The two men don’t look anything alike. As I stated, they’re not even the same ethnicity. The cops screwed the pooch big-time on this one. Don’t arrest warrants have identifying information on them? Reminds me of a scene from Dude, Where’s My Car?
I saw that news yesterday. Haven’t seen any further follow-up yet. Before there’s any follow-up, who wants to place their bets as to what happens?
I bet he loses his lawsuit (or it gets thrown out without ever going to trail) because “qualified immunity” or some such nonsense. The police can do no wrong!
If justice is blind, perhaps the cops felt they should be as well?
You’d think we would have learned from the Wrong Guy Incident:
I’d never heard of that before. Brilliant. And he did surprisingly well. He was even startlingly prescient.
Qualified immunity is not what you seem to think it is. It prevents individual police officers from being sued if they are doing their duty and following the rules, even if they screw up and make a mistake. Qualified Immunity applies to all public servants, including for example- sewer workers, and is necessary. It does not impede criminal charges.
People can and do sue the Departments and the Government all the time for Police misconduct- and sometimes they win.
Well, you’re not necessarily wrong about what I may think “qualified immunity” is or isn’t. Hey, IANAL. My remark may be partially about what I think “qualified immunity” is, but it’s more about my general level of cynicism over people’s civil rights vs. out-of-control police powers.
And there you have an excellent point. But QI is a good thing.
I think qualified immunity extends a bit further than you think
https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201715566.pdf describes a case in which a police officer, in attempting to shoot a dog that was not threatening him, shot a child lying on the ground at his order. The officer was deemed immune from a lawsuit for the child’s ongoing suffering, on the grounds that there was no previous case making it clear that shooting someone by accident was bad - and thus that qualified immunity applied.
Police got by without qualified immunity until 1967, by the way.
Nope, that is exactly what I think.
The officer was deemed immune from a lawsuit… The Police dept could be sued. The Officer could face criminal charges or be fired, etc.
And what exactly is the use of suing a single cop for $2M? He doesn’t have it, he can’t pay it. Just sue the dept- they have it, they can pay it and they are not immune.
She did sue the department - but since the deputy was adjudged as not having done anything legally wrong, the case will not move forward (unless I am much mistaken).
No, the deputy was not judged as no wrong doing. The courts more or less ruled that his error did not rise to the level of a crime or a violation of procedures, etc.
People sue the departments all the time, and sometimes win. However, Google just shows the QI case over and over, I had no real interest in a deeper dive.
Perhaps someone could start a thread just about qualified immunity ? I am not sure if the debate belongs in this thread.
And if he didn’t commit a crime or a violation of procedure, how can the parents sue the county?
Ok.
Wrong; Qualified immunity also protects the city from lawsuit, as in this case
No. 22-1681 Linden v. City of Southfield, Mich. Page 2
OPINION
JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Emergency medical personnel in Southfield, Michigan, pronounced Timesha Beauchamp dead when she was still alive. Beauchamp was placed in a body bag and transported to a funeral home, where an embalmer discovered that she was not dead. Beauchamp was hospitalized and died about six weeks later. Howard Linden, the
administrator of Beauchamp’s estate, sues the City of Southfield (the “City”) and individual emergency medical personnel for their actions, which he says violated Beauchamp’s constitutional rights. The district court found that Linden failed to plead a constitutional violation and accordingly granted the defendants-appellees’ motion to dismiss Beauchamp’s claims. Because the individual defendants-appellees in this case are entitled to qualified
immunity, and because the City is not liable for any constitutional violation, we affirm the district court on alternative grounds.
So the EMTs are in the clear because of qualified immunity, and the City is in the clear because the City didn’t do anything wrong and no one is held responsible for this gross outrage. Who should the estate sue?