No disciplinary action for the cops involved in trying to convict innocent boys, and harassing one to the extent that he’s now dead. If their own freedom was on the line, they’d not be so motivated. Time to hold the police accountable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Breonna_Taylor#Depa...
The stories against the police are incredibly damning, but the statistics are pretty tame.
We have to draw the line somewhere. How about, "Cops shouldn't harass people once charges against them have been dropped"?
> The stories against the police are incredibly damning, but the statistics are pretty tame.
Every minute wasted harassing an innocent person is a minute better spent pursuing actual criminals. There are numerous cases (like the Central Park 5) where the police prematurely focused on suspects of convenience while the real criminals walked free and killed again. Stronger rules would protect us.
Pierson v. Ray (1967) is the start of this farce.
And these police, due to non-law SCOTUS making shit up, are able to hound an innocent person for decades and suffer absolutely no punishments for that.
If anything, it's problematic. Like, why do cops have immunity? Why do they deserve it, and why does SCOTUS get to invent 'qualified immunity'?
Of course, yet another person brings up Roe v Wade, and didn't read the briefs. The crux of that was that states had a patchwork of laws, and some of those laws required violating privacy laws. Abortion rights were predicated upon doctor-patient privacy. The briefs also stated that first trimester should be no issue for abortion, second is not recommended, and 3rd was at threat of life of mother. That's a pretty decent and well thought standard.
And....
> So was woman's right to vote?
Are you for fucking serious? Have you not heard of the 19th amendment? This isn't legislating from the bench. This is 'passes constitutional muster and is part of the constution'
It's complicated because the District Attorney is usually responsible for seeing cases against police and deciding to bring charges but they rely on having a good relationship with the police.
The high profile stuff you see on the news are the hard cases. Most of the time the instances where people say they got away with something are very biased takes that leave out a lot of context rather than a successful cover-up, though both do happen.
People talk about qualified immunity like it's a personal shield for police but it's much more nuanced than you'll read about most places. Qualified immunity just says that the individual police officer has immunity from prosecution or liability in cases where they genuinely believe they are doing their job correctly.
The absolutely absurd wrinkle is: courts often skip the rights question entirely. Since Pearson v. Callahan (2009), they can decide either "prong" first, but many decide only that the right wasn't "clearly established". As such, the underlying violation goes unruled on and precedent is never established.
Rarely, courts hold the conduct so obviously unconstitutional that no precedent is needed and that QI doesn't apply. Those rulings are rare and often reversed on appeal, including by the Supreme Court. Even if they survive appeal to the circuit level, courts are under no obligation to "listen" to a ruling from a different circuit (it's how "circuit splits" happen).
Why does it apply only to cops? If I'm drivind at 60mph in a 50mph zone but I genuinely believe the max speed is 60mph, do I get a fine?