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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

#81

Post by ryandrake »

elicash wrote: post #71

I’ll cut against the grain here and say it’s ABSOLUTELY appropriate for taxpayers to pay the bill here. It’s pretty toxic that people don’t want to take responsibility for their own government in a democracy. In this case, it’s especially bad, given the sheriff is elected by the people directly. But I’d go even further and say even where control is less direct, we need incentives for voters to take this stuff serious…

Taxpayers should get a line item on their tax bills that specifically counts the amount of their bill that went toward settlements arising out of police misconduct, so they can see in numeric terms what they're voting for.

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

#82

Post by ericmay »

pjc50 wrote: post #57
contubernio wrote: post #28

The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

Eh, in the UK this is only true for the most absolutely serious cases where someone has been killed or seriously injured. Wrongful arrest doesn't. It may face career risks. Ultimately the US lacks some sort of Federal "inspectorate of police" that would be able to ban people from being law enforcement officers or at least require e.g. retraining or restriction of duties, without leaving it up to frankly corrupt local…

> US lacks some sort of Federal "inspectorate of police"

I don't think this is true, or at least it's not entirely true.

Various states and law enforcement agencies have an office of the inspector general which at least should provide some oversight. We also have the courts and individual officers and agencies can be sued in the court of law which also provides a means of oversight. You seem to be suggesting that everything is corrupt, corrupt local authorities, corrupt feds captured by the party. I think that level of perceived corruption is not reflected in operational reality.

Some states or local police organizations do in fact look at past police records for applicants. There's a bit of variation here, but it's probably a bit better organized than, say the EU where outside of other bureaucratic hurdles I don't believe there is any real way to stop some German citizen who should be banned from being a police officer from moving to Estonia and being a police officer. Though perhaps I'm wrong and there is an EU-wide database that all countries and their police forces use?

I know the UK isn't in the EU, but I just bring that up as I think it may be a bit closer of an example.

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

#83

Post by mandevil »

vitally3643 wrote: post #38
contubernio wrote: post #28

The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

It's not a structural weakness, it's an intentional feature . Our legislature specifically and intentionally made it impossible for citizens (or anyone) to hold police responsible for anything.

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 current implementation of it- where you need to have "clearly establish" a Constitutional right with a prior case in this region- is based on Pearson v. Callahan from 2009, and it takes a terrible Supreme Court precedent and makes it even worse. This has created the patchwork "no case in the circuit has clearly established that a police officer must not make a warrantless search on a Tuesday in May" sort of quibbling.

The work of legislatures has been to roll back qualified immunity. Colorado, New Mexico, and California have removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level. LEO's can still claim qualified immunity for suits under federal law, but they cannot for some suits brought under state law or the state constitution in those states.

The Supreme Court has also, at the same time they've made it harder to hold police to account, made it harder to hold politicians to account, gutting bribery laws and expanding "free speech" to include paying politicians. And the recent idea that a President can't be prosecuted for any "official acts" is also nonsense created by the Supreme Court. This isn't Congress fault, there were laws that prevented it. The Supreme Court just decided that they didn't want to enforce those laws.

The Supreme Court at the root of a lot of the dysfunction in American politics, and somehow still has more respect than they deserve.

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

#84

Post by caconym_ »

ikeboy wrote: post #24
ceejayoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have overincarceration and underincarceration simultaneously. Some who are in jail should not be. Some who aren't in jail should be. If I locked you up for a month over a meme, I'd go to jail for years.

The system needs to change so pursuing frivolous or weak charges doesn't work. We also need to reform bail, which has gone way outside of historical/constitutional norms. Turning it into an escalating back and forth of each side trying to imprison the other, is not conducive to the kind of change we need. To take a recent example, while I don't particularly like James Comey or Letitia James, I don't think they should…

I don't think both-sidesing this is particularly appropriate. Law enforcement officers who abuse their position to harm people under false pretenses should be prosecuted as criminals, because that's what they are. This is true in any political environment and entirely distinct from the Trump administration's malicious and baseless abuse of the legal system against Trump's perceived enemies.

You are demonstrating what I think will be one of the most pernicious outcomes of the Trump administration's transformation of the Justice Department: the blurring of lines between law enforcement, criminality, and corruption as the institution is debased and public trust is lost.

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

#85

Post by Manuel_D »

okeuro49 wrote: post #77
contubernio wrote: post #28

The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

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...

The UK has different speech laws than the United States. Presumably, the actions of the police making those arrests are within the scope of UK law. Even if 90% don't result in a conviction, the police may still be operating within the scope of their authority in those arrests.

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

#86

Post by jawns »

elicash wrote: post #71

I’ll cut against the grain here and say it’s ABSOLUTELY appropriate for taxpayers to pay the bill here. It’s pretty toxic that people don’t want to take responsibility for their own government in a democracy. In this case, it’s especially bad, given the sheriff is elected by the people directly. But I’d go even further and say even where control is less direct, we need incentives for voters to take this stuff serious…

I'd say it would be more fitting that the individual people named in the suit had to pay the bill. But in that absence of that, having taxpayers pay the bill is the next best way to wake people up about the true cost of incompetent public servants.

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

#87

Post by ikeboy »

ceejayoz wrote: post #64
ikeboy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another example of the kind of partisan thinking I'm criticizing. It's nearly impossible to get paid for malicious prosecution by the federal government. Read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Amendment_(1997) >A 2010 investigation by USA Today "found the law has left innocent people... coping not only with ruined careers and reputations but with heavy legal costs. And it hasn't stopped federal prosecu…

> It's nearly impossible to get paid for malicious prosecution by the federal government. We'll see. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... > See e.g. Douglass Mackey. He posted some misleading memes on Twitter about the election, falsely claiming that people could vote by text, and got arrested and found guilty at trial until eventually the 2nd circuit said that what he did wasn't a crime. S…

I've read the second circuit opinion and saying that it was legal is a fair takeaway. They didn't reach the 1st amendment grounds though because they didn't need to once determining that he didn't conspire as required (technically, they didn't prove he conspired.)

Of course any two cases are going to be different, and the guy posting memes on your side is going to be more sympathetic to you than the guy posting memes that you don't like.

That's part of my point. If you create a criminal statute that applies to OP, someone is going to try applying it in a case like Mackey's. If you don't think it should be applied in Mackey's case, how would you word it to cover just the cases you like and not those you don't?

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

#88

Post by maerF0x0 »

contubernio wrote: post #28

The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

The Sheriff absolutely should face some consequences, at least to his career. The money paid to Bushart ultimately is no skin off the government's back. It's taxpayer money, they will just underfund a good thing, raise taxes, or print debt to pay it if there's a shortfall.

It'd be an interesting thing to see garnishing of wages, deductions from pension funds, or loss of some kind of bonus system to help balance the scales.

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

#89

Post by embedding-shape »

lokar wrote: post #67
Arubis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a sane, fair, and (crucially) long-term stable system, persons given privilege and authority over others are subject to a higher standard for their own behavior. The long-running US trend of the inverse (additional legal protections for positions of authority) is incredibly destructive. This is a moral and values judgment, yes, but it's not just that -- it communicates to the population at large that they should f…

The death penalty should be reserved for people who violate a position of public trust and authority.

Hot take, but I feel like no humans should be killed as a punishment... But I'm also probably too European to understand the true value of death penalty.

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

#90

Post by missedthecue »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #2

I’ll be honest this seems low for what he’s been through.

I would say it seems unbelievably high! I've known people t-boned by Semi Trucks that ran a red light and they couldn't get 1/10th of that because you can only prove so many actual damages. A single month in the slammer caused this guy $835k in proven damages? You'd probably lose your job, go into arrears on rent/car/mortgage, but it's hard to believe that every day in prison was costing this guy $22k
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