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New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

innocenceproject.org

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

#231

Post by cedilla »

bluecalm wrote: post #212
michaelt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the German legal system is actually different in a bunch of ways: 1. They don't use precedent, judges rule based on legislation alone. 2. Germany criminal and administrative law uses an "inquisitorial" system where the judges perform fact-finding and question witnesses (in contrast to the "adversarial" system used in common law countries) 3. German lawyers have their fees set by the "RVG" (Act on the Remunerati…

I am interested in how the no precedent thing works. Doesn't it have potential to make things widely inconsistent? In Poland where we have similar rules in place it's just purely theoretical principle. In practice precedent is very important and learning about what other courts ruled ("orzecznictwo") is what lawyers spend their time on. It's as important if not more than the letter of the law in practice. Source: my…

Higher courts can make fundamental decisions which are binding for other courts; however these are not precedent as they only clarify how the law is to be interpreted in general.

There are indeed inconsistencies in the decisions of the lower courts, and in some cases (like defamation suits) with no clear geographic reference this can lead to forum shopping.

Edit: An important point that I forgot to make is that in cases where a lower court might deviate from the usual legal practice, it may be required to ask a higher court to decide in the matter precisely to avoid grave inconsistencies. So case law is never completely irrelevant in Germany.

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

#233

Post by spicybright »

vimax wrote: post #209
spicybright wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too bad the US is too hard headed to adopt some of these practices.

I don't think it is just being hard headed. I don't know of a practical non-disruptive way to change the basis of the US legal system away from common law. Edit: not that I support the legal status quo, I just don't see the public bipartisan will to make that level of systemic reform

That's pretty much what I mean by hard headed, no one is willing to consider change. Not an individual, just the people that create laws and policies.

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

#234

Post by ticviking »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #224
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…

Making government worse is all part of the Republican plan. Their propaganda is that government is bad and incompetent.

That is an unfair caricature of Republican. Who in turn make an unfair caricature of civil servants.

The position of most on the US center right is that because of governments unique power over our lives we ought to be very careful about what we allow them to do.

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

#235

Post by twhb »

brnt wrote: post #139
twhb wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please try to stay civil. In response to your assertion that the courts don’t work: > If the laws that protect us aren’t good enough, then the solution is better laws, not to exempt some classes from the law!

I was not aware I was uncivil, certainly didn't mean to. Your comment does not address the basic problem with a legislative implementation of freedom: it is undemocratic because the power to fight legal battles will always be constrained by money, therefore giving more weight to those that have more. That makes the legislative or libertarian version of freedom undemocratic. If that interests you, basically any critiq…

> Your comment does not address the basic problem with a legislative implementation of freedom: it is undemocratic because the power to fight legal battles will always be constrained by money, therefore giving more weight to those that have more.

Yes, my comment did not address the US legal system’s wealth bias, except to say that if it needs solving then all citizens should benefit from the solution, not just one class. So I’m not sure why you’re painting me as having one view or another on the solution. What I attacked was different laws for different people. Am I to understand that you believe legal classes are necessary to solve wealth bias? Could you explain the link to me?

> the power to fight legal battles will always be constrained by money

In the US, under our current system. It’s not a result of democracy, it’s a result of a largely privatized legal system.

Also, what exactly are you arguing here? That the power to fight legal battles is bad?

> That makes the legislative or libertarian version of freedom undemocratic.

Dictatorship is undemocratic. Biased legal systems are flawed, maybe unfair, not undemocratic.

Again, I fail to see what this has to do with qualified immunity, or how qualified immunity is more democratic.

> Naturally, if you have the means, that may seem inefficient, but then that was never the point of democracy, and as far as I am concerned, must never be the point of freedom either.

I haven’t said a word about inefficiency.

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

#236

Post by ceejayoz »

ticviking wrote: post #234
MomoXenosaga wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making government worse is all part of the Republican plan. Their propaganda is that government is bad and incompetent.

That is an unfair caricature of Republican. Who in turn make an unfair caricature of civil servants. The position of most on the US center right is that because of governments unique power over our lives we ought to be very careful about what we allow them to do.

> The position of most on the US center right...

The stated position, perhaps.

It tend to disappear when talking about "a Unitarian church wants to perform a gay marriage", "California wants to legalize pot", etc.

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

#237

Post by eplanit »

With this, police will soon stop intervening to stop crimes from happening, and will instead focus their attention on after-the-fact data gathering and reporting. I can't blame them, but quality of life for law abiding citizens is likely to suffer. In high crime areas, I can understand police considering certain neighborhoods as "no go" zones. Why take such a risk with your own life to stop a crime against somebody else?

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

#238

Post by Dirlewanger »

moolcool wrote: post #220
coolspot wrote: post #17

I think that the Game theory suggests that cops will be less inclined to show up to a call or do anything to fight crime, because it could bring too much legal responsibility. Eat donuts, ignore the radio and you will be fine.

"If we hold them accountable for the actions they take at their jobs jobs, they'll stop doing their jobs altogether" Wtf kind of logic is this?

Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of police in America isn't to "protect and serve". Even the Supreme Court has said they're under no obligation to protect the public.

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

#239

Post by runako »

austincheney wrote: post #187
jmull wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The purpose of qualified immunity is to permit officials to carry out their discretionary duties without fear of personal liability or harassing litigation. Shouldn’t we all be able to carry out our lives without undue fear of personal liability or harassing litigation? It makes no sense to provide a special civil liberty for government employees and no one else. If we need to reign in law suits, then let’s do that…

Sure it does. I don’t want paramedics prematurely giving up on saving peoples lives because there is fear of a lawsuit. Software developers don’t have this fear, so we get to kill people through releasing buggy bloated applications without any fear of personal liability.

> Software developers don’t have this fear

We should. A software engineer was one of a handful of people sentenced in the Volkswagen emissions scandal.

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

#240

Post by cgriswald »

pessimizer wrote: post #201
cgriswald wrote: post #64

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. In any case, you aren’t really offering a compelling case for several reasons: -Death is not the only negative outcome of danger. -Not all police jobs are equal so any metric that measures across the entire array of such jobs is fundamentally flawed. An u…

> 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) and in part where you draw the line (which is largely arbitrary but may have some statistical support).

If I were to stipulate the metric of fatalities, I would still conclude the job is dangerous because I consider construction work dangerous and it has fewer fatalities per capita.

Whether it is appropriate to throw parades or not for any of these groups doesn’t have an impact on the veracity of the claim.

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