Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Qualified Immunity

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/05/30/police-george-floyd-qualified-immunity-supreme-court-column/5283349002/

by lpolovets • 6 years ago

144 133 6 years ago

usatoday.com

JadeNB• 6 years ago

In other words, police act like laws don't apply to them because they don't (not in some "that's what it feels like" sense, but as a matter of precedent and court finding). See starting at 3 here https://threader.app/thread/1266053291684827138 , and the linked https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-poli... .

hedora• 6 years ago

Call your representatives. Demand qualified immunity (and civil forfeiture) be eliminated.

PaulDavisThe1st6• 6 years ago

It cannot be eliminated by legislation. It arises from a SCOTUS decision, and can only be undone by them (at least in the broadest sense).

chrismcb• 6 years ago

That isn't how it works. Of course it can be done through legislation. That is how the branches balance each other.

stonogo2• 6 years ago

That's not how this works. Laws can absolutely be changed; in the case of a SCOTUS decision, that's what constitutional amendments are for.

cataphract• 6 years ago

This is not true. Only their interpretation of the Constitution cannot be overridden by legislation (requires a constitutional amendment). Here, where the Court is interpreting a federal statue, namely 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Congress could in fact change the law to make it clear that the qualified immunity defense the Court made up does not apply.

mlthoughts2018• 6 years ago

“Call your representative” is vacuous advice. It will achieve nothing. It’s going straight to /dev/null.

skadamou• 6 years ago

Does anyone know some examples of organizations that work to change laws like this? Or organizations that work with victims of police brutality to hold perpetrators accountable?

I would like to support changing some of the things about our society that contribute to overreach by police but it is hard to know where to begin

Covzire• 6 years ago

It would probably need support from police/ex-police to be truly effective. One of my in-laws was with the highway patrol for over a decade and it's interesting how it changes someone when they're around crime all the time. It does something to the human psyche to be around violent or dishonest people all the time so it might be very difficult to find cops/excops to help reforms because most have probably had their outlook of people/society permanently changed, often for the worse.

smichel17• 6 years ago

Right, this is why it's important for police to have other duties in their communities in addition to fighting crime.

Pxtl• 6 years ago

Oh, so Trump's supreme court gets to decide this? Yeah, in suuuuuuper confident this will go well.

ta177117712• 6 years ago

Why do I get the feeling you're not super familiar with the Supreme Court?

hprotagonist• 6 years ago

I have been meta-worried about the optics of protests because as a student of history i see echoes of 1964 and 1968, and i am horrified at the idea of a “law and order” second term.

USA Today publishing something like this does a bit to assuage my fears! For the non-American HN audience, USA Today is the anodyne newspaper you get for free at a business hotel chain with your crappy refrigerated muffin or yogurt and instant coffee. It’s about as intentionally bland and inoffensive to everyone newspaper as still exists.

If the message there is this, we might pull it off and meaningfully address something instead of wanking about protestors like we usually do.

newacct5833• 6 years ago

I'll raise you one level of meta, and note how surprised I am that the discourse right here on HN, which is normally populated heavily with a... let's say reactionary conservative worldview... has swung hard to the "left" on this issue and others in recent weeks.

Indeed the perception of "mainstream" seems to have shifted away from the messaging the administration wants to present in lots of forums like this.

solveit• 6 years ago

HN is more libertarian than conservative. The libertarianism often aligns HN with conservatives, but HN and conservatives diverge wildly when it comes to government overreach, whether that be police brutality, cryptography regulation, or the war on drugs.

Note how even within the police brutality issue, HN is focusing on organisational incentives for police recruiting and conduct instead of the more mainstream race angle. HN believes in well-designed systems of incentives. The (ideal of the) free market with appropriate minimal regulations is the dream, which usually sides HN with small-c conservatives on economic issues and even makes HN look reactionary from time to time.

Of course, as you say, the administration is anathema to any group of intellectuals. And I'm sure previous administrations would have spun their cases to be more appealing to HN and similar forums. But I don't think the basic position of HN on police brutality is particularly new or surprising.

Disclaimer: Obviously HN is many people who have many opinions which I wrote as a single entity for convenience.

klyrs• 6 years ago

I, myself, have been wondering where the "free speech" crowd is this week. A common theme I see here is outrage about censorship by private companies. In the last 4 years, we've seen Trump railing against the press, encouraging people to assault members of the press, etc. In the last 4 days, we've seen members of the press getting maimed, falsely arrested, and assaulted by the police. This is overt suppression of the press by the government, plain and simple violations of our constitution (and quite relevant to this story). This kind of treatment of the press is something that's been used as a partial justification to invade other countries in my lifetime -- that it's happening in the US with hardly any commentary by the "free speech" advocates is a great disappointment to me.

But the "reactionary" crowd is still here -- looking at their patterns of posting on [1], it looks almost tailored to get the story flagged (accounts got banned, but that page only lasted on the front page for a few good minutes). The truth of the matter is that folks are uncomfortable discussing race, because our community has internalized a lot racism. Discussing our society's painfully visible race inequity is "flamebait" because racists gonna show up and drag the conversation down.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23355964

remote_phone4• 6 years ago

They need to double the pay for cops and remove their protections like qualified immunity and the right to fire if they feel threatened. This is the only way we get higher quality cops in the system, we incentivize better people to join with money. Maybe once we have a critical mass of great cops we will need less cops overall.

All of these extra costs associated with overtime etc because of these riots and looting are a direct result of employing shitty cops and completely avoidable. The costs should be taken directly from the pension funds of cops as far as I’m concerned, cities should not bear the costs of overtime because of riots caused by cops killing people.

If we had a critical mass of good cops, we likely would need less overtime overall because the relationship would be better between law enforcement and citizens, especially minorities.

mydongle5• 6 years ago

I feel like the privilege to carry a gun and be allowed to use it should be an earned one as well.

Police need to remember they serve us, and by taking the job, they have vowed to put their lives on the line for people. We have no need for cowards who fear for their life and just shoot every possible threat.

ultrarunner3• 6 years ago

Who determines when the right is earned? Civilian review boards have been resisted consistently and internal reviews are heavily biased (as evidenced by such things as rehiring officers who resigned amidst arguably criminal infractions).

pmiller22• 6 years ago

That's the problem. Police don't serve us. "To protect and serve" is literally just a marketing slogan for the LAPD [0]. Police have no duty to protect the public, according to the Supreme Court [1]. Moreover, the origin of police forces in the US was not to protect the public, but to protect the social order and serve private property interests:

More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to "disorder." What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. [2]

[0] http://www.lapdonline.org/history_of_the_lapd/content_basic_...

[1] https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-y...

[2] https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united...

giardini3• 6 years ago

In Britain perhaps, but I'm in the USA where anyone is (generally) allowed to carry a gun, especially police. Arguing that police should earn the right to carry a gun (especially when that right is so firmly established) in the USA would be a fool's errand.

ta177117712• 6 years ago

Troopers in certain states already make over 80-100k USD, how much money should it take to hire a decent human being?

CameronNemo2• 6 years ago

They make above average salaries for their education level, their jobs are less dangerous and physically demanding than logging and refinery work, and they do not have to move outside of their communities.

Law enforcement is already a sweet gig.

Mediterraneo10• 6 years ago

Maybe raising pay might lower other corruption as well. Georgia (the country) had a police notorious for demanding bribes like other former-USSR nations, but one of the ways their police force was drastically cleaned up and made similar to developed European countries was by boosting basic pay.

PaulDavisThe1st6• 6 years ago

Here's a police recruitment ad (admittedly from more than a decade ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rKA6ROAVk

(Newport Beach Police Department recruiting video, from 2008)

And the problem is just the salary and QI? I don't think so.

jacobush• 6 years ago

Bo-ya! I'm getting pumped to shoot and choke! Stop resisting! "We are a family of officers"

greedo3• 6 years ago

I would love to require LEOs to have a 4 year degree, and then attend an accredited police academy. Doctors spend far more time so that they can save lives, and it's only appropriate that police officers who are given the government sanctioned ability to take lives have higher education and training than the current piss poor standards.

greedo3• 6 years ago

My neighbor is a Sargent in the local PD. Town of 300K. He made $140K last year ($40K of it OT). I think the notion that police are underpaid is not accurate, at least here.

newacct5833• 6 years ago

There's a lot of spread, but yeah: in general police work pays much better than jobs with similar qualifications. They're also almost universally union jobs with excellent job security and public benefits.

remote_phone4• 6 years ago

My point is we should pay cops very high salaries, $300k+ to attract those that might go into other professions.

Consultant324523• 6 years ago

How about lawsuits against the police for bad behavior get paid out of their pension fund, instead of by the taxpayer?

corrys10• 6 years ago

What are "higher quality cops"? People with more developed morals and ethics? Money does not necessarily attract more compassionate or kind people. There are plenty of other high paying industries where that's not the case (e.g. banks, real estate).

marcusverus• 6 years ago

I think the idea is that low pay actively excludes many high-achiever types who are capable of making much more money in the private sector--without gambling their lives. You cannot recruit the best and brightest unless you can pay a competitive salary.

Paying more doesn't guarantee 'higher quality' but it sure helps.

firethief• 6 years ago

Meanwhile in reality, some districts disqualify any applicant that can pass an IQ test: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...

dang2• 6 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23370056

cwhiz3• 6 years ago

Cops are already paid extremely well.

DangitBobby5• 6 years ago

By what metric? https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Po...

corrys10• 6 years ago

The duality of good/bad cops is absolutely a distraction. It would be great to have a society with only good people. No bad people. Is that a solution? Is that even an option? There will always be cops who break the law. Let's start with that. The next question is: what, as a society, do we do with that. Allow cops to commit crimes without repercussions? Well, then we get riots (with good reason). Police unions, attorneys, judges who protect criminal cops - these are the institutions and the people who make the unhealthy situation (aka "bad cops") much worse.

ashtonkem8• 6 years ago

The Nikansen center had a nifty idea: constitutional small claims court. If an officer violates your rights, there is a process to make them pay. Not the state, not their department, the officer who wronged you.

bilbo0s• 6 years ago

Just, Devil's Advocate, but would that encourage rogue police to not leave the victim alive? My understanding was that part of the reason many people get angry when they discover the right to privacy ends when you die, is because it is difficult, (maybe even non-sensical?), to file constitutional claims on behalf of someone who is deceased.

(Are there any attorneys on HN familiar with, for instance, the rights to privacy of the deceased? I'm pretty sure they don't have any.)

I think it's best just to file a civil suit rather than trying to set up a system that the Supremes could very well deem unconstitutional.

What might work is for municipalities to write into police labor agreements that XX% share of any civil judgement precipitated by your actions will be borne by you alone. You're still jointly and separately liable, but the municipality would be able to go after the officer in a separate action.

Something along those lines would accomplish the same thing without bringing constitutional questions into it.

asjw• 6 years ago

Policemen salaries are already very, very good.

Meanwhile fast food employees on minimum wage get fired for much, much, much, much less.

I think the problem lays elsewhere.

DangitBobby5• 6 years ago

Do you consider "below median in all 50 states" to be "very, very good"?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374398

bcrosby95• 6 years ago

San Jose:

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-jos...

Doubling the total compensation there would mean about 50% of those people would be making 500k+/year. I don't think they're as underpaid as you think they are. Most of those people on that list already make more than me as a non-FAANG Software Engineer in the region.

DangitBobby5• 6 years ago

Average salary of police in Minneapolis appears to be about $60k. I don't know why you're just picking the highest salaries to talk about. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/police-offi...

malnourish• 6 years ago

Officers who commit crimes should be tried and held for significantly higher penalties -- multiples in my opinion.

I am opposed to punitive justice vis-a-vis restorative and rehabilitative but this is the system we are in.

A police officer who steals or murders is offending the community on multiple fronts.

ykevinator• 6 years ago

I don't know about the "because" part, I think the job attracts tough guys and racists (not saying all cops are bad)

polynomial2• 6 years ago

TBF, Plato's Republic explicitly states the guardians of the Polis were not subject to the same laws, and refers to the idea that there is no hierarchy as the "noble lie."

reducesuffering• 6 years ago

The "noble lie" was not that there's no hierarchy. It was that there was an oracle that the city would be overthrown if the lowest rank became the guardian or leaders of the city. This would lead the people to always let a person's rank be formed appropriately. Higher rank parents would let their offspring be lower rank, and lower rank parents would push their offspring to the higher rank, as would the rest of society. Because they would all fear the city being overthrown.

polynomial2• 6 years ago

And here we are.

ashtonkem8• 6 years ago

It is extremely hard to believe that we live in a lawful society if the keepers of the peace are considered to be above the law.

ineedasername2• 6 years ago

Maybe qualified immunity needs to be reduced in scope, but what is the alternative? Without something like it, police might otherwise be held liable for something like having to taser a violent person, only they hit their head on the way down?

freeone3000• 6 years ago

If I tasered a person, I'd have to justify it. I'd like the police to be forced to do the same.

AnimalMuppet• 6 years ago

In the current climate in the US, there will be lawyers eager to find any possible grounds to file a lawsuit for stupendous amounts because the cop looked at someone wrong, and hurt their fragile self-esteem (I exaggerate, slightly). That's probably going to make an environment where police cannot operate effectively. Yes, they'd be careful not to step across the line. But they'd have to give no grounds for a lawyer looking for a payday to even be able to claim that they had stepped across the line.

The current abuses are horrible. But cops fearful of their own shadow is not a better outcome for society.

corrys10• 6 years ago

You can already do that right now. You can already file a lawsuit for a stupendous amounts because the cop looked at you the wrong way. Would the cop get prosecuted? No. Losing qualified immunity doesn't mean that cops will automatically be at fault for anything you desire. The laws would still exist.

corrys10• 6 years ago

Yes, that's how responsibility works. Doesn't mean that cops will be sentenced and go to jail for every person they tased, just means they won't be immune by default.

ineedasername2• 6 years ago

How would that differ, functionally, from what we have now? Clearly a prosecutor can already bring charges when a cop steps over the line. Assuming that "line" wouldn't change, how does that differ from qualified immunity? I'm honestly asking here, because I'm not a huge fan of QI but I don't see a good alternative.

qualifiedai• 6 years ago

If your are angry about injustice it is wrong to be angry against police and courts enforcing wrong laws.

Demand action from politicians to change those laws (e.g. remove qualified immunity, etc). While protesting is important, engaging with your representatives and VOTING is very important too.

WealthVsSurvive2• 6 years ago

Gerrymandering, mass surveillance, oligarch-owned news media that works in conjunction with the state. VOTING doesn't do much. No confidence. They are dismissed.

rayiner2• 6 years ago

It's sad to see how little progress has been made on concrete reforms that would meaningfully reduce these problems. Curtailing qualified immunity, and limiting the power of police unions to protect "bad apples" is something with bi-partisan ideological support.

https://www.heritage.org/courts/commentary/less-government-m...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-poli...

https://www.cato.org/blog/why-qualified-immunity

You'd think reforms to qualified immunity--which everyone from the ACLU to Heritage to Cato agrees on--would be on the fast track to legislation, at least in left-leaning states. There is no reason a state like California, where politicians habitually genuflect to social justice, couldn't pass legislation to create causes of action against police officers that aren't subject to the federal constitution's qualified immunity doctrine. None at all. Instead, for some reason the debate is now about whether rioting and property destruction is an acceptable response to police brutality--an extreme position that is not going to carry the day with anyone but a tiny minority.

corrys10• 6 years ago

Police unions are the real problem in this situation. There will always be criminal cops. As long as they are protected by corrupt and powerful unions - they will have very little incentive to change.

newacct5833• 6 years ago

I don't know that the unions are the problem per se. They're just the face of the advocacy for the interests of criminal cops (which isn't surprising: it's literally their job to advocate for their members).

In fact when this gets polled, police rank and file are absolutely behind their "bad apple" compatriots. There is deep mistrust of public oversight within the law enforcement community as a whole, and that doesn't have to do with their labor organization.

ashtonkem8• 6 years ago

Is QI something easily amenable via legislation? I was under the impression that the Supreme Court created the doctrine based on the constitution, which I thought means it’ll be hard to legislate.

rayiner2• 6 years ago

The qualified immunity doctrine is a judge-created limitation on claims based on violations of federal constitutional rights. It doesn't preclude legislatures from creating causes of action under state law to allow officers to be held accountable.

stevehawk• 6 years ago

They have immunity and no requirement to protect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

ashtonkem8• 6 years ago

Which kinda seems like a bad deal for society. No guarantee of (an attempt at) protection, but immunity for those who abuse the power of the state.

cordite2• 6 years ago

Would military like training help? Drilling events, having high quality roleplay? It's not like Nasa flies to space without drilling everything.

corrys10• 6 years ago

Help with what? Keep cops in shape? Absolutely. Make cops more compassionate? Possibly not (not sure). Would it help to hold criminal cops accountable? No relation to military training.

cordite2• 6 years ago

I guess more towards predictable and within expectations.

dang2• 6 years ago

Related ongoing thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23371537

Ididntdothis• 6 years ago

I don't want to excuse the abuses but I think in a sense the cops are the victims of bad politics and management. Obviously shooting innocent people is not acceptable but on the other hand they are being thrown into a bad situation and don't get much help coping with that. I know a guy (very nice guy) who started as a cop two years ago. Since then he had to shoot somebody in the leg who attacked him with a knife, had to deal with a teenage girl hanging herself, lots of domestic violence and a lot of other really bad stuff that's very tough to deal with. They don't get any psychological counseling so a lot of the old-timers are either alcoholics or have some other kind of psychological damage.

In the end politics needs to have the courage to address the underfunding and also address the training and management situation. They don't want to do either because it may cost money so the bad situation just keeps going. Reminds me of the healthcare situation where even the most blatant problems go unaddressed because it's more important to do partisan fighting instead of addressing issues. I think it's well understood that the drug laws are damaging so it would be a good start to clean them up.

darksaints• 6 years ago

I'd like to point out that even when police officers have their hearts in the right places, they don't do themselves any favors by going after those in blue who abuse their power. We have heard countless stories of police officers that crossed the blue line to do what was right, only for extreme retaliation to occur, to the point of getting fired, harassed, assaulted, stalked, and even murdered.

And the idea that people can just join the police force with good intentions is fatally flawed. The police is a hierarchical organization with a culture that is characterized by its top down command structure. In order to have any influence at all, you have to be at the top...and by the time you get to the top, you're assimilated into the culture. It is self perpetuating.

Absent of firing all the police and starting over from scratch (an option I'm oddly not opposed to), I think the only way we can accomplish this is with strong carrots and even stronger sticks. Taking away qualified immunity is just the first step.

We have laws that punish doctors and lawyers and even commercial truck drivers more harshly when they commit crimes that directly relate to their jobs, under the premise that they know better and should be held to a higher standard. No such laws exist for police, but they should.

I think most importantly though is that we need to protect those who break ranks for good reasons. Retaliation, in any way, shape, or form, by police officers for enforcing the law against another police officer, should be a Class A felony with sentencing in the double digits. And we shouldn't just stop there. Good cops that enforce the law against bad cops deserve our protection, much like how we go out of our way to protect witnesses and whistle-blowers.

And not only that, but there should never be investigations into criminal misconduct by a police officer by other police officers of the same jurisdiction. Once it crosses the line from department policy violation to criminal violation, that investigation should be handed over to a superceding jurisdiction, and any local jurisdiction on the matter should be voided.

_bxg15• 6 years ago

firing all the police and starting over from scratch

I honestly think this might be the only true solution. We have to have police. But right now we have such an entrenched, caustic, tribal, "swamp" of a culture that I don't see how it could possibly be changed without first draining it completely.

ashtonkem8• 6 years ago

Ten years ago the idea “what if we replaced all cops” would be unthinkable nonsense; literally outside the Overton window.

Now... it’s actually kind of appealing.

Consultant324523• 6 years ago

Citizens should be able to pull some of their tax money away from ineffective police departments to hold them accountable. There could be competing police forces, all run by the government, and the citizens should get to fund the ones they prefer, not unlike charter schools allow parents to fund the schools they prefer, and food stamps allow the poor to buy the food they want from the grocery store they prefer.

ashtonkem8• 6 years ago

It rankles me to no end knowing that I’m on the hook financially whenever cops misbehave.

They should have to pay settlements personally.

jeffdavis2• 6 years ago

Isn't qualified immunity only for civil suits? Police can still be criminally charged.

Perhaps police aren't charged criminally when they should be, but that doesn't seem to be because of qualified immunity.

Suing over murder is not a great recourse, anyway. You still lost your loved one, and the individual you sue probably can't pay you much.

_bxg15• 6 years ago

Perhaps police aren't charged criminally when they should be, but that doesn't seem to be because of qualified immunity.

But qualified immunity prevents those who care to take recourse from acting to take recourse. That's the issue. The police virtually never bring criminal charges against their own.

and the individual you sue probably can't pay you much

I'm sure the police department can. They sure can afford military-grade gear.

ashtonkem8• 6 years ago

I don’t want the department to pay; that’s our tax money. If I run over someone with my car and I’m found criminally liable, then I have to pay. Why should the state step in to pay when cops misbehave?

jeffdavis2• 6 years ago

"But qualified immunity prevents those who care to take recourse from acting to take recourse."

If a cop murders someone, we need a way to get them into prison, not a way to sue them (or sue the taxpayers).

More bodycams, more dash cams. Maybe every arrest video should be reviewed by an independent organization even without a complaint. Usually bad behavior starts with little things, and its easier to correct before it escalates.

rowawey• 6 years ago

It's entirely naïve to believe that an apartheid for the primary benefit of the wealthy can or will ever be reformed from within. Citizens' United, "campaign finance reform", lack of action on climate change, and many, many other examples of the corrupting influences of the very rich will preclude significant change because the status quo is how the aristocracy prefers it. Voting/media-driven popularity contests masquerading as elections without exit polls, protests, petitions, and nibbling around the periphery on small issues like QI or as Rachel Maddow doesn't do a damn bit of good because the bigger problem is who's in control: it's not We The People.

If a citizen really wanted change, voting, running for office, looting, and peaceful protests with prayer sticks aren't the answer. There is no reforming a system that has no mechanism for reforming pervasive corruption within and above it! Therefore and unfortunately, the rich have left us with no other answer other than focused, strategic rebellion, and overthrow of their greedy, vampiric apartheid that too many people are blind to because it benefits them. Queue predictable pearl-clutchers and naysayers

masonic• 6 years ago

Related, from earlier today:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23371537

Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Qualified Immunity

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