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

Post by briffle » Wed, May 20, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #115

maerF0x0 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by _jab » Wed, May 20, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #81

elicash wrote: post #71

I’ll cut against the grain here and say it’s ABSOLUTELY appropriate for taxpayers to pay the bill here. It’s pretty toxic that people don’t want to take responsibility for their own government in a democracy. In this case, it’s especially bad, given the sheriff is elected by the people directly. But I’d go even further and say even where control is less direct, we need incentives for voters to take this stuff serious…

Taxpayers should get a line item on their tax bills that specifically counts the amount of their bill that went toward settlements arising out of police misconduct, so they can see in numeric terms what they're voting for.

Post by jimt1234 » Wed, May 20, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

laidoffamazon wrote: post #2

I’ll be honest this seems low for what he’s been through.

Post by ikeboy » Wed, May 20, 2026, 4:57 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #152

ikeboy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by malfist » Wed, May 20, 2026, 4:59 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #117

malfist wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.