
As Qualified Immunity Takes Center Stage, More Delay from SCOTUS - mnm1
https://www.unlawfulshield.com/2020/06/as-qualified-immunity-takes-center-stage-more-delay-from-scotus/
======
BurningFrog
Just so we know what we're talking about, here is a description of the 13
Qualified Immunity cases that may get to the Supreme Court soon.

[https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-
finall...](https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-finally-
decide-whether-hear-cases-calling-abolition-qualified)

Sample:

 _Jessop v. City of Fresno._ In this case, the Ninth Circuit granted immunity
to police officers who stole over $225,000 in cash and rare coins in the
course of executing a search warrant. The court noted that while “the theft
[of] personal property by police officers sworn to uphold the law” may be
“morally wrong,” the officers could not be sued for the theft because the
Ninth Circuit had never issued a decision specifically involving the question
of “whether the theft of property covered by the terms of a search warrant,
and seized pursuant to that warrant, violates the Fourth Amendment.”

~~~
abduhl
If Congress is considering legislation to change QI then the Supreme Court has
little reason to take up these cases. SCOTUS should stay silent when the
legislative branch is at work to correct something that was a judicial
creation or when it looks like Congress intends to legislate in an issue.

Edit: I will just reply to all of the comments downthread at once because they
all seem to urge the same thing. SCOTUS has no incentive to act when the
legislative branch is doing something that could easily overturn or not align
with their decision, which would render their decision moot. A law that
Congress passes overrules any and all SCOTUS precedent on the issue because
Congress "legislates against the backdrop of the common law." Further,
Congress has the ability to move much faster than SCOTUS: a bill could be
passed on less than a month in Congress while it will take at least a year for
SCOTUS to reach a decision.

~~~
bobbydroptables
You misunderstand the law completely in your comment and your edit. Congress
(with good reason) doesn't get to shape the boundaries of constitutional law
(for example the doctrine of qualified immunity we're discussing here).

That is specifically and only in the hands of the court, unless you want to
amend the constitution.

~~~
pdonis
_> That is specifically and only in the hands of the court, unless you want to
amend the constitution._

The Constitution nowhere says that the Supreme Court has the sole ability or
power to "shape the boundaries of constitutional law". It grants the Supreme
Court "judicial power", but judicial power is not the only power related to
the law.

~~~
bobbydroptables
Check out Marbury v. Madison.

~~~
pdonis
I'm quite familiar with Marbury v. Madison; it does not give the Supreme Court
the sole ability or power to "shape the boundaries of constitutional law"
either. It simply defines a key part of what "judicial power" means.

~~~
bobbydroptables
And "judicial power" includes the sole power to shape the boundaries of con
law.

Who do you think can determine the boundaries of con law?

------
Shivetya
Understand that many have been predicting that some amount of reform will come
so Police Unions have been pushing legislatures for indemnification within
contracts negotiated.

This in effect may still shadow some of the abusive officers but it also will
mean pay outs will be from the very community they were abusing people with
in.

Simply put, public employee unions within the United States have an
exaggerated affect on politics at local, city, and state levels. This includes
both police and teachers and in many cases fire. besides bankrupting
communities with excessive pension and benefits plans; in fact these were some
of the golden plans mentioned as being a limiting factor to what the ACA
encompassed and the House only recently tucked a provision into law that
passed which removed all consideration of these plans from future ACA fudning;
they are leading to bankruptcy issues for some localities. On the teacher
front a three year veteran is near immune to firing in NYC if not all of NY
state.

It really comes down to this, the laws have to change. Both QI as well as the
legality of these particular type of unions which do not serve the same
purpose unions in corporations do. They are bleeding America dry and not just
in money. Be very watchful for the House to attempt to bailout all these
public sector employee pensions in the near future. [0][1][2][3][4][5]

[0]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2018/10/26/ill...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2018/10/26/illinois-100000-club-94000-six-
figure-public-employees-and-retirees-cost-taxpayers-12b/#2b4fac0481a4)

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/business/dealbook/coronav...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/business/dealbook/coronavirus-
public-pension.html)

[2] [https://www.chicagobusiness.com/html-
page/848696](https://www.chicagobusiness.com/html-page/848696)

[3] [https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-
politics/pritzker-...](https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-
politics/pritzker-pension-team-looks-savings-finds-costly-threats-instead)

[4] [https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/commentary/public-
he...](https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/commentary/public-health-
crisis-no-time-private-pension-bailouts)

[5] [https://www.ai-cio.com/news/10-billion-illinois-pension-
bail...](https://www.ai-cio.com/news/10-billion-illinois-pension-bailout-
request-ignites-controversy/)

~~~
aksss
While I tend to agree with everything you said and would further say that
there's a nefarious nexus between buying off public unions with pension
agreements states can not afford to pay, a half-step in the right direction
was outlined by Ilya Somin and Johnathan Adler recently [0]:

"State and local governments should consider banning police unionization, or
at least curbing unions' powers by, for example, eliminating disciplinary
issues from the list of matters that are subject to collective bargaining.
Whatever the merits of public-sector unions in other contexts, they create too
much of a conflict of of interest in the case of employees who often literally
wield the power of life and death over civilians."

[0] [https://reason.com/2020/05/31/how-to-curb-police-abuses-
and-...](https://reason.com/2020/05/31/how-to-curb-police-abuses-and-how-not-
to/)

------
typenil
Qualified immunity has become a get-out-of-jail-free card for law enforcement.

I believe it's the primary reason for the complete apathy law enforcement
shows towards de-escalation and self-restraint in general.

Why bother behaving when the standard for prosecuting you is so high as to be
laughable?

~~~
throwaway894345
This is my feeling also, but in general I'm very frustrated at how this whole
conversation is based on these "feelings" because the data is so poor. I think
an important component is an independent oversight apparatus that (among many
other things) is responsible for collecting standardized, high quality data
that can be aggregated at a national level so we can conclusively answer
questions like, "do police target certain races in their killings or is it an
artifact of different crime distributions or etc?". It just seems insane to me
that we keep going through this cycle over and over and spend so much time
debating these questions, but we don't avail ourselves by the relatively
inexpensive, straightforward step of collecting more/better data. Of course,
not everyone will respect data over their own feelings/experiences, but (1)
the data might agree with those feelings/experiences and (2) the rest of us
can move toward a consensus at any rate.

~~~
Ericson2314
This "feelings" complaint is a major dog whistle you know.

The fact is, the relationship between unprivileged communities is such that:

\- Crime rates to not reflect actual community grievances

\- Community members do not want to rely on police even if they would like to
bring in some sort of neutral authority / arbitrator to a dispute.

\- The portion of would-be crime where the would-be victim is happy for the
police presence is incredibly low.

\- The portion of actual crime where the actual victim is sad for the police
absence is incredibly low.

So it doesn't even matter if the statistics show the police kill extra in
proportion to the neighborhoods the patrol and that in turn is proportional to
the crime rate, because you haven't Baysianed deep enough to find the cycle.
As exemplified by the latter two points, there is no way to find any value for
the police as they currently with a democratic basis, and as such they must be
defunded and replaced with something else.

~~~
rayiner
Your “facts” are actually feelings or conjectures, and are demonstrably
untrue. Black communities in fact want police (and the criminal justice
system) to address high crime rates.

This article collects a number of statistics: [https://slate.com/news-and-
politics/2014/12/black-community-...](https://slate.com/news-and-
politics/2014/12/black-community-is-concerned-with-black-on-black-crime-
suggesting-otherwise-is-ignoring-the-facts.html)

> Finally, Atlantic Media’s “State of the City” poll—published this past
> summer—shows an “urban minority” class that’s worried about crime, and
> skeptical toward law enforcement, but eager for a greater police presence if
> it means less crime. Just 22 percent of respondents say they feel “very
> safe” walking in their neighborhoods after dark, and only 35 percent say
> they have “a lot” of confidence in their local police. That said, 60 percent
> say hiring more police would have a “major impact” on improving safety in
> their neighborhoods.

In fact, even today, a slight majority of African Americans say that the
criminal justice system in their area is “not harsh enough” on criminals:
[https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/documents/899/download](https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/documents/899/download)
(Table 2). At the height of the crime wave of the 1980s and 1990s, over 70% of
black Americans felt we needed harsher punishment of criminals. Half of
African Americans today say we are spending “too little” on law enforcement.

Hispanics are even more strongly in favor of policing. 53% of Hispanic people
supported NYC’s controversial (and unconstitutional) stop-and-frisk policy:
[https://www.blackenterprise.com/nypd-stop-and-frisk-poll-
rac...](https://www.blackenterprise.com/nypd-stop-and-frisk-poll-racism-nyc).

Notions of “defunding the police” are an idea dreamed up by people who don’t
actually live in these disadvantaged communities. Poll after poll shows that
is not what disadvantaged communities actually want. They want the law to be
enforced; they can’t criminals brought to justice; and they want all that done
with due process protections, just like police manage to do for white
neighborhoods.

~~~
x86_64Ubuntu
Wanting criminals to be brought to justice in theory doesn't match the reality
of the entire community being criminalized and treated as such.

~~~
throwaway894345
What does it even mean to “criminalize an entire community”? And why don’t you
think these respondents understand what they’re asking for? Presumably they
understand their own experience with police?

------
commandlinefan
I'm curious - it's obvious what abuses of qualified immunity are driving this,
but the law must have been originally put in place for a reason. Are there any
examples where a police officer was shielded from prosecution for something
that, if you or I did it would definitely be a crime, but that a reasonable
person would say, "yes, this is a good application of qualified immunity"?

~~~
dsl
Lets say you want to build a deck. You put together the plans, take them to
the planning commission, and they rightfully reject it for being structually
unsound.

Qualified immunity is what prevents you from personally suing each member of
the planning commission to pressure them in to reversing their decision. Think
of it like the legal system throwing an exception, we aren't even going to
consider this because your beef is with the city not an individual employee.

Police have qualified immunity because otherwise they would face personal
lawsuits every time they wrote a rich guy a speeding ticket, or a convicted
murderer has nothing better to do but get his law degree in prison.

In my opinion, qualified immunity is _not_ the problem. If an officer does
something in their official capacity that is wrong, it is up to the department
and the DA to deal with. Just like if the hypothetical planning commission did
something illegal. Unfortunately police unions prevent that from being a
viable option.

~~~
baddox
I still don't get it though. What would you be suing a commissioner over that
would get them to reverse their decision? If you're suing them directly for
their decision, then surely that just wouldn't be a valid lawsuit. If you're
suing them for some unrelated valid issue, but using that as pressure for them
to change their decision, then surely that's already illegal. Isn't it
considered extortion or blackmail to compel someone to give you something of
value by threatening to sue them or report them to law enforcement?

~~~
tathougies
> If you're suing them directly for their decision, then surely that just
> wouldn't be a valid lawsuit

The commenter is saying that the fact that this isn't a valid lawsuit is what
is meant by qualified immunity, I believe.

~~~
baddox
Why shouldn't it also be invalid in an analogous non-government situation?

~~~
tathougies
I believe it is? If a starbucks employee treats you poorly while on the job as
a starbucks employee, then starbucks is liable because their employees are
their agents. The difference is that the government, unlike starbucks, enjoys
sovereign immunity -- they can't necessarily be sued and held liable. There's
probably more to it. I'm not a lawyer.

~~~
baddox
That’s certainly not the case. The government can be sued.

~~~
tathougies
The government can be sued because Congress has consented to being sued, not
because the government is suable by default.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States#Federal_sovereign_immunity)

> In the United States, the federal government has sovereign immunity and may
> not be sued unless it has waived its immunity or consented to suit.[7] The
> United States as a sovereign is immune from suit unless it unequivocally
> consents to being sued.[8] The United States Supreme Court in Price v.
> United States observed: "It is an axiom of our jurisprudence. The government
> is not liable to suit unless it consents thereto, and its liability in suit
> cannot be extended beyond the plain language of the statute authorizing
> it."[9]

The only reason the United States can legally appear as a defendant in a civil
suit currently is because Congress has consented to being sued:

> The United States has waived sovereign immunity to a limited extent, mainly
> through the Federal Tort Claims Act, which waives the immunity if a tortious
> act of a federal employee causes damage, and the Tucker Act, which waives
> the immunity over claims arising out of contracts to which the federal
> government is a party. The Federal Tort Claims Act and the Tucker Act are
> not the broad waivers of sovereign immunity they might appear to be, as
> there are a number of statutory exceptions and judicially fashioned limiting
> doctrines applicable to both. Title 28 U.S.C. § 1331 confers federal
> question jurisdiction on district courts, but this statute has been held not
> to be a blanket waiver of sovereign immunity on the part of the federal
> government.

But in general, the government of the United states is immune from civil
suits, and Congress can decide at any time -- even during an active case -- to
decide to not want to be sued anymore.

The governments of the states -- being the ultimate sovereign authority of the
United States of America -- are also generally immune from civil suit, except
in limited circumstances. I believe most have however consented to being sued.

On this matter, the supreme court has said:

> we have understood the Eleventh Amendment to stand not so much for what it
> says, but for the presupposition of our constitutional structure which it
> confirms: that the States entered the federal system with their sovereignty
> intact; that the judicial authority in Article III is limited by this
> sovereignty, and that a State will therefore not be subject to suit in
> federal court unless it has consented to suit, either expressly or in the
> "plan of the convention." States may consent to suit, and therefore waive
> their Eleventh Amendment immunity by removing a case from state court to
> federal court.

------
wjnc
If someone could explain this to me, please do. The wiki [1] on qualified
immunity talks about civil action. So US officials (cops among those) are
mostly shielded from civil action for their misdeeds and to even a greater
degree than the former test that asked whether they legitimately believed they
were following the law And acted in good faith. (Which is already a stretch
since I don't quite follow how ones understanding of the laws enters the
question of having followed it.) So no civil action then.

But isn't the larger differentiator from most other first world countries the
way officials are treated regarding the criminal code? I am expecting most
countries to have a quite independent prosecuting office that prosecutes both
officials and laymen, hopefully to the same degree? (The exception I expect is
the military?)

In my locality one of the things I like 'best' is an article in our criminal
law that lets a victim ask a judge to reconsider the decision of the
prosecution not to press charges. It's one of the final balances in our
criminal law.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity)

~~~
mnm1
Qualified immunity is especially hurtful because it is the only recourse left
when prosecutors decline to prosecute cases against police, the norm even in
Floyd's case (only one out of four killers has been charged). Yes, it would be
ideal of prosecutors prosecuted police properly or if we had an independent
investigation/prosecutor for such cases but this is never the case, even when
officials pretend it is. It's always cops investigating other cops and the
same prosecutors that normally work closely with police and have clear
conflicts of interest doing the prosecution. Activists want to get rid of
qualified immunity because trying to reform the actual criminal investigation
and prosecution is impossible. Also, the doctrine changes the actual law to
make it the exact opposite of what was intended, effectively rewriting the law
into its opposite. The focus on qualified immunity assumes there will be a
miscarriage of criminal justice. That's almost always the case.

~~~
bcrosby95
Which happens in part because the office of attorney general is an elected
position. Police are very powerful politically. And for whatever reason, you
are seen as "soft on crime" if you attempt to prosecute police for carrying
out crimes.

~~~
xxpor
As an example, the VA GOP yesterday called for Lee Carter, a member of the VA
house of delegates, to resign for even _suggesting_ cutting police budgets.

[https://twitter.com/VA_GOP/status/1267164943994032128](https://twitter.com/VA_GOP/status/1267164943994032128)

------
lliamander
I applaud this.

EDIT: I applaud Justin Amash's proposal to eliminate qualified immunity[1]
(Thanks, dang).

One of the scary things about the George Floyd incident is that resisting
arrest might have been the better option. That has some pretty dark
implications about rule of law.

I understand the impulse of those on the right to give police officers the
benefit of the doubt when it comes to what can very often be a dangerous
calling, but I think that everyone (including police officers) will be safer
if the police can be legally held accountable to a higher standard.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379576)

~~~
criddell
I wonder what a bystander can do when they see a police officer doing
something like holding a knee on a person's neck for 8 minutes? If you do
nothing, Mr. Floyd dies. If you get involved, Mr. Floyd may live but you may
be the next person under the knee.

Could a good Samaritan defense for people who interfere with the police in
good faith work?

~~~
clarkmoody
Don't take legal advice from Hacker News, obviously :-)

In Texas[0]:

    
    
      (c)  The use of force to resist an arrest or search is justified:
      (1)  if, before the actor offers any resistance, the
      peace officer (or person acting at his direction) uses
      or attempts to use greater force than necessary to make
      the arrest or search;  and
      (2)  when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes
      the force is immediately necessary to protect himself
      against the peace officer's (or other person's) use or
      attempted use of greater force than necessary.
    

Elsewhere:

    
    
      Sec. 9.33.  DEFENSE OF THIRD PERSON.  A person is
      justified in using force or deadly force against
      another to protect a third person if:
      (1)  under the circumstances as the actor reasonably
      believes them to be, the actor would be justified under
      Section 9.31 or 9.32 in using force or deadly force to
      protect himself against the unlawful force or unlawful
      deadly force he reasonably believes to be threatening the
      third person he seeks to protect;  and
      (2)  the actor reasonably believes that his intervention
      is immediately necessary to protect the third person.
    

Assuming you survive the encounter, it is possible you could prevail on your
day in court.

[0]
[https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm#C](https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm#C)

~~~
brendoelfrendo
I mean, sure, but the moment you attack a police officer--even if you intend
to save someone's life--you're probably going to end up getting hurt even
worse, if not simply shot (ESPECIALLY in Texas).

------
bobbiechen
An inside look into the operation of the Supreme Court is Bob Woodward and
Scott Armstrong's "The Brethren" [1], which covers the years 1969-1975.

There's a surprising amount of persuasion, negotiation, and coalition-building
in order to find the votes to grant cert or hold a majority. It's interesting
to see how the interpersonal dynamics among the Justices influence decisions.

An example of this is looking for unanimous decisions to send a strong
message, whether it is for school desegregation:

> _Since 1954, the Court had always been unanimous in school cases, its strong
> commands to desegregate joined by every member. For fifteen years, the
> Justices had agreed that it was essential to let the South know that not a
> single Justice believed in anything less than full desegregation._

or to reject Nixon's executive privilege claims in Watergate [2]:

> _The Nixon challenge had to be met in the strongest way possible. An eight-
> signature opinion would do it [...] The country would benefit from such a
> show of strength now._

These decisions required significant reconciliation between the original ideas
of the Justices. They don't operate in a vacuum of law study. The Muhammad Ali
draft dodging case [3] also demonstrates this, where a 4-4 deadlock is turned
into a unanimous 8-0 decision centered around a technical error which would
not set precedent - the book describes Burger as considering that "it might be
interpreted as a racist vote" if he dissented.

Like the link, I am also curious about why these delays have occurred,
especially the most recent one. Wildly speculating, maybe the Court does not
want to appear too politically activist in this moment; or maybe the members
are trying to find consensus for their preferred outcome before granting cert
at all. One other option, though I hope it's not this one:

> _[Stevens] said, it was "pointless" to grant cert only to have the majority
> reaffirm its well-known view [regarding Liles v Oregon, an obscenity case]._

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brethren_(Woodward_and_Arm...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brethren_\(Woodward_and_Armstrong_book\))

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Nixon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Nixon)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_v._United_States#Opinion_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_v._United_States#Opinion_of_the_Court)

------
zaltekk
This[1] article helped me get a good understanding of the actual tests that
the courts are applying:

1\. The court considers whether police used excessive force in violation of
the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. If yes, the court moves to part
two of the test. If no, qualified immunity is immediately granted.

2\. The court determines whether police should have known their actions
violated the Constitution because court precedent clearly established their
conduct as unlawful. If yes, the case goes to trial. If no, qualified immunity
is granted.

Cases need nearly identical circumstances and in the same court jurisdiction
for precedent to be "clearly established". Most cases are dismissed outright
so that new precedent is never established, which leads what's "clearly
established" being frozen in time.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-
poli...](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-police-
immunity-scotus/)

------
jorblumesea
I'm not sure it's that simple. Or, Qualified Immunity is just one aspect of
why cops are not prosecutable.

One reason is the close relationship between police and the judiciary. Both
work closely together and need to preserve that relationship for various
career and practical reasons. In theory a branch is designed to act as a check
against another branch, in reality, this is not the case in our justice
system.

Another reason is US voters. We vote "hard on crime" people into office and
then are surprised when they give Police complete immunity. If we want
justice, we've elected the wrong people to give it to us.

It's also not clear if any of this is politically viable. The US is
politically farther right compared to Europe and some other countries. Is a
more liberal "European style" justice system palatable to US voters? For some,
definitely, but overall, I'm not sure if some parts of the US are culturally
ready for some of the reforms discussed. There's a lot of "eye for an eye"
syndrome here.

I don't have any answers to this, just adding some context.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
>Another reason is US voters. We vote "hard on crime" people into office and
then are surprised when they give Police complete immunity. If we want
justice, we've elected the wrong people to give it to us.

>It's also not clear if any of this is politically viable. The US is
politically farther right compared to Europe and some other countries. Is a
more liberal "European style" justice system palatable to US voters?

Are we living in the same country? What's "politically viable" varies
massively from place to place.

While there are definitely "tough on crime" districts many major cities elect
DAs and elect/appoint judges specifically because they make campaign promises
to not be tough on certain classes of crime, recommend community service and
treatment instead of jail, etc, etc. These are generally not the cities who's
cops you see embroiled in excessive force controversies but they are by no
means free of problems with their police forces use of violence.

~~~
jorblumesea
> Are we living in the same country?

Overall, the US is entirely to the right of many other places. So even the
more liberal places are still "tough on crime". I'm not sure comprehensive
reforms will be accepted even in moderate places.

> What's "politically viable" varies massively from place to place.

That's exactly my point. So having any kind of national or federal reform is
impossible because Americans cannot agree on anything. Reform from the federal
system is needed but any kind of sweeping reform at a nationwide level is
impossible.

------
cryptonector
> the senseless violence committed by Derek Chauvin—and the stunning
> indifference of the officers standing by as George Floyd begged for his
> life—is the product of our culture of near‐ zero accountability for law
> enforcement.

So true. We need reform of how abuses by law enforcement are handled. Many
things could be done besides and in addition to relaxing qualified immunity.
For example: send all cases to the States' Attorneys General rather than to
the local district attorneys -- district attorneys have to work closely with
police, so they have social barriers to effectively policing the police.
Another thing is that being placed on desk duty or off duty with pay is
abusive when it turns out the behavior was a fireable offense or criminal, so
the officer should have to pay back that pay or simply not get it to begin
with. Another thing is that police need to be trained in stepping in to their
partner's business and halt brutality (preferably before it crosses the line)
-- again, there are social problems here -the blue wall- that make this
difficult, so maybe, too, change partners often.

Also, normally, when someone gets charged with a crime, the Speedy Trial clock
begins running immediately (or at arraignment), so it's unwise to charge
persons before the State is ready to try the case, and filing charges only to
later drop them due to being baseless in retrospect is problematic, but
perhaps for LEO there could be a notice of intent to charge whose purpose is
to signal to the public that the State intends to charge the LEO if they can
find enough evidence to go to trial with.

We need to get serious about dealing with police brutality and the system's
inability to deal with it effectively. Preferably we should not overshoot and
render the police vulnerable, but I think we can avoid that problem.

~~~
ashtonkem
There also needs to be a registry of officers fired for cause. There is a long
and sordid history of cops finally crossing one line too many, only to get the
same job two towns over and repeat the process.

------
enitihas
Is there ever an instance of power being taken away from armed groups like
police or military, in any country? I think it's very easy to grant power, and
very hard to revoke. Also, what happens if the police departments refuse to
accept the decision. I am not kidding, I read that there was a strike by San
Francisco police in 1975 where the police refused to follow court orders and
declared them "illegal".

~~~
save_ferris
My understanding is that ending qualified immunity would open police officers
up to lawsuits around their use of force that they’re currently exempt from
today. So, officers risk significant financial damage by choosing to ignore
this change if it becomes law.

~~~
AtHeartEngineer
There has been proposals to have something similar to malpractice insurance,
where cops that get sued a lot will have higher rates and will likely be
kicked off the force, and good cops would bring the rates down.

------
billme
This article explains the issue in more detail:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23360295](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23360295)

~~~
emmelaich
That NYT article and more is linked to from a link in the submitted article.

[https://www.cato.org/blog/wake-george-floyds-death-all-
eyes-...](https://www.cato.org/blog/wake-george-floyds-death-all-eyes-turn-
scotus)

------
tehwebguy
OK but agencies, such as local PDs and governments, still need to be on the
hook financially at a minimum.

We absolutely need criminal accountability for individuals, but damages need
to be paid out from real coffers and not just assigned to judgement proof +
un-hirable individuals.

Will this simply push all responsibility onto the agent?

------
huntermeyer
Make cops carry liability insurance. Like car insurance. Make every wrongful
death or civil rights violation payable by the insured NOT the tax payer.

If the whole "few bad apples" argument is valid, then the premiums will stay
low.

Like car insurance, an officer's premium will go up and insurability will go
down with continued claims.

This will root out the bad apples and protect local budgets.

Arguments have been made that this will cause cops to second-guess themselves
in the line of duty. They'll think "how will this effect my premium". Welp,
they should already been considering whether their actions violate an
individual's civil rights. This just shifts the liability from the tax payer
to the perpetrator.

------
vondur
Back in the day police departments used to do psychological screening on
candidates as part of the hiring process. I've heard that many departments no
longer do so under pressure from the police unions. I wonder how many of the
extremely brutal cops would have been caught by this type of screening?

~~~
umvi
I've read police unions are way different from other types of unions, but in a
"bad way". I read the IUPA wiki, but I'm wondering if anyone with experience
has an insider's take

------
sbuttgereit
Another project fighting qualified immunity: [https://ij.org/issues/private-
property/project-on-immunity-a...](https://ij.org/issues/private-
property/project-on-immunity-and-accountability/)

------
taxicabjesus
One night I was dispatched to a fare in an area known to not be especially
prosperous. I was trying to read numbers on houses, then I saw flashing red
and blue lights ahead and knew where my prospective passenger would be found.

A police officer was on watch outside; his colleague was inside wrapping
things up. The police officer told me the family had called for an
intervention. The fire department had already departed, as Grandpa had
declined medical assistance.

I asked what the story was. The police officer said simply "probably meth",
and pointed out the right to refuse medical care is fundamental. I was
supposed to take Grandpa to a motel.

At one point in our interaction, the police officer pointed out that it takes
different kinds of cops to work in Scottsdale (for example), where some drunk
kid might have a prestigious lawyer as their parent, vs. his ghetto precinct,
where it's a point of pride to have 'taken a swing at a cop'.

Eventually Grandpa came out and got in my cab, the two police officers
departed... Then grandpa wanted his son's phone number. I started the meter
and pulled forward a few feet to where his son was standing. He got the phone
number, then a woman appeared... She said they just wanted him to get help,
Grandpa said "I just want to get some rest..." "oh, you can rest here..." My
passenger's son paid me $6 for the 20 feet, and that was the end of that.

There's a lot of collateral damage in policing... Many other passengers had
stories of being pointlessly harmed through their interactions with the
police. One white fellow let his medical marijuana card expire. One day he got
mouthy with a cop, who searched him and found his non-medical "dangerous
illegal drug". My passenger said the search was probably illegal, but his
overworked public defender didn't get the charges dismissed. I remember him
saying it cost him about $5000.

The modern police officer's job involves, in part, hurting people who don't
actually need to be hurt. Qualified immunity allows them to do the full
spectrum of their job responsibilities without being hurt themselves. Ending
auto-immune drug war, and finding ways to help people who need help, are the
actual reforms that policing needs to break it of its destructive tendencies.

~~~
nickff
I was with you until the last paragraph. I don't think police violence exists
because of the drug war; a large percentage of people who become police, and
an even larger portion of people who _remain_ police are those who enjoy
wielding power over others.

The only way to restrain the power-hungry is to be vigilant and use
discipline; police unions and culture have proven very skilled in removing
effective oversight. Given the situation, qualified immunity removes the only
real restraint on police.

note: I am personally in favor of legalizing all drugs, recreational and
medical. That said, I'm not really sure what you mean by 'auto-immune drug
war', as the 'war on drugs' doesn't specifically target immuno-suppressants.

~~~
finder83
What percentage of them become police because they enjoy power over others?

This statement seems like a false bias to me, particularly given that pretty
much every policeman/policewoman that I've known personally have been humble
and good people and became police either on a desire to help people, or just
because it was a paying job.

My evidence is anecdotal, but what is your evidence based on?

~~~
nickff
I have anecdotal evidence in the other direction, but here is the oft-
referred-to "Police Family Violence Fact Sheet".
[http://womenandpolicing.com/violenceFS.asp](http://womenandpolicing.com/violenceFS.asp)

Here is a really brilliant Reddit comment that covers a broad survey of
studies that broadly support my point:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/b9fkny/is...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskSocialScience/comments/b9fkny/is_the_claim_that_40_of_police_commit_domestic/ek500oo/)

~~~
finder83
Thanks, that still seems to be a reach as to the cause that they became police
originally though. Though the studies seem to disagree with each other, it
could be indicative of why they remain police.

I'd argue though that working in a profession that is inherently violent at
times and in which you see the worst in people can't be good for your mental
health, not to mention potential PTSD from some of the things that police
witness. Family abuse is absolutely not good and should be looked
into/stopped, but correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation.

~~~
nickff
I never said that a potential for violence was the _reason_ they became
police, I only said there was a _correlation_ , and that the correlation
increased with respect to tenure.

~~~
finder83
I took your statement to mean that they became police BECAUSE they enjoy
wielding power over others. Re-reading your statement though, I see what you
mean

------
jeffdavis
I feel like we are conflating a civil issue (qualified immunity) with criminal
issues like murder.

~~~
lliamander
I would say that the moral hazard introduced by qualified immunity increases
the likelihood that criminal violations will also occur.

Weeding out the officers that would commit infractions that result in civil
suits will probably also weed out those that would actual commit a more
serious crime.

~~~
gowld
Hmm? The civil suits are for filed for serious crimes.

~~~
ncallaway
What they are saying is officer's that kill someone often have a pattern of
bad (and sometimes escalating) behavior.

If one of the 18 use of force complaints against Chauvin had also resulted in
a civil lawsuit that found Chauvin liable, he might have been removed from the
force earlier.

That's one theory at least—I think it's a reasonable one.

I don't think removing QI from police officers should be the end-state of
reform, but I think it's a necessary step and a good one.

------
rowawey
Libertarian talking-points ahead. Charles Koch Foundation = Cato Institute =
climate change deniers (remember the fake IPCC-look-alike propaganda
"addendum"?[0])

0\. [https://external-
content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...](https://external-
content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.b7Ri33IeiCYXz2PRcgOzPQE3DI%26pid%3DApi&f=1)

[https://www.climatecentral.org/news/cato-addendum-tries-
to-u...](https://www.climatecentral.org/news/cato-addendum-tries-to-undo-
federal-climate-report-15143)

