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New Mexico is the second state to ban qualified immunity

innocenceproject.org

331–335 of 335 posts

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

#331

I don't know why anyone would want to be a police officer. There's no upside. Aside from the genuine affection they get from the people they help here and there. Given the nature of their job, it seems like there would be too much personal risk to get involved in any kind of physical altercation with the public. Because if you get in a fight, I mean a real fight, you better be ready to fight-to-win. Because there's a…

The current state of affairs is entirely of police's own making. It's not like that in many other countries, where cops are genuinely respected. And maybe we do need radical measures to fix things. Georgia (the country) had a similar problem with their traffic police. They solved it by literally firing the entire force overnight, then raising both the hiring standards and the pay, and rebuilding it all from scratch.

I find that very hard to believe

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

#332
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…

You think this type of lawsuit shouldn’t be allowed?

https://abc7.com/lawsuit-virginia-police-threaten-pepper-spr...

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

#333
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, it is antithetical to their job to carry out injustice, and when people mess up their job bad enough, such a killing or framing an innocent person (intentionally or not), there should be consequences. You can't talk about justice in one breath and vengeance against the fall guy in the next. If a police officer unintentionally kills an innocent person because they were, e.g., ordered to perform an armed no-kn…

If gun possession is legal, then it should not be ok to kill an innocent person just because they possess a gun. Yes state is guilty too. But, seriously, you accept that death of innocent person in a raid is normal result of normal police behavior? Even if there is reason for no-knock raid, cops dont have to kill everything that moves.

It is a normal result to fear for your life when armed men storm your residence in the middle of the night.

If you are armed, it is a normal result to protect your home with force from such an invasion.

If the arrestee responds with armed force, it is a normal result that the police will do so as well.

If they do, it is certainly a foreseeable result that someone will end up dead.

By ordering a no-knock raid in the middle of the night, the mayor and police chief set up a situation where the arrestee's right of self-defense and the police officers' rights of self-defense are on a collision course.

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current state of affairs is entirely of police's own making. It's not like that in many other countries, where cops are genuinely respected. And maybe we do need radical measures to fix things. Georgia (the country) had a similar problem with their traffic police. They solved it by literally firing the entire force overnight, then raising both the hiring standards and the pay, and rebuilding it all from scratch.

I find that very hard to believe

If you mean the story of the Georgian police reform, it happened a while ago, and there's plenty of articles on how it went and the results it produced. For example:

https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/siezing-mom...

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

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it does protect your from civil penalties for law and murder

Not in the case of criminal law violations. Civil suits should not be used as a blunt weapon to end run criminal complaints only because they set the bar lower. This is antithetical to tort reform.

An individual can be found innocent in criminal court and guilty in civil court for the same incident
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