was created out of whole cloth by the Supreme Court back in the 1960's when a police officer arrested- and then a judge convicted- a group of black and white Episcopal priests for "making a disturbance of the peace"- that is, having black and white people out in public together as equals. This was Pierson v. Ray, decided by the Supreme Court in 1967. The curr…

What's your source for: > California [has] removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#State_law , it's Connecticut, not California, as the third state which limited qualified immunity.

California SB 2, signed by Gavin Newsome in 2021, removed Qualified Immunity as a defense for all lawsuits brought under the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act.

I'm not a lawyer, and I have never lived in California so I don't know how much that covers. The QI removal I knew best was Colorado (CO's law also made individual LEO's have to pay with their own money, up to certain limits), and was doing some googling which listed California and New Mexico.

Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit

#120

Post by jerrac »

bko wrote: post #51

Reminds me of Douglass Mackey, who was convicted for sharing deceptive memes before the 2016 election that falsely told Clinton supporters they could vote by text message. He was sentenced to 7 months in federal prison in 2023.

I wondered if anyone else noticed that. I upvoted. Hopefully more people will as well to balance out the bias.

To those of you downvoting, please articulate why you think something deserves a downvote. As it is, I can only assume rather hypocritical double standards. Someone saying something anti-Trump is ok, but someone saying something anti-Leftist (or Clinton) is not?

(For the record, I 100% am on the side of the guy who was jailed. Just as I am on for the guy who retweeted that meme in 2016. Abusing government power is unacceptable no matter who it benefits.)

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