So, because YOU are sufficiently outraged, whatever process they have in place for handling such things should be bypassed?
At least we apparently have an interim step in the Godwin process now.
But I’m likewise at a loss as to why you think that the police department doesn’t, and shouldn’t, have the right to make their own personnel decisions.
There is no right to a jury trial for firing people, be it police officers, postal employees, or Starbucks barristas.
If the people involved are unionized employees with a collective bargaining agreement that states they cannot be fired without a hearing - and a big city cop certainly is - then they certainly do have a right to that hearing, and the police department has no right to fire them without one.
It may be just going through the motions, but going through the motions is what grownups have to do when they sign contracts.
No, but the career civil service is NOT “employment at will” so there has to be a hearing. If the contract/bargaining agreement/civil service LAW does not contemplate being a craniorectally impacted wuss as *per se *sufficient for summary separation, then even the World’s Biggest craniorectally impacted wuss has to go through the process.
I didn’t say that. I’m not even necessarily saying he should be fired. I’m just saying that criminal justice standards (such as “innocent until proven guilty”) have no application to whether someone can be fired from a civil service job. Whatever the normal disciplinary processes should still apply, but no one’s saying he should be penalized criminally, and all the “facts” are already known and stipulated to by the officer in question. Certainly the public has enough information to form an opinion on whether he should be fired.
How many people were saying Blagojevich needed to go through a full impeachment process and/or criminal trial before it was appropriate for the public to say he should resign?
ETA yes, of course he should get whatever normal internal hearing is standard. I’m only objecting to the criminal justice langage.
That’s all well and good, but how is it relevant to the issue of “innocent until proven guilty, fair trial and due process?”
Note: This was not directed at Diogenes.
The officer is entitled to whatever bureaucratic disciplinary process followed by the Dallas Police Department. I hope he is at least permanently removed from any duty that involves the public and a weapon.
Abuse of power by police officers is increasingly common and usually excused away or covered up. Severe abuses that violate human rights are normal in corrections. Allowing people in positions of power to abuse anyone will inevitably lead to the abuse of everyone.
So may I assume it was directed at me?
The right to due process is a fundamental right. Not just in criminal cases but in many other situations where a person is facing serious consequences as a result of government action - such as the loss of a job. The power of government authority acting without restraint is dangerous and we should have and support processes that control its powers. Nobody wants to live under a government that can do whatever it wants without restraint - regardless of whether that’s imprisoning you, firing you, or taking away your property.
Posters were calling for the government to pronounce someone guilty without a hearing. I pointed out another situation where the government was pronouncing people guilty without a hearing. It’s only a Godwin argument if the analogy isn’t applicable.
Not exactly - more like RickJay and JRDelicious. As I was composing mine, Diogenes posted in between.
I think that perhaps the language that you are using is cluttering up your point. If your point is that, if the PD choose to fire him, he may have an administrative hearing or an arbitrator decide if there is just cause to do so, that’s a point that nobody is disputing.
However, when you start talking about findings of guilt and jury trials, you’re simply incorrect. In terms of guilt, nobody is charging him with a crime. Furthermore, the facts of the matter do not appear to be in doubt; witnesses, other police officers, video tape and his own statement all suggest consensus around what happened, so there is no real issue that a trier of fact could be asked to decide upon. If these are your points, you’re simply out on a limb.
No, that’s exactly the point we’re disputing. Tao’s Revenge said the cop should have already been fired. I responded by saying that it’s only been a week and they hadn’t had time to have a hearing. Tao’s Revenge disagreed and felt there was no point to a hearing because he was already certain the cop was guilty. So the issue we were discussing is whether he should be fired right away or whether he’s entitled to a hearing first.
Well, then perhaps you would make your point better if you stopped talking about trials by jury and guilt, and started asking whether this act falls under some aspect of the relevant collective bargaining agreement pertaining to just cause for termination.
It’s increasingly videotaped, I don’t know that it’s increasingly common.
Why, Sir, I had no idea we were so intimately acquainted…:eek::p:D
Did I type that out loud? Oh, I’m mortified!
Tao’s Revenge asked why he should care whether or not somebody gets a hearing. I was pointing out the important principles involved.
Okay. But you forgot to mention other important principles, like he has the right to peaceable assembly, the right to be compensated for property taken for public use, and the right not to have to provide quarter to soldiers.
My argument is that one aspect of the right of due process is related to other aspects of the right of due process and the right as a whole should be defended and not thrown out in a moment of temporary outrage. Perhaps I was too subtle in making this argument. Or maybe you weren’t paying enough attention. For example, I did mention the right to be compensated for property taken for public use.
It’s a moot point whether he’ll be fired or not; he preemptively resigned.
This thread contains an interesting example of a strawman, being advanced by Diogenes and also by Hentor the Barbarian.
In post #56, Diogenes states, in response to a post by Little Nemo:
Then in post #59, again in response to a post by Little Nemo, he repeats:
(my underlining)
Then, at post #62, Hentor states, in response to a post by Little Nemo:
Then, at post #69, responding to another post from Little Nemo, Hentor states:
(my underlining)
Then, at post #71, again responding to another post by Little Nemo, Hentor states:
(my underlining)
So both are criticising Little Nemo for suggesting that the officer is entitled to a jury trial. But here’s the thing: Little Nemo never mentioned a jury trial at all!
His initial comments, at post #50, were about the rule of law and due process:
Diogenes appears to have made the IMHO fallacious assumption that due process means a jury trial, while Hentor made the clearly wrong statement, twice, that it was Little Nemo who was “talking about trials by jury” and criticising him for something he didn’t say.
I appreciate that we’re not in GD here, but I would have hoped that experienced posters wouldn’t put words in another poster’s mouth, and then criticise the other poster for those words that aren’t his.
as for the merits of Little Nemo’s comments, I think he’s quite correct, especially in the context of potential discipline for a police officer, to be raising the issues of due process and the the concept of innocent until proven guilty, for two reasons.
First, as others have pointed out, police officers, like other public servants, are often covered by collective agreements which have provisions regulating the discipline process. If that’s the case here, then the police chief is required to follow those processes, whatever they might be, and may not have the power to fire the officer on the spot. Following the terms of a collective agreement, which has legal status, is an aspect of due process of law - that term is not restricted to purely criminal matters, which Diogenes and Hentor seem to assume.
Second, in my experience, police officers are often subject to codes of conduct, containing service offences, such as conduct unbecoming. I don’t know if that is the case in Texas, but in my experience, it is usually the case for police officers. Allegations of breaches of a police code of conduct are often conducted much like prosecutions, so the language of innocent until proven guilty is appropriate. (I acknowledge that I speak from a Canadian perspective, so I may be in error in this point. However, Little Nemo is an experienced corrections official in the US, so I assume he has some personal knowledge of how codes of conduct and service offences work in the US.)
Finally, as for the comments along the lines of “it’s all on tape, so why do we need any due process?” - would you be comfortable if a police officer used that to explain why he killed someone who was on tape killing another person? after all, if it’s on tape that someone’s a murderer, why have a trial? the cop saved the state the cost of the trial.
Due process applies regardless of the strength of the evidence against a person.