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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

#311

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…

Isn't it way more narrow than what you're saying? For New Mexico's cases it only applies to civil rights violations. If the police officer just for example kills someone in the line of duty, he still has qualified immunity

Civil Rights law is how these sorts of things are enforced by individuals who were harmed, in your example a Law Enforcement Officer violated someone's civil rights by killing them in the line of duty and their family can sue for violation of the deceased's civil right to life. Qualified Immunity short-circuits that entire process for the individual LEO's (it does not protect the organization, just individual officers).

If the prosecutor thinks they can get a criminal conviction for murder (or whatever) that is a totally separate process that is between the People (whom the prosecutor represents) and the defendant (in this case, the LEO who killed the guy in the line of duty). Qualified Immunity never applied to criminal cases(1). But criminal cases will not provide any money or anything like that to the victim (or their family)- that comes from civil suits alleging that the LEO violated someone's civil rights. And that is what removing Qualified Immunity encourages, individuals who were harmed can sue individual officers and receive payments from those individual officers (Colorado's police reform bill holds individual officers responsible with their own money up to certain limits where the organization becomes responsible; I don't know about other states).

1: Which are rare against LEO's because prosecutor's don't want to anger the LEO's that they work with regularly. This is why civil suits are generally the main avenue for people to get justice from over-zealous LEO's.

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

#312
post #6

A judgement isn't enough. Those behind the warrant should be in prison, and fined personally. The tax payers of Tennessee shouldn't have to foot the bill for their malfeasance.

Imagine if he said "we need a patriot to bail out the guy who killed charlie kirk" like Charlie kirk said about the guy who tried to murder Paul Pelosi and was at Nancy Pelosi's house to torture her.

Imagine you added this context to that statement which was a broader statement about bail and not about how he supported the attacker? I don't agree with Kirk, but your "quote" of him is purposefully misleading.

“I’m not qualifying it. I think it’s awful. It’s not right,” Kirk said about the attack on Pelosi, who suffered a skull fracture after being hit in the head with a hammer. “But why is it that in Chicago you’re able to commit murder and be out the next day? Why is it that you’re able to trespass, second-degree murder, arson, threaten a public official, cashless bail. This happens all over San Francisco. But if you go after the Pelosis, oh, you’re [not] let out immediately. Got it.”

https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/viral-claims-about-charlie...

Here's the actual video, which I think makes it clear that he's joking and he follows it up with the point he made above.

https://x.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1587127536122732544

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

#313

Just a note to the many commentors hear gnashing their teeth that "the sheriff should have to pay, not the taxpayers!"... The article makes it pretty clear that the settlement was against the sheriff and others involved. Digging further[0]: "Morrow and Weems have been sued in their personal capacities and could “be on the hook for monetary damages,” a press release from Bushart’s legal team at the Foundation for Indi…

The sheriff isn't paying the settlement, the local government is (just about always does). The settlement comes with the agreement to drop the lawsuit.

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

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

[flagged]

I live in the UK and am citing an article based on Freedom of Information requests.

The UK has a problem with free speech at the moment. This is why the https://freespeechunion.org exists.

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

#315

"Today, the parties announced in a joint statement that Larry will receive $835,000 in exchange for dismissing his complaint. " They do not mention what their cut of that will be, but since they also do not specifically state they were working pro bono, I'd imagine it'll be around 40-50%.

"Larry will receive" answers your question.

But elsewhere on their website, on the Submit a Case FAQ, they do say very clearly: "Will this cost me anything? No. FIRE is a charitable, non-profit organization and does not charge for any of its services."

https://www.fire.org/research-learn/submit-case-faq

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

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

My understanding is that saying anything "grossly offensive" is illegal there, so it's not clear those police were blatantly overstepping their authority like in the case from the OP.

I don't think GP is advocating that the US become more like europe by increasing the authority of police officers.

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

[flagged]

The source is linked in his post. Did you not read the article? You should provide another source or address the data in the article instead of just asserting it's false with zero argument.

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is irreversible, the death penalty should be reserved for cases in which there is no possibility of mistake. Which, given the fallibility of humans, is never.

I think when you admit on public television and public comms that you will commit war crimes and then you do commit war crimes we should have a notable exception - there's no possibility Pete Hegeseth didn't know exactly what, how, and when his war crimes were going to be perpetuated.

The death penalty was supposed to be for exceptional circumstances now, and look where we are. This country has put innocent people to death.

If you make exceptions, you will make more exceptions, and you are eventually guaranteed to put an innocent person to death due to the law of large numbers. A justice system must have a way to reverse mistakes to deliver justice properly, period.

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that saying anything "grossly offensive" is illegal there, so it's not clear those police were blatantly overstepping their authority like in the case from the OP.

I don't think GP is advocating that the US become more like europe by increasing the authority of police officers.

I see a huge problem in increasing the authority of US police officers. They need to be held to much higher standards than they are now.
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