Posted on 04/30/2021 5:19:46 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The world’s largest municipal police union, the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), quietly admitted to its members this month what civil rights advocates have long argued: Getting rid of qualified immunity will encourage government officials to obey the law.
New York City made national headlines in March by limiting qualified immunity for police officers accused of violating New Yorkers’ rights. Pointing to this recent change, the memo “strongly caution(s)” police officers to limit their searches of individuals or private property to cases where the officer is “clearly and unequivocally within the bounds of the law.”
In other words, when you remove qualified immunity, police officers start taking constitutional rights more seriously.
Created by U.S. Supreme Court in 1982, qualified immunity prevents civil lawsuits for damages against government officials who violated a person’s constitutional rights unless the victim can prove the official violated “clearly established” law. This requires finding a previous case in the same appellate jurisdiction where a court held that exact same conduct involving the exact same facts resulted in a constitutional violation. For most victims of government misconduct, finding such a case is impossible.
Consider the case of Lowell Phillips, a Ferndale, Mich., police officer. In pursuit of a man he suspected of possessing marijuana and prescription pills, Phillips violently rammed his car off the road before sprinting up to the driver’s window and shooting him three times, killing him. The Sixth Circuit held that although Phillips violated the man’s constitutional rights, he was nonetheless entitled to qualified immunity because previous cases “did not involve many of the key facts in this case, such as car chases on open roads and collisions between the suspect and police cars.”
In passing its own limits on qualified immunity for officers, New York City became the first major municipality to join the growing movement of states like Colorado and New Mexico trying to find ways to ensure their residents can seek damages when their rights are violated.
The city’s bold step forward matters for three reasons.
First, the PBA’s legal guidance proves an important point: Improving the culture of law enforcement agencies requires a lot of different steps, but the first is simply holding accountable those who break the law. Warning officers about situations where they might be violating someone’s rights is already a big step in the right direction for police reform.
Second, New York City demonstrates the ability of municipalities to spearhead qualified immunity reform, even in the absence of state support. While not every city has a police force the size of New York’s (55,000 combined officers and civilian employees) or the same political autonomy, many cities can pursue reform at some level, and now they have a concrete example.
Finally, every state or municipality that moves to end qualified immunity helps to dispel the myths that often stymie civil rights reform efforts. Lawmakers are used to hearing apocalyptic claims from defenders of qualified immunity, who argue that ending it will bankrupt well-intentioned officials or expose cities and states to unaffordable civil liabilities.
But as UCLA professor Joanna Schwartz found in her police indemnification study, government officials are almost always indemnified against personal liability, meaning they suffer little to no financial risk even in the absence of qualified immunity. And as the PBA’s guidance shows, holding officials accountable creates the right incentives for states, municipalities and departments to supervise officer behavior, which will help minimize lawsuits and settlements.
Americans desperate for justice and reconciliation should welcome the PBA’s legal guidance as a clear sign that while the fight for accountability is far from over, there is hope on the horizon.
Reese is the activism policy manager for the Institute for Justice.
By those new guidelines do we sue the entire FBI?
NYDN is a Rat rag
Number of NYPD officers who left the force or retired last year spiked 75% amid anti-police hostility
More than 5,300 officers — or roughly 15% of the force — at the New York Police Department either retired or put in their papers to leave in 2020, the New York Post reported after reviewing department data.
You got that right.
What this means is that if the police search under circumstances where they think is justified, and a trial court agrees, but two years later an appellate court disagrees, the cops can be sued.
So, cops don’t search unless they get consent or have a warrant. It makes no difference if the law says other types of searches are ok, because some appellate court down the line might find those other searches “unlawful”. Why take the risk?
Unfortunately, this will likely not be used most often in such clear rights violations described in the article.
Juries decide the case and like all other civil liability claims, it’s viewed as the lottery.
Expect to see this used most with the lawyer heavy - antifa or blm types funded by soros orgs. The big payouts will fund their operations at taxpayer expense.
This is a decision made by the State of New York, so it wouldn't apply to Federal officers. However, the point you raise is still excellent. Hopefully the USSC will rule at some point that even federal officials cannot escape being personally sued if they take actions against citizens which are clearly outside the limits of the law.
“The world’s largest municipal police union, the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), quietly admitted to its members this month what civil rights advocates have long argued: Getting rid of qualified immunity will encourage government officials to obey the law.”
And just freakin HOW did they do that?
Let's suppose that you are an official, and you approve of an action which is unlawful, and it clearly violates someone's rights. A civil suit follows, and you are PERSONALLY held liable for several million dollars in damages. Do you think that something like this will get the attention of other officials who act recklessly?
You obviously have an issue with reading comprehension as that has 0 to do with the question I posed.
Talking to yourself?
MY question WAS How did the Union “quietly admit to it’s members that getting rid of qualified immunity will encourage government officials to obey the law”
I believe the author made this up as I have a hard time believing the Union admitted anything close to this.
Honestly, with the exception of searches incident to taking someone into custody or placing them under arrest, the cops *should* have to get consent or a warrant. 30 years ago, that could take a ridiculous amount of time but with the modern era of technology, no officer will wait more than 15 minutes to get a warrant, if the request is made in good faith.
A society will have exactly the amount of crime (no matter who commits the crime) that it chooses to tolerate.
Society has been consistently misled by “Protect and Serve”. The real job of the police is not to “solve problems and make the community safe”. The police exist only to project the power of government. Qualified immunity may appear to be tumbling down, but when the officer sues the department for improper policy, training or guidance, trial lawyers will be more than happy to go for the deeper pocket of government.
Police need to just give tickets in some of these cases and let the courts mess with it. The guy selling ciggies, the guy with expired tags and the guy with a fake 20 should be given tickets. If they don’t show up or pay fine then arrest them but at least it won’t be at the heat of the moment. I think that would solve everything.
That will also mean the brass that provided the improper policy, training and guidance will be liable for their poor decisions instead of being able to hide behind two layers of qualified immunity.
Should cut down on the bullies somewhat, if combined with universal mandatory usage of body cameras on uniformed officers - and any government functionary having to deal with the public.
Actually, it doesn’t, but they should be ticketing more than they do - and we know that there are at least some cops that need to not be officers because they’re on power trips.
[[[And just freakin HOW did they do that?]]]
They didn’t. Fake news.
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