The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.
In the UK 30 people are arrested a day for social media posts online. Only about 10 percent resulting in convictions.<p>Police don't face criminal charges for this.<p><a href="https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf" rel="nofollow">https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...</a>
Who cares? That's a different country with a different legal system and a different constitution (an unwritten one, among other things).<p>US's Bill of Rights is very important.<p>But nevertheless, I can affirm that in the US, law enforcement will never face consequences for any misconduct. They kill people for no reason with impunity all the time, as we have all seen.
Who cares? Well the grand parent post references Europe, it is presumably a response to that.
"most European legal systems" implies more than one system, they're most likely referring to the "European Union" and not the geographical continent of Europe, which the UK is not a part of anymore
The UK is famously no longer a part of the EU.
That's completely wrong. The US legal system drew heavily from the British system, particularly any of the common law pieces (much of tort law, IIRC).
Note that the quoted laws also cover things that would be restraining or harassment orders in the USA.
The laws sure, they may be considered similar to US ones, the problem with EU and especially UK speech laws is the way they're interpreted and applied by the justice system, in way more draconical and abusive ways than in the US.<p>For example a UK comedian got arrested for posting a photo he took outside his balcony of a large congregation of citizens of brown skinned complexion from the Indian subcontinent captioned "imagine the smell".<p>Someone below said it well: "This is the problem with going after 'harmful communication'. It is not something that can be defined precisely, which allows government officials to choose to interpret it in whatever way they want when the enforce it."<p>So this type draconical speech laws is that it always leads to selective enforcement, it's never an objective two-way street affecting everyone equally, effectively turning into a means for public intimidation(tyranny). One bad joke about one group sympathetic to the government politics can be considered "hate speech" and land you in prison, while the same joke about the groups the government dislikes is just "free speech".<p>Similarly in Germany if you were to call Merz a corrupt traitor online you'd get visited by the police, but if you were to call a German right wing politician a nazi bitch, then it's just free speech. Hate speech enforcement always ends up a one way street coming from the status quo in power.<p>What political leaders miss is that the status quo can always flip as history has proven time again, and then those laws they set in place to silence their critics, will then be used against them, and then they'll cry fowl.
No, that didn't happen. You're confusing two different events together.<p>The guy who posted the photo of brown skinned people with the "imagine the smell" comment was <i>American</i> and lost his job. The UK wasn't involved in any way. [0]<p>The comedian you might be thinking of is Graham Linehan - he was arrested for inciting violence against trans people and has a long string of twitter posts quoted as possible reasons. (and had a similar post with the comment of "a photo you can smell" but with a photo of a trans rights protest, so perhaps the origin of the confusion?).<p>[0] <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/indians-dogpiled-him-us-techie-behind-imagine-the-smell-comments-opens-up-amid-major-outrage/articleshow/125953009.cms" rel="nofollow">https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/indians-dogpile...</a>
I find it ironic; George Orwell was English!
Those 30 aren’t arrested for just for writing “social media posts” but for possibly “harmful communication including incitement to terrorism and violence, online threats and abuse, and unwanted communication via email and other means”<p>Of the 90% many will accept their fault and receive a caution or warning<p>Edit: and none of those cases would involve pretrial remand/jail
The vast majority of those arrested are just for mild insults, which are illegal under the censorious UK regime; not incitement to terrorism or threats.
I'm pretty sure it's threat of violence. Sure, in some of the cases, the threats are mild ('i will fuck you up'), but they are often repeated, which, to be clear, should be considered harassment in any case (and the fact that it still isn't in other countries is wild. Someone keeps sending me insults, I should be able to legally retaliate to make him stop, no?)
Not UK but in Germany you can face criminal prosecution for insulting the chancellor,<p><a href="https://x.com/Pirat_Nation/status/2056692341399081235" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/Pirat_Nation/status/2056692341399081235</a><p>While here in the UK you can be arrested and charged for saying mean things about the royal family on private whatsapp groups,<p><a href="https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-09-07/five-former-met-police-officers-plead-guilty-over-racist-whatsapps" rel="nofollow">https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-09-07/five-former-met-p...</a>
Given the met police chief thinks they shouldn't be doing this, I doubt that there isn't problem with the level of police involvement:<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/03/met-police-chief-calls-for-review-of-law-after-graham-linehan-arrest" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/03/met-police-c...</a>
Great summary here of the kind of things people are arrested for and a bit more about the laws this refers to <a href="https://open.substack.com/pub/monkdebunks/p/are-30-people-a-day-really-being?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1ibvep" rel="nofollow">https://open.substack.com/pub/monkdebunks/p/are-30-people-a-...</a>
> possibly “harmful communication including incitement to terrorism and violence, online threats and abuse, and unwanted communication via email and other means”<p>That's a lot of colorful language to say "words hurt".<p>I could point you to 30 BlueSky posts that would qualify.... posted in the last 5 minutes.
>Of the 90% many will accept their fault and receive a caution or warning<p>Why do you need to arrest someone just to warn them?
In the UK the police can detain you for up to 24hrs without a judge and extend it to 36hrs in some cases.<p>One case I read of a guy who got in trouble for a social media post, he was called into the station and they basically forced him to sign a paper otherwise he couldn't leave as they'd just keep interrogating him, where I'd imagine they threatened to get the courts involved unless he admitted he was wrong for doing it. Which is why most of them don't end up as convictions.<p>It's basically a very aggressive warning.<p>Example: <a href="https://www.aol.com/police-apologise-arresting-former-special-094904265.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aol.com/police-apologise-arresting-former-specia...</a><p>> Mr Foulkes was detained in a police cell for eight hours and questioned in relation to a potential charge of malicious communications. He said he ended up accepting an unconditional caution because he feared the investigation could affect his visits to his daughter in Australia.<p>Another <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/blogger-arrested-sharing-anti-hamas-meme-online-claims-cops-know-october-7th-horrors" rel="nofollow">https://www.foxnews.com/world/blogger-arrested-sharing-anti-...</a><p>> After being questioned for several hours, North was released without charge.
I mean, this is exactly what the Tennessee sheriff accused this guy of doing. The Sheriff said that a meme referencing Trump saying that people 'needed to get over' a school shooting was actually a threat against the school.<p>This is the problem with going after 'harmful communication'. It is not something that can be defined precisely, which allows government officials to choose to interpret it in whatever way they want when the enforce it. Obviously in these cases, the courts ruled against the official's interpretation, but that didn't stop this guy from having to spend 37 days in jail before they released him.<p>As they say "you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride".<p>While it is good that the UK version doesn't send you to pretrial jail, you still have to fight the charge. You have to respond, spend time in court, hire council, and hope you can convince the courts that your post doesn't fit the definition of incitement to violence.<p>This has a chilling effect on free speech, even if all the cases are eventually thrown out. This is a tactic the Trump administration has used repeatedly. Go after people in court for things that are clearly not illegal. You make the person fight the charges, both in court and in the public eye, and then the cases are dismissed eventually and the administration moves on. All it does is make people factor this in when deciding how to act; is my act of protest worth having to fight this in court?
And harmful communication can be "Fuck Hamas" which may be hateful, but not harmful.
The UK has different speech laws than the United States. Presumably, the actions of the police making those arrests are within the scope of UK law. Even if 90% don't result in a conviction, the police may still be operating within the scope of their authority in those arrests.
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Linehan was arrested for making this post:<p>> If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls<p>This seems like a straightforward call to violence to me. And he was released after police ascertained that he had no intent to act on these statements.<p>If someone made posts along the lines of "Christians are abusive, punch them" would it be surprising if CBP took them aside for further questioning?
The other context is also that Linehan was awaiting trial for harassment and criminal damage against a 17 year old transperson at the time. And that he ultimately didn't get charged for the tweets, and did get friends in high places to whinge at the police on his behalf
CBP, maybe not - there’s a lot more leeway for things that happen at the border, for better or worse.<p>But in general US law sets a high bar for claims of incitement. Your hypothetical statement would certainly be considered protected speech. That is, of course, not to say that you would not be a victim of vindictive prosecution ;)
yes, actually, it would be suprising if CBP took them aside for further questioning. That's not really how it's "supposed" to work.
The suggestion that the actions within UK happen everywhere in Europe is just as misleading.
UK voted not to be a part of Europe. Well, at least the England part of the UK did.
What are these messages? Threatening your ex-wife? Plotting to commit arson? Or saying you don't like immigrants? They all fall under this umbrella, yet the vast majority of people would agree the first two are criminal in nature.
Excuse the whataboutism, but how many Americans are arrested for “disorderly conduct” each day? (Which from my YouTube police footage watching appears to be “being an annoying arsehole in public” [1] ie a broadly similar moral misbehaviour)<p>> [1] An overt act or conduct in public (or affecting the public) that disturbs the peace, safety, morals, or order (e.g., fighting, making unreasonable noise, using obscene/abusive language or gestures, obstructing traffic, creating hazardous/physically offensive conditions, refusing to disperse).<p>Our online laws which Americans often seem to view entirely through the lens of free speech are more about public (dis)order. It’s not ideas that are being censored, it’s personal conduct online which may be harassing, threatening, abusive or may create a breach of the peace.
That’s not Europe. They had a whole vote about it and everything!
Telegram creator arrested for the crimes of his users on his platform. He did not commit any of these crimes, he's being held as complicit, when every other social media giant is not being held to this standard, and its ridiculous to hold most platforms like this liable, unless it's the only thing they host.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel_Durov" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel...</a>
Europe is a continent which the UK is a part of.
It is similar in Germany, where you can be arrested for simply posting an insult (non-violent) to a politician. No police will face charges if you aren't convicted. And you will NEVER get a settlement.<p>I don't know why HN has become full of authoritarian anti-free-speech apologists. The current political divisions are turning people insane.
The UK doesn’t have free speech
"In return, Bushart will drop the federal civil rights lawsuit he filed against Sheriff Nick Weems, investigator Jason Morrow and the county for violating his constitutional rights."<p>Even at his age of 60 (I'm getting up there), I wouldn't have made that deal.<p><a href="https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/jailed-for-37-days-for-posting-a-meme-of-pres-trump-tenn-man-reaches-settlement-for-civil-rights-violation" rel="nofollow">https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates...</a>
Maybe he should try to get compensation through the new Anti-Weaponization Fund.<p>> “The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.<p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-anti-weaponization-fund" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...</a>
I was just thinking that James Comey would also have a valid claim
What that actually is, is a reward pool for Jan 6 participants and other people who have done illegal things to support Trump.
The vast majority of the money from that pool will certainly go to Trump himself (and his family when he dies) in the long run.<p>He'll dole out small amounts of it to J6ers and other supporters in a public display of rewarding loyalty, but enriching himself is always the prime directive over every other concern and who (in his mind) has been the biggest target of "DOJ/govt weaponization?"... himself, of course.<p>He will take almost all of it to go along with the various other billions of dollars he has scammed away from the American people as president.
Potentially winning a drawn-out lawsuit against that sheriff, investigator, and county would have been a big improvement for the rights of his neighbors and friends, but I'd wager that with even half of those settlement winnings that he could do a lot more good than one lawsuit.<p>For example, there are surely dozens of others who are taking plea deals because they can't afford a lawyer to bring such a lawsuit, a few hundred thousand could multiply the impact tenfold.
Under today’s administration and courts a federal lawsuit like that was going nowhere anyway, except maybe an executive order praising the Sheriff.
Well, its not like thats going to happen when people settle out of court. Not sure if his first amendment rights have been vindicated really...<p>Today, the parties announced in a joint statement that Larry will receive $835,000 in exchange for dismissing his complaint.<p>“I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” said Larry.
In a sane, fair, and (crucially) long-term stable system, persons given privilege and authority over others are subject to a higher standard for their own behavior. The long-running US trend of the inverse (additional legal protections for positions of authority) is incredibly destructive. This is a moral and values judgment, yes, but it's not just that -- it communicates to the population at large that they should find their own solutions rather than using the established system.<p>More succinctly, down this path lie guillotines.
One of the worst examples in the US is the <i>consequence asymmetry</i> for speech. Law enforcement and federal agents can lie as much as they like with impunity when dealing with citizens, but (a) it's a federal crime to lie to a federal officer (18 US Code § 1001, up to 8 years imprisonment), and (b) truly, <i>anything</i> you say to law enforcement when under any suspicion can and will be used against you in a court of law, even the act of pleading the 5th, regardless of (or perhaps especially because of) your innocence. "I want a lawyer", repeated ad-nauseam, is always the least harmful response, regardless of context[0].<p>Also, the body of federal law and regulations is so vast that smart people estimate the average person unknowingly breaks roughly 3 federal criminal laws per day[1], giving the federal government the legal ability to arbitrarily arrest anyone they want.<p>[0] James Duane, <i>You have the right to remain innocent</i>, 2016<p>[1] Harvey Silverglate, <i>Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent</i>, 2011.
> <i>legal ability to arbitrarily arrest anyone they want.</i><p>As the famous Russian saying goes, "Был бы человек, а статья найдется" (Show me the man, and I will show you the crime.)
This distinction doesn't make sense. A police officer's job is to lie to you. Are we expecting jailtime for doing their job?
Then it shouldn't be a crime to lie to the officer.<p>I genuinely don't think certain charges relating to preserving one's freedom should even be a crime in of it self.<p>Unless you endanger others in an extreme manner, things like "resisting arrest", running from police, or attempting to escape prison shouldn't be charges within themselves.<p>People love the phrase "you can beat the rap, not the ride", but that essentially gives broad power to harass and damage one's life without recourse sans extremely expensive legal routes. In this example, a man lost his freedom for 37 days over a bogus charge and was paid by the taxpayers to essentially shut up.
> A police officer's job is to lie to you<p>Federal statute should categorize that as a fireable offense and an intentional tort incurring punitive damages at minimum, and any subsequent proceedings (after the lie) as inadmissible evidence.<p>If that makes investigation more difficult, then so be it. For too long, law enforcement and federal investigators have relied on inappropriate and immoral techniques to obtain conviction. Mass surveillance, warrantless wiretapping, manipulating suspects -- what happened to old-school investigation that was after <i>truth</i> via smart observation and deduction? There's a reason people love watching Poirot: it's a (admittedly stylized) snapshot of real justice in progress.<p>Their expected standard of behavior should be higher than that of citizens.
How is it their job to lie to me?
The death penalty should be reserved for people who violate a position of public trust and authority.
Yeah that would never be weaponized with trumped-up charges against political opponents.
You want to give the government the legal ability to threaten the life of the entire civil service, judiciary, and all elected representatives.<p>I’m sure that would never be abused.
Because it is irreversible, the death penalty should be reserved for cases in which there is no possibility of mistake. Which, given the fallibility of humans, is never.
I think when you admit on public television and public comms that you will commit war crimes and then you do commit war crimes we should have a notable exception - there's no possibility Pete Hegeseth didn't know exactly what, how, and when his war crimes were going to be perpetuated.
Hot take, but I feel like no humans should be killed as a punishment... But I'm also probably too European to understand the <i>true value</i> of death penalty.
If someone kills a family member and the court gives them 6 years and a parole officer, the remaining family will and has taken justice into their own hands and that has a much higher blast radius and margin of error than executing a guy convicted of the murder in a court of law and sat on death row making appeals for 10-15 years.<p>If dylan roof was allowed to live his full natural life in jail, there would be race riots in the US by the end of the press conference.
Cool, maybe rather than aiming to punish people, aim to rehabilitate them, and they don't need to spend their full natural life in jail. And if they're "unsalvageable" like many would claim, we (maybe not you, in the US, I dunno) have hospitals for those that are ill.
Cool, but I'm not sure the victims and the public are always thrilled when they see murderers get off by reason of insanity, despite it being a life sentence and essentially a medically induced solitary mental confinement. People were furious about Yates and Bobbitt despite not even living within a 1000 mile radius because they felt it was a miscarriage of justice and are aware that rehabilitating people who drowned their own children is naive at best or yet another grift to siphon public money into their own pet projects and feign moral superiority.
We also have state operated forensic psychiatric facilities for criminals deemed "unsalvageable." Many are not the same facilities that civilians seeking mental health would attend. Though, some facilities house both on separate units.<p>While prisons in the USA are often more punitive and dangerous than a forensic psychiatric facility, that does mean forensic psychiatric facilities are not their own form of Hell rife with their own problems. Essentially, autonomy, dignity, and human rights are stripped from individuals in both facilities -- you do not want to go to either.
I'm only against the death penalty for the simple fact that courts have convicted innocent people. Sometimes, that conviction happens when the court actively blocks exonerating evidence.<p><a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/284/" rel="nofollow">https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/284/</a><p><a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/547/319/" rel="nofollow">https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/547/319/</a>
So why aren't you against imprisonment for the simple fact that courts have imprisoned innocent people? We have to accept a certain amount of false positives in all things.
The death penalty can't be undone, a prisoner can always be released. Sure, they'll never get that time back, but at least they can live.
Anybody who is wrongfully executed was basically guaranteed to spend their entire life in prison. Death row inmates get dramatically more access to legal aid than anybody else rotting in a cell, so if they couldn't win their appeal, the guy doing life isn't, either.<p>Generally, I'm against incarceration for that reason. I think the relatively muted violence of it is too easy to stomach for the public, which leads to people letting the system get sloppy. For public and infamous crimes, however, where the question is not "what act took place", but rather "did this act constitute a crime, and if so, what is the punishment?"-type cases, I'm perfectly fine with capital punishment being on the table. We trust public officials with significant authority, and abuse of that authority is utterly irredeemable. Frankly, for elected officials I'd support a "two-thirds vote and you hang" policy. If you want power, and seek out power, you have an immense responsibility to live up to your constituent's expectations.
That isn’t true. There have been death row inmates exonerated, both before and after their execution.<p>The ones that were executed would have been alive for the exoneration if we they had been given life in prison instead.
> "did this act constitute a crime, and if so, what is the punishment?"<p>I guess that last part is the perspective I'd change, for a more compassionate world. I'd much rather ask "did this act constitute a crime, and if so, what made the person commit that crime, and how can we help them not do that in the future again?".
For the kinds of "public and infamous" crimes I'm talking about, the answer is almost always greed, either for fortune, power, or fame. There's no need to ask "Why did Nestle decide to kill a bunch of African children by giving away just enough formula stop mothers from being able to breastfeed?" or "Why did tobacco companies stand in front of congress and lie through their teeth about how non-addictive nicotine is?" or "Why did Nixon decide to pursue the war on drugs in order to disproportionately target his political opponents and minorities?". The answer is that in order to end up in the C-suite or board of directors of a megacorp, or the White House, you have to be one of the most madly greedy, power-lusting parasites in the world.<p>My compassion for my fellow man is why I suggest we wait for them to commit a crime before punishing such behavior.
It's a uniquely-American perspective: "Our government can't do anything right. But hey, I still trust it to kill the right people."
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> In a sane, fair, and (crucially) long-term stable system, persons given privilege and authority over others are subject to a higher standard for their own behavior.<p>The US military is subject to a higher standard, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Penalties for US service members breaking the law or codes of conduct are much higher and much more severe than civilians. The US military makes routine example of law breakers and misconduct.<p>The US police force, by contrast, is civilian. They are not licensed, commissioned, or subject to additional standards. Certainly not nationwide standards that would bar police removed from their post from finding similar work elsewhere.<p>We should pay our police officers more, make them undergo nationally standardized training and licensing, and then hold them to a higher standard if and when they break the law.<p>Police court-martial.
I agree with most of that, but are cops around you paid low enough to get anything in exchange for giving higher wages? Ive lived in many poor places across the US and the cops are often among the highest paid workers in the area already despite currently needing a jokes worth of training and knowledge. The wages ive seen cops around me getting seemed to already be in the top 50% of skilled proffessionals with college degrees.
> <i>Penalties for US service members breaking the law or codes of conduct are much higher and much more severe than civilians. The US military makes routine example of law breakers and misconduct</i><p>Honest question, is this currently true?
In the US we grant immunity to the law in proportion to power. Rather seems it should be the opposite if you ask me.
> In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.<p>I wouldn't say in most. In many they wouldn't
It's not a structural weakness, it's an intentional <i>feature</i>. Our legislature specifically and intentionally made it impossible for citizens (or anyone) to hold police responsible for anything.
Not the legislature: the Supreme Court. Qualified Immunity was created out of whole cloth by the Supreme Court back in the 1960's when a police officer arrested- and then a judge convicted- a group of black and white Episcopal priests for "making a disturbance of the peace"- that is, having black and white people out in public together as equals. This was Pierson v. Ray, decided by the Supreme Court in 1967.<p>The current implementation of it- where you need to have "clearly establish" a Constitutional right with a prior case in this region- is based on Pearson v. Callahan from 2009, and it takes a terrible Supreme Court precedent and makes it even worse. This has created the patchwork "no case in the circuit has clearly established that a police officer must not make a warrantless search on a Tuesday in May" sort of quibbling.<p>The work of legislatures has been to roll <i>back</i> qualified immunity. Colorado, New Mexico, and California have removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level. LEO's can still claim qualified immunity for suits under federal law, but they cannot for some suits brought under state law or the state constitution in those states.<p>The Supreme Court has also, at the same time they've made it harder to hold police to account, made it harder to hold politicians to account, gutting bribery laws and expanding "free speech" to include paying politicians. And the recent idea that a President can't be prosecuted for any "official acts" is also nonsense created by the Supreme Court. This isn't Congress fault, there were laws that prevented it. The Supreme Court just decided that they didn't want to enforce those laws.<p>The Supreme Court at the root of a lot of the dysfunction in American politics, and somehow still has more respect than they deserve.
Isn't it way more narrow than what you're saying? For New Mexico's cases it only applies to civil rights violations. If the police officer just for example kills someone in the line of duty, he still has qualified immunity
What's your source for:<p>> California [has] removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level.<p>According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#State_law" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#State_law</a>, it's Connecticut, not California, as the third state which limited qualified immunity.
California SB 2, signed by Gavin Newsome in 2021, removed Qualified Immunity as a defense for all lawsuits brought under the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act.<p>I'm not a lawyer, and I have never lived in California so I don't know how much that covers. The QI removal I knew best was Colorado (CO's law also made individual LEO's have to pay with their own money, up to certain limits), and was doing some googling which listed California and New Mexico.
This is a misunderstanding. In most cases you cannot sue the federal and state governments, with very important exceptions, but you can definitely sue the police. Government officials, such as the police, usually only have _qualified_ immunity rather than absolute or sovereign immunity, and even then only when they were acting in good faith and are not being accused of violating someone’s constitutional rights.<p>The real problem right now is how the courts determine if an official was acting in good faith. Right now they are assumed to have acted in good faith unless it has already been “clearly established” that what they did was illegal. This means that the official can argue that they didn’t know that their actions were illegal because no prior case ever dealt with that exact fact pattern. This works far too often and has let a lot of very guilty police get away with their crimes. Still, some police officers _are_ held to account, so it is not actually impossible.
It is a weakness, but yes, an intentional one. Why a weakness? It leads to structural instability.
The Sheriff absolutely should face some consequences, at least to his career. The money paid to Bushart ultimately is no skin off the government's back. It's taxpayer money, they will just underfund a good thing, raise taxes, or print debt to pay it if there's a shortfall.<p>It'd be an interesting thing to see garnishing of wages, deductions from pension funds, or loss of some kind of bonus system to help balance the scales.
Seems to me that law enforcement officers should be required to carry liability insurance that they personally pay for. Have a lot of settlements / claims? Your insurance rate goes up. That happens enough and now it's not economically feasible to hold the job
It is better than nothing but it is also adding another middleman between civilians and justice with its primary motivation as personal profit above anything else.<p>If supressing cases or throwing big money lawyers against legitimate lawsuits is cheaper, they will do it. If teaching cops to hide their corruption is easier than rooting out all the corrupt individuals to raise rates, thats what they will do.
Not just law enforcement, all civil servants should.<p>I had to spend money to sue the local unemployment office because a bureaucrat there illegally cut off my unemployment payments. They lost and had to pay me back in arrears but that money came from the taxpayers(so me and you) and that asshole who did that is still working there just fine collection golden handcuff paychecks and a gold plated pension when she retires.<p>All civil servants need a form of direct accountability with consequences for their mistakes at work, especially when malicious and repeated. Currently they're untouchable and the taxpayer foots the bill for their mistakes with no repercussion.
Merely facing some consequences to his career would be far too weak. This dude knowingly imprisoned somebody for over a month. The <i>minimum</i> consequence should be, say, two days in jail for every day this guy spent locked up. Better would be whatever punishment we'd levy against any common criminal who kidnapped someone for 37 days. Ideally we'd be even harsher than that, due to the abuse of authority involved.<p>This wasn't some honest mistake. This was a deliberate violation of a citizen's civil rights. This was a crime, and the only reason it's treated so lightly is because the criminal is an officer of the law.<p>But who am I kidding, even him losing a single day's pay would be a victory here. Nothing will actually happen to him.
I highly doubt Tennessee is going to start printing USD.
> The money paid to Bushart ultimately is no skin off the government's back.<p>The suit was filed against Perry County, TN, not the state or federal government. A quick google says that its budget is $33M, so in fact this is a very impactful settlement for the county.
i don't know if you've seen how american law is faring; the supreme court recently legalized racism as long as it's partisan.
The same Europe where people who criticize the rapist of their child does more time for causing offense than the rapist did for the actual rape? THAT Europe?
<i>>In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.</i><p>No they won't face anything like that. Police lawyers will claim they were just enforcing hate speech laws to protect the country's leadership from far right supremacists and will be let go scuff free. You also won't get anything remotely close to $835,000 from the state for being falsely imprisoned. You're lucky to get maybe 5000 Euros for your trouble.<p>In Germany for instance the politicians are protected by dedicated law against negative comments from the public. You can't even call them fat or they send the police after you. Sure, you won't get locked up for the fat comment, but the point of the police going after people with mean comments is only intimidation, to get people to self censor and stop criticizing the leadership and accept the propaganda like obedient cattle.<p>Americans with their 1st, 2nd and Nth amendments, have an overly rosy view of the EU justice system which is far more lenient to law enforcement abuse of power and speech crackdowns. It's why you easily saw Americans attacking and throwing rocks at masked ICE officers in the US, and why Germans would never dare touch a law enforcement officer in their country, because the courts would never tolerate public attack on law enforcement and challenging the state authority.
In the US, we just pay out a lot of taxpayer money to the victim, and the authority abuser gets some time off with pay.
At the very least, taxpayers should be looking to make him personally responsible for the $835,000.
Eh, in the UK this is only true for the most absolutely serious cases where someone has been killed or seriously injured. Wrongful arrest doesn't. It may face <i>career</i> risks.<p>Ultimately the US lacks some sort of Federal "inspectorate of police" that would be able to ban people from being law enforcement officers or at least require e.g. retraining or restriction of duties, without leaving it up to frankly corrupt local authorities.<p>Double-edged sword though when the Feds get captured by the Party, though.
> US lacks some sort of Federal "inspectorate of police"<p>I don't think this is true, or at least it's not entirely true.<p>Various states and law enforcement agencies have an office of the inspector general which at least should provide some oversight. We also have the courts and individual officers and agencies can be sued in the court of law which also provides a means of oversight. You seem to be suggesting that everything is corrupt, corrupt local authorities, corrupt feds captured by the party. I think that level of perceived corruption is not reflected in operational reality.<p>Some states or local police organizations do in fact look at past police records for applicants. There's a bit of variation here, but it's probably a bit better organized than, say the EU where outside of other bureaucratic hurdles I don't believe there is any real way to stop some German citizen who should be banned from being a police officer from moving to Estonia and being a police officer. Though perhaps I'm wrong and there is an EU-wide database that all countries and their police forces use?<p>I know the UK isn't in the EU, but I just bring that up as I think it may be a bit closer of an example.
Yeah. Did any meaningful consequences befall anyone for the Horizon IT scandal?
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> <i>sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority</i><p>Eh, just fire him and garnish a portion of his future wages to pay back the cost to the city.<p>> <i>In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it</i><p>Do you have a recent example?