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SCOTUS OT 2022 - Qualified Immunity Edition
- Thread starter Knuckle Dragger
- Start date
xtry51
NES Member
And those can be regulated out. QI is an abomination.
AHM
NES Member
I can testify that Howie Carr was on the receiving end of a Full Court Press last week.
Several lengthy interviews of people "explaining" QI.
Zero tough questions hinting that he'd done any homework on the issue.
No countervailing calls highlighting that the doctrine was discovered by
appeals courts shining a Maglight in a corner
which had previously been overlooked because of a penumbra.
QI already doesn’t play a role in frivolous suits. If it’s frivolous, it gets dismissed for being frivolous and there is nothing to receive immunity for.
Jamison v. McCleondon. Southern District of Mississippi.
I saw this on Twitter earlier in the week and it was highlighted in IJ's newest podcast. This opinion is a must read as the judge give a detailed history lesson and calls out SCOTUS in no uncertain terms. It's 72 pages, but that includes nearly 300 foot notes. Extra points for the Star Wars framing, and references to The Wizard of Oz and Nina Simone. Please take the time to read it. This is a damning indictment of qualified immunity.
I saw this on Twitter earlier in the week and it was highlighted in IJ's newest podcast. This opinion is a must read as the judge give a detailed history lesson and calls out SCOTUS in no uncertain terms. It's 72 pages, but that includes nearly 300 foot notes. Extra points for the Star Wars framing, and references to The Wizard of Oz and Nina Simone. Please take the time to read it. This is a damning indictment of qualified immunity.
xtry51
NES Member
I question why if he knows it is wrong, he still sides with it and finds in favor of the police? This is the old "I'm just following orders" routine.
xtry51
NES Member
Exactly. So if he rules against them, they should take up the case.
You know what makes the world better? People doing the right thing. You know what creates tyrannical governments? People following orders.
I posted about Jamison vs. McCleondon after reading the full opinion but before I had really thought about it for awhile. After a day of ruminating, I've decided that this judge is a brilliant tactician and his opinion is a work of art. In my book he gets a 10 out of 10 for both judicial engagement and narrative. But to the point.....
Judge Reeves's opinion is a dissent from his own ruling. He rules they way precedent dictates that he rule, but then he write a detailed, point-by-point dissent that lays bare just how absurd the doctrine of qualified immunity is. Along the way we get a powerful history lesson. He grants QI on two claims, but denied it one the plaintiff's third claim and remands the case for trial on that claim. He's practically ensuring that one or both parties will appeal his ruling to CA5.
And there he does some of his best work. Judge Reeves gives CA5 their own road map. Reeves walks us through how CA5 dealt with an analogous problem in section 1981 after Judge Rhesa Barksdale's dissent in Dunlin v. Bd. of Comm’rs of Greenwood Leflore Hosp. persuaded that panel to withdraw and reverse their own decision.
We will see this case again......
From the perspective of a LEO, ending QI won't fix whatever problems you guys think it will. Ending QI won't stop bad cops from doing bad things. It will stop good people from becoming cops when they know they will be armchair quarter backed after the fact even though they did their job within the confines of the law and policy yet still be open to lawsuits from the court of public opinion.
I must respectfully, but firmly disagree with you for a couple of reasons. Your comments indicate either a fundamental misunderstanding or misstatement of §1983’s meaning or of the protections extended by qualified immunity. This also sounds like the tired trope posited by police and police unions for decades that lawsuits against police officers are generally frivolous or involve the kind of split-second life or death decisions for which it would be patently unfair to second guess an officer’s motives.
First, there are no personal consequences that attach to §1983 liability. Government officials, including police officers, who are found liable of a civil right violation under §1983 do not suffer consequences. The judgement doesn’t cause them to lose their livelihoods, their freedom, their homes, or to pay damages to the injured party. In every case government officials are indemnified by their employing agency or government. In the case of police officers, their unions and civil service rules frequently ensure that they continue to be employed even after a federal court has determined their liability on §1983. Why would a police officer or other government official even care about losing a §1983 lawsuit? Section 1983 is there to protect and make whole individuals whose rights are violated by government officials under color of law. It is not there to punish the wrong-doer. Had qualified immunity been denied to Officer McCleandon and had he been found liable and an award made to Jamison, nothing would change for McCleandon. Same job, same house, same bank account.
This indemnification stretches all the way back to English Common Law. And it worked just fine until 1982. Police did not have the shield of QI and they were still able to recruit fine officers and have good careers.
Second, anyone who has actually read the first four pages of the Jamison decision or who is familiar with the more than a dozen QI cert petitions filed in OT2019 should realize that we’re talking about very, very serious incidents of misconduct. Anyone that looks at those cases as well as that of Jamison himself and thinks, “There but for the grace of God go I…” is in the wrong profession.
When a police officer body slams a five-foot-tall woman to the ground causing serious injury, the woman’s complaint is not frivolous and the officer is not making a life or death decision.
People who give the police permission to enter and search their home for a suspect (who isn’t even there) and find their house bombarded for hours with tear gas and made uninhabitable are not making a frivolous complaint about some split-second decision that went south.
The examples go on. In every case, citizens that the police are sworn to protect, have their rights violated and are severely injured – physically, emotionally, and financially – by deliberate and premeditated conduct on the part of a government official. And but for a Supreme Court decision in 1982, they would have their day in court.
I guess I would challenge you to read this entire decision and justify some reason for officer McCleondon holding Jamision for almost two hours without any legally justifiable reason.
Returning to my first point, I’ve seen proposed (Clark Neily at CATO) that police officers carry liability insurance. That would effectively introduce a market mechanism that could help weed out bad police and reform bad police departments. Insurers could evaluate their risk in insuring individual police officers based upon their agency’s policyies, training, and record, as well as the record of the individual officer.
Furthering that point, it’s starting to surprise me that most states don’t have a licensing or credentialing system for police. We license or credential doctors, electricians, teachers, etc. all of whom risk losing their livelihoods if their licenses are revoked for malpractice or other serious offenses related to their profession. When my wife was a municipal paramedic, she was required to earn and obtain a state license. Lose that license due to malpractice and she lost her livelihood. Police, at least in Mass, go to an accredited academy and presumably need to maintain certain qualification like firearms proficiency and maybe a CPR card. But no license. If they are fired by one department for incompetence or misconduct, the chief in the next town over can hire them. They’ve already been to the academy, so it’s a quick, cheap hire.
KBCraig
NES Member
QI only applies when a cop has done a bad (illegal/unconstitutional) thing, so I'm not sure I follow the concern about armchair quarterbacking.
If SCOTUS had limited QI to the scope of the 1967 Pierson ruling where they invented QI, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it. But they didn't, and now QI has reached the ridiculous point of applying when officers had not been specifically told that stealing money from suspects was an unconstitutional abuse of power.
I saw this case last week, I think on the Volokh Conspiracy. I think you're being way too optimistic. I'm not sure there are five votes on the current Supreme Court to put a serious dent in qualified immunity. And if Trump gets another appointment, forget it. I doubt Thomas could get all four liberal justices onboard here. Breyer and maybe Kagen would probably support continuing QI. Gorsuch might be in play, but probably not Kavanaugh. Forget about Alito, he's the biggest statist on the court .I'm sure this isnt the perfect place to put this but it shows that there are cracks in the foundation of QI and that sooner than later the supreme court is gonna have to act
Folks here love that SCOTUS swings right. That's great for gun rights, but not so much for other rights. Folks here generally approved of the court's decision in Ramos and McGirt. But forget that these majority opinions required the court's liberal wing and Alito was on the wrong side of both of them.
Judges Confirmed Under Trump Are Splitting With Other Republican Appointees In Cases Against Police
I don't have a lot of hope that qualified immunity is going to be fixed by the courts anytime soon. If Trump puts another justice on the Supreme Court, we're going to have to live with qualified immunity (probably near-absolute immunity) for the rest of our lifetimes. Trumps judicial appointemenst have been good for gun rights - probably, but they're going to come at the cost of our other rights.
I don't have a lot of hope that qualified immunity is going to be fixed by the courts anytime soon. If Trump puts another justice on the Supreme Court, we're going to have to live with qualified immunity (probably near-absolute immunity) for the rest of our lifetimes. Trumps judicial appointemenst have been good for gun rights - probably, but they're going to come at the cost of our other rights.
Supreme Court Rejects Qualified Immunity Defense for the First Time in Years
Earlier today, the Supreme Court issued a decision rejecting a law enforcement officer's "qualified immunity" defense. Taylor v. Riojas was…
reason.com
AHM
NES Member
It's easier to throw stare decisis out the window
when rioters have whipped a brick through the pane beforehand.
Given that the entire concept of qualified immunity was invented by the Supreme Court from whole cloth in 1981, stare decisis is a questionable position in this case.
Maybe I’m missing your point, but have you read the details of the case? Do you really think the corrections officers had no way to know that keeping a man naked in a freezing cell smeared with shit and no bed and only a clogged drain for six days was wrong, and pretty clearly cruel and unusual punishment?
Chevy 2 65
NES Member
Good. Now you know how the peasants get it. But it will change nothing
AHM
NES Member
Probably.
The nation is burning to the ground, at least partially on the pretext
that QI is a crock invented to immunize police from having to obey the law.
Set aside the fact that QI actually is a crock
invented to immunize police from having to obey the law -
so far that hasn't impressed the Supreme Court in the slightest.
Because (among other things) stare decisis.
But not only does the Supreme Court "... ((follow)) the election returns",
they also can hear sirens and mobs beating on improvised drums.
And the closer the sounds of riot, looting, arson, and murder approach their houses,
the more QI impresses them as bad law;
case law so bad that they might just throw it out.
AHM
NES Member
(In the fervent hope that I can avoid a tune-up,
it's only fair to add that I ain't got a substitute doctrine
that protects cops against accidents, and malicious charges.
Mainly because I don't recall that the libertarian brain-trusters
eloquent in their rejection of QI have a substitute to suggest.
They might have ideas - even good ones - but none come to mind).
Alito’s concurrence makes some sense based on his explanation. Thomas, and not giving any opinion on why he voted the way he did, voting the way he did, is odd.
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The article which is linked in post #141 has a brief thought on this issue. If you search for "Thomas" in the article, you will find it easily.
Of course, without any comment from Thomas, the reason is still speculation, but I found it interesting.
AHM
NES Member
De nada.
It's all too easy to get misunderstood around here lately,
and I certainly don't want to trigger Yet Another Flamefest
with my elliptical post,
so since it wasn't hard to explain what I was thinking (<- for what it was worth),
it was not a burden to clarify things.
I presume it's 4D-chess (as opposed to mere conservatism-not-libertarianism).
But I could be totally wrong.
Thomas has been a reliable critic of QI. Alito is ever sympathetic police powers.
AHM
NES Member
That's the kind of intra-GOP nuance I can appreciate.
Taylor v. Riojas was summarily reversed earlier this month. I think this is the first time since 2004 that the court has reversed a QI grant. Thomas dissents without writing. Alito concurrs, but on procedural grounds in the per curium opinion.
The fact of the case are really disturbing as is the Fifth Circuit's opinion.
CA5 had earlier held that holding prisoners in cells covered in human waste was unconstitutional. But in affirming the QI grant, CA5 differentiated Taylor's case based upon the amount of time prisoners are held in filthy conditions.
The fact of the case are really disturbing as is the Fifth Circuit's opinion.
CA5 had earlier held that holding prisoners in cells covered in human waste was unconstitutional. But in affirming the QI grant, CA5 differentiated Taylor's case based upon the amount of time prisoners are held in filthy conditions.
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