Is there some way to seek damages for the violation of your constitutional rights? Is there some way to seek damages for the violation of your constitutional rights?What I'm asking is, if you hadn't suffered such injustices, and had just been pulled over and let go without a fine or charges, would you still have grounds to sue the city simply over the violation of your constitutional rights? (that is, just for the unlawful seizure under the 4th amendment) How much damages would be appropriate in such a situation?
Your rights are your rights. In my mind a few 1000$ but i dont actually know. In practice the proceeding legal battle would probably not be worth it.
The fact that this city was collecting 61% of their annual revenue through regular police stops (many of which seem to be unconstitutional) is alarming. There has to be a better solution than to just appeal or sue for compensatory damages, which in most cases, will have little to no affect on the city. Even the $30K damages in this case seems small compared to the more than $1 million they collected in 2006 alone.
It seems like they should be subject to substantial fines, if not jail time for the officers or judges that are involved in these stops and cases. It just seems wrong that a city can arrest and jail someone for almost a month for not paying a $1,580 fine, but no one in the city government gets jail time for violating the constitutional rights of thousands of citizens, while making millions from their disregard of the law.