> a federal judge ruled that the expression might violate Florida's obscenity law and would thus be unprotected by the First Amendment.
> the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled yesterday that the case is not so cut and dry, awarding qualified immunity to English and thus dooming the suit Webb brought against him for allegedly violating his free speech rights and for falsely arresting him.
The lawsuit wouldn't be against the officer, though, would it? Seems like if an officer is doing the job as they were trained to, and ends up violating a citizen's rights in the process, it's the police dept that should answer for it.
"The purpose of suing a government official in his or her individual capacity is to impose personal liability for actions taken under color of state law."
This case sounds like a Section 1983 civil claim for violation of constitutional rights, where you can hold the individual official responsible for money damages if they violated a clearly-established constitutional right acting under color of state law. 42 USC § 1983.
"Suing a government official in an official capacity, on the other hand, is an alternative way to assert a claim against the entity he or she represents. . . ." (citations omitted).
This is really just suing the state government unit to which the official belongs, but stated differently.
That's not getting into all the immunity issues that arise in suing officials/government units.
> the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida ruled yesterday that the case is not so cut and dry, awarding qualified immunity to English and thus dooming the suit Webb brought against him for allegedly violating his free speech rights and for falsely arresting him.
The lawsuit wouldn't be against the officer, though, would it? Seems like if an officer is doing the job as they were trained to, and ends up violating a citizen's rights in the process, it's the police dept that should answer for it.