zlacker

No thanks.

We already have tons of statutes for all sorts of assault/battery with modifiers if they are done using lethal weapons.

Police have already been demanding that "hate crime" laws (which are historically limited to who you are, not your profession or your choices) be amended for extra harsh punishment for attacks on police officers (despite many other existing statutes with similar purposes).

In the end, prosecutions of police with harsher statutes don't matter unless the conviction rate goes up. Right now, convictions of officers for actions done while in uniform are astronomically low. We need to work the other parts of the problem (gathering evidence, getting police to stand witness against other police, getting DAs to actually charge and push for convictions, firing of officers for conduct unbecoming an officer, etc).

>>thephy+(OP)
Well a big problem not included in your post is that police officers can't face liability for violating people's rights in many cases because of qualified immunity.

>>zucker+U1
This is the kind of comment that makes reading through incredibly frustrating.

What do you _mean_ that's not included in the parent post? What else do you think the parent is saying if not exactly that?

>>cxr+p3
He didn't include ending qualified immunity under the list of things he thought have to change, even though it's one of the most important. Plus, all the things he included are social changes or executive policy changes rather than a specific legal change like ending qualified immunity. There are specific efforts to end qualified immunity [1], while his suggestions amount to "we need to change culture", which is completely true but not as actionable. It could be that he meant to include ending qualified immunity, but being specific doesn't hurt.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2020/06/03/new-bill... (direct source at https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1267267244029083648)

>>cxr+p3
?

Parent post did not mention qualified immunity it doesnt seem.

> Right now, convictions of officers for actions done while in uniform are astronomically low. We need to work the other parts of the problem (gathering evidence, getting police to stand witness against other police, getting DAs to actually charge and push for convictions, firing of officers for conduct unbecoming an officer, etc).

it didnt say the low rate was due to qualified immunity

>>zucker+Xb
"law that heightens the penalties when cops attack the press" seems to be talking about increased criminal penalties not civil liability.

Ending qualified immunity doesn't do anything to help the application of criminal penalties against police who violate the law, it only restores the civil liability for those actions.

>>zucker+Xb
> He didn't include ending qualified immunity under the list of things he thought have to change, even though it's one of the most important.

I didn't name check it, but if you check my post history there's a reason I didn't call for an outright repeal of QI -- I don't yet know what the effect of that would be or what measures might replace it.

I'm all for removing QI (and outlawing indemnification of LEOs in employment contracts) and replacing QI with something like professional insurance, but from my understanding the problem isn't that "QI prevents cases from being brought to court", but that DAs don't actually bring cases to court which could beat the QI standard.

Also, in my understanding, QI is simply protection against civil actions, not criminal prosecution. To repeat - I think the core problem is more that DAs don't bring the cases, not that the law is insurmountably high.

>>cxr+p3
To be fair, QI is a civil liability problem and I was mostly talking about the criminal trial problem.

If more police were tried in criminal cases, that would make it far easier to build evidence for a civil case which could overcome the QI standard. OJ Simpson was acquitted in the murder trial, but lost his entire wealth in the subsequent civil trial to his in-laws.

>>zucker+U1
I concede that QI is a problem and should be addressed. So should contractual indemnification of officers by the department (which is a contractual way to bypass the doctrine of QI).

My list was not comprehensive.

>>thephy+Br
Yeah like I said, I largely agree with you, I was just tacking on QI.

>>zucker+U1
Qualified immunity is qualified, not absolute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity

"Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine in United States federal law that shields government officials from being sued for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity, unless their actions violated "clearly established" federal law or constitutional rights. Qualified immunity thus protects officials who "make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions", but does not protect "the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law"."

Is the bill of rights not "clearly established"? They've had long enough.

To me the phrasing seems clear, it's a lack of political will that's the issue. Not the law.

>>hnick+C51
The standard of the Supreme Court has established for "clearly established" is very hard to meet. For most cases, there has to a prior court cases with facts that match closely with the case at hand. For example,

https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-cou...

Plus, I've seen little textual basis for qualified immunity at all.