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Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

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Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#151

Post by sirsinsalot »

nozzlegear wrote: post #22
SilverElfin wrote: post #10

The craziest part is the police defending this action as a “cut and dry” case. Meanwhile the lawsuit this woman just filed will hurt taxpayers and not the corrupt city officials and police that caused this. We need to ban all forms of immunity - none for cops, politicians, or judges. They need to be personally liable for their actions.

In my experience (I sued my town for violating my first amendment rights), the city will have insurance that will cover any damages or settlement they have to pay. Their premiums will likely go up, but the impact to taxpayers is probably minimal.

Perhaps in the first order, but when premiums go up and go up across all policies due to the acceptability of litigation... Everyone pays eventually.

Its a bit like saying driving dangerously is OK because you have insurance. Until everyone drives dangerously and insurance is sky high for all.

That said, they should be sued.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#152

Post by drbscl »

jazzypants wrote: post #102
hk1337 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we would see far fewer actions at all for fear of being sued.

They could just buy insurance. You know, like doctors, lawyers, and a wide variety of other professionals that deal with liabilities in their field. Regardless, the police get sued all the time anyways. It's just that the burden currently falls on the taxpayers.

> They could just buy insurance. > the police get sued all the time anyways. It's just that the burden currently falls on the taxpayers.

I fail to see how this would change anything other than increasing taxpayer costs further in the form of insurance profit margin.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#153

Post by cortesoft »

infinite_spin wrote: post #62

I'm not a lawyer, but I think qualified immunity should not apply to constitutional violations. Giving an opt-out for those violations is antithetical to the very substance of our (US) constitution.

It literally is not supposed to. The ruling that is currently used for the precedent is Harlow v Fitzgerald, which states:

> The Court held that "government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known."

It seems to me that a reasonable person would know this violates constitutional rights if you arrest people that criticize the government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlow_v._Fitzgerald

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#155

Post by p1esk »

thot_experiment wrote: post #77
p1esk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to not have powerful people What does this even mean?

It's very easy to get started on this, you tax the shit out of people who have a lot of money because the old adage is true.

Even if you could achieve that, there would still be rich people. Musk would still be a billionaire even if he had to pay 90% tax.

Plus, many powerful people in government are not that rich.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#157

Post by cortesoft »

scoofy wrote: post #92

The charges have already been dismissed: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/charges-dismissed-against-... Good on the grand jury for not indicting this ham sandwich.

They always knew the charges wouldn’t stick. The punishment they were handing out was she had to spend a night in jail and spend money on a lawyer.

They already dished out the punishment, so they don’t care that it was dismissed.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#158

Post by BrenBarn »

thot_experiment wrote: post #24
Bilal_io wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you, but there has to be some balance between full immunity and no immunity at all. The one thing that comes to mind is rich and powerful people, because they have unlimited resources to sue and ruin the lives of cops, judges and politicians, which would lead to these officials avoiding to hold rich and powerful individuals accountable even when they have committed crimes.

You're so close! Instead of patching the issue maybe let's solve the root problem of spiky power distribution among humans. We don't need to make sure cops have immunity to prosecute powerful people. We need to not have powerful people. (though realistically speaking yes there's probably some level of procedural immunity that probably makes sense, similarly with business bankruptcies not ruining the people who start…

Weird that you're getting downvoted for this. You're spot on.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#159

Post by BrenBarn »

p1esk wrote: post #131
queenkjuul wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make currently powerful people less powerful and currently powerless people more powerful. C'mon, HN users forgot how to think? Forgot to ask Claude?

To do that you first need to become more powerful than those powerful people, right?

Well, no, you just a need a coalition that collectively is more powerful.

Re: Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

#160

Post by dylan604 »

ryandrake wrote: post #129
john_strinlai wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They did it to show that if you speak out against them, they'll arrest and inconvenience you. So the next person who gets a thought to speak out might decide not to bother. some of my students have expressed that they wish they could get arrested for a meme and walk away with a couple hundred grand. i, of course, have told them that they would be playing with fire. but they are still viewing it as a potentially lif…

Yea, an arrest on your record, even if you're acquitted and/or get a settlement for police wrongdoing, can still mess you up. There are employers and landlords who will ask you / check whether you were ever arrested, regardless of the outcome of the arrest . Mere involvement with Law Enforcement puts a permanent black mark on your record and can interfere with basic things for the rest of your life.

Then make part of the settlement having the arrest expunged.
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