Here's a doozy: A group of cops knowingly violated the First Amendment when they tried to force a man to delete a video of them beating a suspect, a federal court said this week.
That same court gave them qualified immunity anyway.
The story: A man named Levi Frasier sees a group of cops making an arrest in an alleged drug deal, & he films them punching the suspect 6 times in the face.
The cops find Frasier afterward, surround him, search his tablet without a warrant, & try to delete the video.
The kicker: The cops had *specific training* on this issue. The public has the right to film an arrest, and the cops knew it. The city had explicitly told them so.
The 10th Circuit acknowledged this & agreed it was a free speech violation.
...But they gave them QI, because it wasn't clearly established somewhere in a prior court precedent.
Translation: We can't even hold cops accountable when there's proof *they knew* they were breaking the rules. Make it make sense.
Qualified immunity was originally supposed to be about "good faith." The 10th Circuit said the quiet part out loud: It is about no such thing.
Remember that time 2 cops got qualified immunity for stealing $225k? You mean to tell me theft is wrong?? reason.com/2019/09/20/cou…
As with any QI decision, the ruling rests on *reasonableness.* Would a *reasonable* officer know this was a 1A violation?
If a *reasonable* armed agent of the state cannot be expected to apply his/her training to the job, then maybe we're holding them to too low a standard.
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@justinamash's bill from last June would've ended qualified immunity for all state actors. It had tripartisan support. It never received a vote. reason.com/2020/06/06/jus…
I talked with a man who came to the U.S. legally from India. His student visa was running out, so he applied for a master's at the University of Farmington.
The university's website, secretly set up by ICE, claimed to be approved by DHS's Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
So he enrolled, paid $15,000 in tuition, & got his visa. He then got a letter telling him it was all a lie & he needed to leave the country.
600 other students are in the same boat. Some left right away. About 250 were arrested & deported.
THREAD: A SWAT team decimated this innocent woman's home while chasing a fugitive. The city says it's not their problem—and has refused to pay for any damages.
Whitmer's April stay-at-home order prohibited all public and private gatherings. It banned the in-store sale of paint & outdoor goods at big retailers. It shuttered lawncare services. It made it illegal to use motorboats, but not boats without motors. reason.com/2020/04/13/mic…
Even with all the prohibitions, lottery sales were still deemed essential.
THREAD: Yet another rogue cop received qualified immunity yesterday.
The judge writing for the majority didn't actually want to grant it. He was forced to, and he had some choice words for everyone involved. It’s a stunning opinion.
The case surrounds a cop, Nick McClendon, who pulled over a man, Clarence Jamison, to conduct a drug search, which resulted in damage to Jamison's car. McClendon told Jamison he’d received a call that he had “10 kilos of cocaine.”
McClendon never actually received that call.
But McClendon proceeded to search anyway for almost two hours, because why not? He even called in a canine, because why not?
No drugs were found, because Jamison is not, in fact, a drug dealer. But McClendon did manage to cause $4,000 in damages to Jamison’s vehicle.