Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
UK voted not to be a part of Europe. Well, at least the England part of the UK did.
[flagged]
Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
151–160 of 543 posts
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
False imprisonment generally doesn't apply when due process is followed, like getting a warrant. You'd have to change the law to allow for prosecutions in cases like this, and that change would likely be weaponized in other cases.
Your comment spoke to the commenter's motivation, not about how likely any proposed charges were to stick from a technical standpoint in this particular jurisdiction. So, you have abandoned defending your original claim and moved the goalposts elsewhere.
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
The death penalty should be reserved for people who violate a position of public trust and authority.
Hot take, but I feel like no humans should be killed as a punishment... But I'm also probably too European to understand the true value of death penalty.
It's a uniquely-American perspective: "Our government can't do anything right. But hey, I still trust it to kill the right people."
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#154Thank god 1st amendment works. But it should not get paid from taxpayer money, instea the offending officer ahould pay it
No, I think the government paying is right. It wasn't just the offending officer acting alone that led to the gross mistreatment of this man. The officer was working within the context of a system of local government that ought to have righted the wrong on its own. But the man had to appeal to the federal government to get it righted. The fact that the system lacked enough accountability to avoid or fix this wrong sh…
It's not the government paying, its you.
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#155The fact that taxpayers and not the police themselves have to pay the settlement is the worst part of this.
Every settlement against the police should be taken from their pension fund. This is something I've been advocating for decades now, because it creates an incentive not to do things like this. Right now, good cops don't patrol bad cops because it won't affect them. By aligning the incentives right, it will mean good cops will force out the bad cops quickly.
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
"In return, Bushart will drop the federal civil rights lawsuit he filed against Sheriff Nick Weems, investigator Jason Morrow and the county for violating his constitutional rights." Even at his age of 60 (I'm getting up there), I wouldn't have made that deal. https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates...
Maybe he should try to get compensation through the new Anti-Weaponization Fund. > “The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
What that actually is, is a reward pool for Jan 6 participants and other people who have done illegal things to support Trump.
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just scott free, but they might be getting a million dollars each from tax payers due to that asinine "settlement" from Trump suing the government.
Was there an actual judge in this case? If so, that judge should never have approved this settlement. Of all the horrifying things this administration has done, this one is near the top of the list.
The judge in the case in fact put out a statement that there WAS no settlement.
> Kathleen Williams, the judge handling the lawsuit, dismissed the case on Monday and, in her filing, admonished the government agencies, notably the Justice Department, for failing to be transparent about the settlement.
> She said no agency "submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed."
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/19/g-s1-122938/irs-trump-settlem...
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#158The 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.
In the UK 30 people are arrested a day for social media posts online. Only about 10 percent resulting in convictions. Police don't face criminal charges for this. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...
That’s not Europe. They had a whole vote about it and everything!
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#159I have tremendous respect for FIRE's commitment to defending free speech equally whether attacked from the left or the right.
Re: Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
We should indeed get rid of many laws because the benefit is outweighed by the abuse. America has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world (used to be #1) but suggest that maybe we're overcriminalized and you must be talking nonsense.
You are not suggesting that "maybe we're overcriminalized". You are suggesting that we should not hold law enforcement accountable for egregious abuses of power that do real harm to real people. You think it should not be considered criminal for a police officer to put somebody in prison (under threat of bodily harm or death, by default) just because they feel like it, or whatever. You think police officers should be…
I haven't said those things.
Rape and murder are existing crimes, and they should be applied equally to police officers.
I think that the core problem with the system is not individual bad actors, but overcriminalization and the acceptance of that by judges and juries. To solve that you need actual reform, and adding a new crime that would inevitably be weaponized is not the way.
The whole concept of holding people "accountable" is the wrong frame. It's precisely that mindset that created this highly flawed system. I want to reduce bad things, not to feel good because people who did bad things are punished.
And when you think about how to prevent bad cases from being brought, you need to systematically reduce the power of those who can make such decisions.
Added: I do want strong civil liability for these cases, which we do have, which is why OP was able to get a good settlement. We should expand that to federal cases and lower the threshold.