[HN Gopher] Cops Get Qualified Immunity After Jailing Florida Ma...
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Cops Get Qualified Immunity After Jailing Florida Man for 'I Eat
Ass' Sticker
Author : throw0101a
Score : 20 points
Date : 2021-09-29 21:31 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reason.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reason.com)
| teawrecks wrote:
| > a federal judge ruled that the expression might violate
| Florida's obscenity law and would thus be unprotected by the
| First Amendment.
|
| > the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
| ruled yesterday that the case is not so cut and dry, awarding
| qualified immunity to English and thus dooming the suit Webb
| brought against him for allegedly violating his free speech
| rights and for falsely arresting him.
|
| The lawsuit wouldn't be against the officer, though, would it?
| Seems like if an officer is doing the job as they were trained
| to, and ends up violating a citizen's rights in the process, it's
| the police dept that should answer for it.
| elmerfud wrote:
| While qualified immunity has its value in shielding officers from
| frivolous suits, it seems that damn near everything qualifies for
| immunity. What ever happened to an officers oath and that they
| have no duty to enforce unconstitutional or illegal
| laws/policies.
|
| The current method what we get is officers doing anything they
| want under the color of law, even when they know better, and they
| throw up their hands with "immunity". Like those bad movies where
| they kill someone and be all like "diplomatic immunity".
| tephra wrote:
| If QI should exist it should at least be codified into law by
| Congress and given some rigorous rules to when it applies etc.
|
| As it stands now QI is just something made up by SCOTUS and not
| created by anyone representing the people.
| AequitasOmnibus wrote:
| Not quite true. The idea of sovereign immunity is fundamental
| to our constitution.
|
| While QI isn't codified in the way you're talking about,
| Congress and the states do have laws on the books to expose
| themselves to liability. That's where QI comes from - as an
| extension of statutory authority to hold the government
| legally liable. When and how the government and its agents
| are exposed to liability is very clearly spelled out.
| eigengrau5150 wrote:
| Why weren't obscenity laws tossed out along with the sodomy laws?
| version_five wrote:
| Sodomy laws I understand have a history of used to unfairly
| target or persecute people. I don't agree with obscenity laws,
| but I think the need to get rid of the former was much more
| acute.
|
| (Though it supports the idea that all laws should have a sunset
| clause and have to be intentionally renewed rather than just
| stay on the books because of apathy)
| ruined wrote:
| this idea seems interesting at first glance but it's not hard
| to see that everything would quickly get shoved into an
| omnibus "laws we wanna keep" bill that then becomes the site
| of a cyclical shutdown chicken, like budget bills currently
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| >(Though it supports the idea that all laws should have a
| sunset clause and have to be intentionally renewed rather
| than just stay on the books because of apathy)
|
| This is honestly one of my favourite political concepts at
| the moment. I first became aware of it after reading an
| interview of Owsley Stanley of all people, but I've seen it
| discussed here on HN recently too. I really think it could
| solve a limited but very important set of society's problems.
| It's also neither left nor right wing in any meaningful
| sense, it has a broad non-partisan appeal.
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