zlacker

The idea that law enforcement and government officials should be treated less strictly under the law is, to me, completely preposterous. If anything, they should explicitly not be given the benefit of the doubt and should be treated much more strictly under the law.

I realize that a huge number of people completely disagree with that, and I don't really know how to persuade any of them other than to urge them to examine history and note the consequences of authoritarianism.

>>baddox+(OP)
Well, i mostly agree with you but want to point out one fine distinction which is that you can still sue the government for your rights being violated, but you can't sue the individual bureaucrat.

Put another way, if your local DMV agent is acting funny, you can still sue the DMV, even if you can't sue the agent directly, FWIU

Anyway, hopefully the SC will throw this all out in the coming weeks.

>>tathou+t1
If a DMV agent is depriving you of your rights or mistreating you in some tortious way, why shouldn't you be able to sue that DMV agent? I'm not necessarily against government offices providing legal services to help defend their employees (AFAIK that's common for public school teachers and employees), but why shouldn't you be able to sue the person who is committing the tortious act?

>>baddox+(OP)
So the planning commission denies a permit for an addition to your house, diminishing its value. Or grants a permit to your neighbor, to the same effect.

One approach would be to have the judge say, "actually that addition looks fine to me, the commissioners shall pay you the corresponding value out of their kids' college funds."

Another would be, "I'm not the planning commission, that's their decision to make, unless they've acted outside the bounds of their charter, tough shit."

Qualified immunity is essentially the latter.

>>baddox+(OP)
>If anything, they should explicitly not be given the benefit of the doubt and should be treated much more strictly under the law.

How many of your tax dollars are you willing to pour into addressing the volume of nuisance cases then?

>>closep+t7
Except in that example the planning committee did something that wasn't otherwise illegal. Unless your case is showing that they're picking favorites or something.

>>baddox+x5
As a taxpayer, I'd much prefer individual DMV agents being sued and having to defend themselves, compared to the DMV itself being sued and my tax money being used in its defense.

>>baddox+x5
Qualified immunity wouldn't protect a DMV agent (or other bureaucrat) depriving you of your rights in violation of the law.

It only protects a government employee who makes a discretionary decision as part of their normal duties. This might mean they get it wrong, but if they can show their decision was reasonable and (where relevant) pursuant to a process established by the agency, that's fine. In that case, the problem is the process not the employee, and so the proper defendant is the agency not the employee that is simply following procedures set forth by the agency.

>>nerdpo+38
No, that example is precisely on point.

Qualified immunity applies precisely because they didn't do anything illegal (based on the limited facts of the hypo). If they did something illegal, then qualified immunity would not apply.

>>nerdpo+f8
Would you prefer that individual programmers be sued (instead of their employers) and have to defend themselves when apps/programs crash due to bugs?

Because that's basically what you're saying you want.

And anyways, if the DMV agent was acting in their capacity as a DMV employee and following established procedure, the DMV would end up paying their legal costs and settlements against the employee anyways...but without getting a say in the defense against the underlying lawsuit.

>>baddox+x5
Because that agent is acting on the authority of the DMV, and the DMV is responsible for how their authority is wielded. The intent is to keep organizations from facing repercussions for bad behavior by just throwing the individual actors under the bus. Of course this only works out if the organization itself can be held accountable, and forced to properly deal with internal troubles.

>>nerdpo+f8
It's an interesting problems. Doctors have liability insurance for this reason basically, which just pushes healthcare costs even higher, and creates this very opaque system of accountability and care quality.

>>nerdpo+f8
Your position is really contrary to your interests.

DMV agents are probably not very wealthy. By suing them you would simply drive an underpaid worker into bankruptcy and probably never get much money back.

Meanwhile, the DMV can easily scapegoat it's employee and never reform or make any systematic changes. Furthermore you would have no recourse to sue them directly since they can just keep hiring more poor workers to be thrown under the bus.

Ultimately the tax payers (or voters) need to keep the DMV accountable. There is no alternative. Democracy doesn't have shortcuts. The tax payers have to pay when the government screws up. More to the point - the tax payer ALWAYS ends up paying when the government screws up, without exception, 100% of the time. Either they pay by having a corrupt DMV that hurts society and everyone at large, or they pay through lawsuits and higher costs at the DMV.

>>gamblo+aa
This utterly tautological, which part of the problem with QI. QI applies precisely when there's no precedent that explicitly declares an action to be illegal (c.f the case of cops that used pepper spray, which was deemed sufficiently different from tasing that the rules established for tasing did not apply, there was therefore no precedent for the precise case of unnecessarily pepper spraying a person and thus QI applied.

QI completely sidesteps the question "is it illegal" by replacing it with "has a suitable court ever established a precedent of suitable specificity saying that this is illegal when carried out by a government official/employee"?

Which is likely how Gauvin will walk, since despite killing person being illegal, there are no suitable court precedents ruling with sufficient specificity that a government agent killing a person is illegal.

>>PaulDa+1X
No, it's not tautological.

QI applies if the government employee shows they acted reasonably in exercising discretion in performing their job. It doesn't matter whether or not there's no precedent.

Cases saying where QI applies, like the pepper spray case, exist because nobody knew beforehand if it applied to the use of pepper spray. And if you read the case, it was the policy of that police force to use pepper spray. Thus, the question boiled down to whether it was reasonable the officer to use pepper spray in that situation. The police force is the proper defendant in that case, not the individual officer.

Which is likely how Gauvin will walk, since despite killing person being illegal, there are no suitable court precedents ruling with sufficient specificity that a government agent killing a person is illegal

That's both ridiculous, wrong, and clearly FUD. Within the past year several cops have been found guilty of murder or homicide for the illegal use of force resulting in the death of someone. It's very likely that Gauvin will plead guilty to avoid a trial and secure a reduced sentence, because if he risks a trial he would be sentenced to life in prison if he's found guilty. (To walk, he'd need to convince 12 people that he isn't guilty; a hung jury would just result in a re-trial.)