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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

#371

Post by TrnsltLife »

malshe wrote: post #340

On a related note, if you want to know more about the power of sheriffs in the US, I strongly recommend this book- The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy by Jessica Pishko

The elected office of sheriff, being a law enforcement office, can push back at the county level to overreaching state government, in a similar way to how state government through states' rights can push back against an encroaching federal government. It's a power of government that is closer to the people and more accountable to them, theoretically. Not to say it can't be abused but it can also serve a valuable role in checks and balances. Look up the principle of the Lesser Magistrate.

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

#372

Post by JeremyNT »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #366
JeremyNT wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that taxpayers and not the police themselves have to pay the settlement is the worst part of this. Oh boo hoo. The official in question here isn't some rank and file rando, it's the sheriff who the taxpayers in question duly elected. I guarantee you they'll elect him again. $91 per resident is a small price to pay for a guy who's willing to arrest their political enemies. Play stupid games, win stupid priz…

> I guarantee you they'll elect him again. $91 per resident is a small price to pay for a guy who's willing to arrest their political enemies. in some sense you might be right because instead of this 91$ being taken per resident directly from their wallets, what would happen is the de-gradation of the services because of lack of funds, so your roads,clean drinking water and everything needed for a govt would have 91$…

> Either way, I think because of all of these reasons, its a systemetic problem but the result of it is that the society has become too polarized and so weirdly incentivized that you can get thrown into jail for memes. I imagine these things might continue to happen but atleast a legal precedent might've been set now (not sure about how American law works).

It would've been pretty clear to anybody that there was no real case here, but the way these rural areas work is that they never expect any attention or pushback. They're used to their little corrupt fiefdoms slipping under the radar. These people in rural TN also live in a bubble of others with the same politics, and they surely overestimated the power of their ideology to win the day.

So it's not really that any precedent was needed, because speech like this is not a crime - full stop.

The scary thing however is that for every case you see like this that goes viral, gets national attention, and has a victim who is aware of his rights and wins... how many small town sheriffs are out there getting away with it?

It's easy to just lock up people for similar trumped up charges and expect that nobody with resources will ever notice or care.

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

#373

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

autoexec wrote: post #358
unethical_ban wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're on the right track - the services of government should be more accountable to the people, and the people should hold some responsibility for the actions of their government. For police in particular, the unions prevent a lot of police accountability, and because of the power that police wield over the population, I am comfortable saying I support unions EXCEPT police unions. At best they should be ballot initi…

> For police in particular, the unions prevent a lot of police accountability, and because of the power that police wield over the population, I am comfortable saying I support unions EXCEPT police unions. Police unions don't have the power to stop state prosecutors from filing charges on officers, or the power to stop a jury from finding an officer guilty, or the power to stop a judge from sending a cop to prison fo…

> Police unions can ask for unreasonable things, but when they do our governments should be telling them to fuck off instead of rubber stamping whatever they ask for.

the rub: police unions are highly political machines and heavily involved in electing rubber-stamp politicians. it's a quid-pro-quo relationship that we seem to have a very hard time breaking out of in the united states.

re: police requiring unions: i have to disagree with you. american policing originated from two antilabor arms: slavecatchers and union-busters. they wield power over non-police union labor and implement it on every level from the individual to the systemic. they are class traitors by choice and by definition and do not deserve protection, because they are the physical arm of the body we require protection from.

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

#374

Post by billfor »

quickthrowman wrote: post #60
bko wrote: post #51

Reminds me of Douglass Mackey, who was convicted for sharing deceptive memes before the 2016 election that falsely told Clinton supporters they could vote by text message. He was sentenced to 7 months in federal prison in 2023.

There’s a large difference between tampering with an election by spreading misinformation (illegal) and posting a picture that expresses an opinion (free speech)

No there isn't, according to the appeals court which overturned it.

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

#375

Post by int_19h »

kstenerud wrote: post #338
freediddy wrote: post #155

The fact that taxpayers and not the police themselves have to pay the settlement is the worst part of this. Every settlement against the police should be taken from their pension fund. This is something I've been advocating for decades now, because it creates an incentive not to do things like this. Right now, good cops don't patrol bad cops because it won't affect them. By aligning the incentives right, it will mean…

> Every settlement against the police should be taken from their pension fund. So... collective punishment? https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...

If they don't like it, we could have individual punishment but they have to surrender qualified immunity. Deal?

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

#376

Post by cdrnsf »

freediddy wrote: post #155

The fact that taxpayers and not the police themselves have to pay the settlement is the worst part of this. Every settlement against the police should be taken from their pension fund. This is something I've been advocating for decades now, because it creates an incentive not to do things like this. Right now, good cops don't patrol bad cops because it won't affect them. By aligning the incentives right, it will mean…

Accountability for police in the United States? That'll never happen.

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

#377

Post by janalsncm »

freediddy wrote: post #155

The fact that taxpayers and not the police themselves have to pay the settlement is the worst part of this. Every settlement against the police should be taken from their pension fund. This is something I've been advocating for decades now, because it creates an incentive not to do things like this. Right now, good cops don't patrol bad cops because it won't affect them. By aligning the incentives right, it will mean…

From what I could tell from the article, an officer submitted a warrant request to a judge and the judge approved it. That request was potentially incomplete because it left out the fact that the victim here didn’t actually make the meme. On the other hand I’m not sure whether omission matters since it would still be protected speech if he made it.

So I would place a good amount of blame at the feet of the judge, who should be more knowledgeable about legal questions. I think cops should have a general understanding of the law but I doubt the legality of online memes comes up much.

So I don’t think it is catastrophic that the police came to the judge with this issue. The problem is the judge rubber stamping something that should’ve been rejected.

Second problem I see is that this took 37 days to resolve, which is also incredibly slow. So it really magnified the earlier mistakes.

That said, I’m not against liability for cops in general. I just think in this particular case I blame the judge more.

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

#378

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

JeremyNT wrote: post #372
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guarantee you they'll elect him again. $91 per resident is a small price to pay for a guy who's willing to arrest their political enemies. in some sense you might be right because instead of this 91$ being taken per resident directly from their wallets, what would happen is the de-gradation of the services because of lack of funds, so your roads,clean drinking water and everything needed for a govt would have 91$…

> Either way, I think because of all of these reasons, its a systemetic problem but the result of it is that the society has become too polarized and so weirdly incentivized that you can get thrown into jail for memes. I imagine these things might continue to happen but atleast a legal precedent might've been set now (not sure about how American law works). It would've been pretty clear to anybody that there was no r…

> So it's not really that any precedent was needed, because speech like this is not a crime - full stop.

I was still trying to look at it from a positive way but alas, the situation might be too bleak but yes, nothing meaningful might have came out of this judgement because well, we all know that memes or speech like this isn't crime but oh well, alas.

> The scary thing however is that for every case you see like this that goes viral, gets national attention, and has a victim who is aware of his rights and wins... how many small town sheriffs are out there getting away with it?

Yes that was exactly my point too. I was trying to point the same thing that there might be so many more people whom we don't even know! who might be going through something similar, whose voices are hidden within the swathes of internet and things.

A sad reality but one which is true. I don't know how one fights against it and certainly this question is way above my pay-grade indeed but something should morally be done to prevent an abuse of people and their rights and freedom by the system which is getting corrupted.

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

#379

Post by int_19h »

boredumb wrote: post #273
embedding-shape wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, maybe rather than aiming to punish people, aim to rehabilitate them, and they don't need to spend their full natural life in jail. And if they're "unsalvageable" like many would claim, we (maybe not you, in the US, I dunno) have hospitals for those that are ill.

Cool, but I'm not sure the victims and the public are always thrilled when they see murderers get off by reason of insanity, despite it being a life sentence and essentially a medically induced solitary mental confinement. People were furious about Yates and Bobbitt despite not even living within a 1000 mile radius because they felt it was a miscarriage of justice and are aware that rehabilitating people who drowned…

Are they thrilled when innocent people are executed? Because you can't have death penalty without that part.
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