Hacker News Reader

Comment by altruios | Hacker News Reader

a good cop would not be “ruined” by being held accountable to their actions.

Do not excuse evil.

> I think most intelligent people are going to model out the expected outcome of their career choices at least intuitively

And yet we have doctors who face exactly the same risks as is being proposed. Your argument is flawed and 1-dimensional. People choose their careers on many factors.

If we make it so good cops are rewarded (by having cheaper insurance), we have more good cops. That’s a win.

Qualified immunity must go.

View on HN

Qualified immunity needs a new standard, but it is necessary.

It makes no sense to hold police personally liable for doing exactly what they are trained and instructed to do.

We don't hold individual construction workers personally liable if they are following a certified blueprint and the building code.

You are characterizing police brutality - what we want to curb - as something they are trained to do… this is disingenuous at best. If a police officer kills someone innocent, or enters the wrong house and shoots someone… they absolutely should be held criminally accountable: as they have committed a crime.

Being a police officer shouldn’t excuse you from doing crime, come on.

Again: higher standards. And you should be asking yourself why you are okay with lower standards than “police should at least not be shooting innocent people in their sleep after entering the wrong house”

We really need better training for police: hopefully we at least agree on that…

I think you are confused as to what qualified immunity is, and the different possible standards.

There is a lot more than police brutality, and brutality isnt protected.

If you had the option of a position with feduciary duty and lower pay would you pick it? Probably not. That's essentially what you're arguing for.

Who said anything about lower pay?

Higher education would increase their market value. Private insurance would also make their wages higher since the city wouldn't have to have a slush fund to payout for their mistakes.

Higher standards also mean higher pay.

> Qualified immunity needs a new standard, but it is necessary.

No, it's not. This isn't an argument. Other countries do not have qualified immunity doctrine and there is no shortage of police. The police should be held to a higher standard to everyone else, which is why comparing a construction worker to a police officer is a bad one.

name a country where you can successfully sue a cop for doing their job as they were trained, and I will take a look. Most have this as a defense.

you are mischaracterizing... again.

No one wants to sue a police officer for doing their job.

They want to sue them when they commit crimes. No one should be above the law: especially those that enforce it.

no, I dont think I am. Have you considered where we agree?

Im fine with cops being sued for abuse, I dont think they should be personally liable for doing their job as trained.

This means a different qualified immunity standard. Most countries have abundant protections for police operating in good faith as they were trained.

Further, US Qualified immunity doesnt protect police against tort claims assault, battery, negligence, or wrongful death. Those arent constitutional suits. You can sue cops for that just fine.

Im getting the impression that you are using QI as a proxy for a whole host of things you dont like.

> Im fine with cops being sued for abuse, I dont think they should be personally liable for doing their job as trained.

Doctors have malpractice insurance specifically for cases like this. I see zero reason why police should not be forced to have that as well, which comes out of their retirement funds for when they fuck up. Do you believe doctors should have qualified immunity for just doing their job?

> US Qualified immunity doesnt protect police against tort claims assault, battery, negligence, or wrongful death

Yes it does. You would have to be utterly willfully ignorant of the history of qualified immunity and how it's been used in the US to say otherwise. Qualified immunity has been used to set the bar incredibly high for being able to sue the police and it's only in extremely exceptional circumstances that you will ever jump over that bar. I fully reject your claim and require you to substantiate it.

I think that doing their job correctly, as trained, and following best practices, should be a valid defense for doctors.

If you are familiar with the history of qualified immunity, you may know that there have been multiple standards over the decades. For example, consider the state of qualified immunity at the time of Pierson v.Ray [1].

Do you think you should be able to sue a cop (as an individual) for enforcing a law that is on the books, acting in good faith, because the law is determined afterwards to be unconstitutional? They arent constitutional scholars, and even if they were, they wouldn't get it right all the time.

It is crazy to hold them liable, especially personally, for bad laws.

As I said originally, "Qualified immunity needs a new standard, but it is necessary."

cchttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray

Reply on news.ycombinator.com