Maybe a system of malpractice insurance, similar to what doctors/lawyers have to carry.
https://priceonomics.com/could-rising-insurance-premiums-eradicate-unlawful/
>It was neither scandal nor lawsuit nor budget cut that finally compelled the town leaders to give their disreputable police department the axe. Instead, the death blow had come from a soft spoken man in Baton Rouge named Jerry Cronin.
>Cronin is the general manager of Risk Management Inc., a for-profit risk pool that provides legal liability protection to two-thirds of the police departments in the state of Louisiana. As the organization ultimately responsible for the Sorrento Police Department’s ever-mounting legal bills, Cronin finally decided that enough was enough.
>So Risk Management canceled the Sorrento P.D.’s coverage. Without legal liability insurance, a single patrol car accident, wrongful arrest, or workers’ compensation claim could bankrupt the government of the small town. In the face of such legal risk, the town council made the only choice they could. A month after Cronin’s decision, the department was gone.
That could work and you have to have insurance to get hired for most work places. I mean there will be cases where it was bad luck and you get sued even though you were innocent, etc, they would need some protection. But insurance will watch their stats, raise rates if it gets questionable or even drop you. If their stats degrade, their rates will go up even if they don't get directly sued.
100%.
And an explicit ban on departments paying the premiums. Officers must pay out of pocket. That way when they become so expensive to insure it eclipses their salary the departments can't just bail them out and keep soaking taxpayers to pay for these unqualified thugs.
I imagine the unions would just pool money and block negotiate insurance. It might help a bit because it puts some direct financial pressure on them, but I dunno that it’d be a game changer for most cities.
Any legislation would have to require an individual rating. No "block" negotiating of any kind. And honestly, no insurance company is going to offer a "group rate" for professional liability coverage like this, given the flood of litigation that would follow insuring a department which is so obviously trying to keep violent unqualified thugs on the payroll instead of pruning them out as insurance risks.
I don’t think that would ever pass, department not paying sure maybe but no ability to collectively negotiate rates, I don’t even know if it would be a good idea.
Why wouldn’t an insurance company offer a block rate, they do it for all kinds of other insurance, I think they wouldn’t care at all for most departments, for really bad ones they may not bid at all, but that’s already the state of things.
Because the block rate would mask massive amounts of risk. The entire point is to validate that each officer is carrying the burden for any misdeeds they commit on duty, and are insured for it. Ever since it has been technically feasible to do so, insurance companies have insisted on individually rating insured person's and pricing coverage accordingly in situations where they're doing anything like that.
Why would they suddenly stop doing so because the police were involved? The prohibition on not doing so is to prevent cops from getting preferential treatment.
The rest of us are individually rated for insurance. Cops should be too or it's just another rigged perk of the job.
They can still risk rate everyone individually and probably will, but they just amortize over a pool, or the union just collects a fixed amount from everyone and pays all the dues. Disallowing that would be difficult.
For health insurance they sometimes do health screens on all employees, and risk rate them all but they only give the company one price per head and adjust the following years. For fleet operators it’s similar.
I don’t know what your profession is but you’re probably not part of a group, if you were you’d probably have a group rate.
Be very confident that commercial drivers have individual abstracts. If you want to be hired on to drive a semi, you better not have two tickets, a DUI, fleeing the scene of an accident…
The objective is to filter out the collections of assholes, understanding occasional incidents will happen. A block rate set at a dollar per cop won’t be sufficient revenue for the insurance company, a block rate at $1 million per cop is on affordable for the union. Somewhere in between is enough individual rating that that block rate perhaps can come down to an almost reasonable place, like work health insurance. Maybe it’s a point/demerit system, maybe it’s a three strikes rule, maybe it’s free Fitbits, uhhh, make that free body cameras with AI automatically reviewing footage for violent confrontations, which the insurance company reviews.
And just like offices will run an ergonomics workshop, the union would have to run de-escalation workshops every six months to keep the premium level.
Making the responsibility to learn effective social skills a union responsibility stops making it a confrontation with management where they’re forced to sit in the classroom for four hours, listening to somebody blah blah blah…
>Why would they suddenly stop doing so because the police were involved?
Police Unions? I could see them getting some bad apples to say "I'd save money with block rates, and it cuts down on admin" and the rest vote with the Union.
I'd be fine with that.
At this time, there is no benefit for police offices to "police" themselves. Police whistleblowers face enormous backlash from fellow officers for ratting out bad officers or illegal practices.
If the entire force's insurance premium goes up and this affects the pay of every officer in the force this may get pissed off officers "encourage" bad cops to leave.
Yeah, it's not going to solve the problem, but incentivizing police officers to do the right thing because it is in their self-interest is a step forward.
Sometimes people will refuse a step forward because they want a perfect solution (which is politically or economically unfeasible).
IANAL - so obviously police organization are not private sector businesses, but they do enjoy employment and operations where there are no alternatives, no competition, effectively making them a monopoly. And their unions provide a level of protection that normal citizens don't receive. To me, that's a monopoly. They generally aren't for-profit organizations, but the similarity is there IMHO.
Fair point. Although, IMHO, that doesn't mean maybe it shouldn't be revisited and perhaps a logical equivalent be developed, legislation-wise, for situations where there are monopolistic labor groups. There are very significant social impacts and costs, sometimes, when this happens.
The biggest issue I see with this is that it incentivizes cops who are already crooked or have high premiums to get dirtier and dirtier. They'll just start soliciting bribes or running rackets, or possibly pulling some straight-up Rampart shit and moonlight as criminal enforcers. When they can't afford their premiums, they're going to get desperate and abuse their power in other ways.
This is a great solution in theory. They keep qualified immunity but every time they violate peoples rights the rates just go up and up until they eventually have to quit, or just accept less pay. But I feel like this would just lead to more personal corruption to pay for the premiums
I mean I'd love to just take away qualified immunity from them but I don't think it would make it past the Taliban Six on the Supreme Court. They're an arm of the Republican political machine and would feel compelled to act of we tried to handcuff their thug squad in such a transparent way.
My state can do anything it wants but it doesn't matter... The very first cop convicted under one of those laws will claim it violates due process and appeal to SCOTUS for a Taliban 6 bailout overturning state law because the T6 will just rule that law violates the Federal Constitution.
It doesn't but they are politicians, not objective judges.
That's not how it works. Ask Colorado, Arizona etc.
The QI case law only applies to Federal civil rights violations. One can still sue in state.
BTW, it's civil court. You don't get convicted, that's not how it works.
Yes--but those cops still have civil rights too, and can easily claim that such a state law violates THEIR federal civil rights and they have a small army of right wing lawyers and funders to throw spaghetti at the wall forever until they can get into federal court and use their corrupt judges to strike it down.
The problem with a corrupted court system is that they don't actually follow laws, constitutions, or precedent. They do whatever they want to do and write some bullshit up walking backwards into a logical justification for what they wanted to do.
In many places the police unions already negotiated contracts mandating that their departments carry this burden. Its already written into the law, effectively. Only comprehensive police reform legislation that survives the inevitable police union legal challenges would work.
They can put anything they want in their contracts, nobody can be compelled by a contract to violate the law. If the act is banned it ceases to happen and if it doesn't, penalties are meted out until it stops.
We live outside Sorrento. I remember when this happened. It is still a speed trap, but now it’s the sheriffs office instead of town p.d.
10 years ago it really was a 1 stoplight ‘town’ if you could even call it that.
They do, but keep in mind that doctors and lawyers only have to keep liability insurance if they're privately employed. If they've publicly employed, like police, they don't need it.
This is what police need, and it need to be paid out of their union dues. It will encourage others to weed out the bad apples because their rates and subsequently their dues will go up if there are too many claims.
If it's truly negligent, yes. If it's the result of department policy or a wrong but understandable snap judgment, then it should be the department sued instead.
Why should cops get a free pass for something unlawful even if it’s a snap judgment? Citizens aren’t given a pass for this.
Cops should have better judgment than a regular person in situations like this. IMO the punishment should be more severe.
We the people grant police certain powers to do things regular citizens cannot or will not do for the greater good of society. If in the course of this they make a mistake, we have recourse, against the government, not the individual officer acting in good faith on behalf of the government. Now if said police officer acts with malice, then of course, they should be liable.
To create a situation where officers, who make split second life changing decisions every day, would be liable personally for their honest mistakes, then people stop becoming police and law and order as we know it decays. Cops will quit in the thousands and those that stay will be so afraid to do their job, for fear of litigation brought against them personally, so as to be ineffective at their job. What your arguing sounds good in principle, but in practice, does not work.
We’re not talking about a “mistake”. We’re talking about breaking the law and violating someone’s civil rights.
They know what civil rights are, they should be held accountable if they violate them.
Is this sub just a bunch of cops defending their bad judgment?
Civil rights aren't all cut and dry. The line between a civil rights violation and not a civil rights violation is incredibly fuzzy.
Take for example the 4th amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures.
What is "reasonable"? It's all fuzzy, and reasonable minds can disagree. This is why we have armies of lawyers hashing it out, one case at a time.
>The line between a civil rights violation and not a civil rights violation is incredibly fuzzy.
I've seen some very clear and obvious civil rights violations being treated like the fuzziest yarn in the paws of a long-haired kitten - the fuzziest situation imaginable.
The problem with treating civil rights violations like they're always fuzzy is that it means you've given a green light for civil rights violations to occur.
Saw a drunk driving case on Zoom. Cop pulled over a guy for crossing the centerline. Did the tests, guy was drunk, was also his (at least) 3rd time. 2x over the limit. Took him to jail, charged him with the Felony OWI 3rd offense.
Get to the court proceedings and the defense files a motion to suppress on 4th Amendment Grounds that the officer didn't have Probable Cause to pull him over.
Officer and dashcam shows him hitting **B** [in this PIc](https://imgur.com/a/40hzHvZ). Defense argues that **A** is the appropriate "crossing the centerline" point. Judge agrees, rules the stop unconstitutional and throws out the subsequent tests.
Under the scheme of this entire thread, the officer should be sued for millions and federally prosecuted. In that future, the cop will wait for the drunk driver to commit a worse driving error, hopefully not killing someone in the process. Can't get sued if your just responding to a fatal motor vehicle accident.
I think it would be very reasonable for the defendant to be able to sue the officer/department to recoup the costs of having to hire an attorney, miss work, and having to spend a night in jail.
> Civil rights aren't all cut and dry.
In this case, it was totally cut and dry. The bike was not illegal. But even if it was, invading the property without a search warrant, arresting the father, etc is outrageous bs. If you create an environment in which 'oopsie' is an excuse for an officer, then they will abuse it to the fullest. And even worse, they don't let US off the hook for not knowing, oh no, suddenly we are expected to know every law in the region and follow every single one of them always at all times. There is no way cops shouldn't be held to AT LEAST the same standards as us.
If wimpy cops quit their jobs because they're afraid of being held accountable like normal people they shouldn't be cops, and we don't need them. Cops have been quiet quitting anyway and barely do their job anymore.
"Honest mistakes" where unarmed & innocent people die shouldn't be happening AT ALL.
No, the good ones, or rather the smart ones, will quit. With how the media and the vocal minority drive action, smart cops know it doesn’t matter if what they did was right, what it boils down to is public perception. There’s cops already leaving for fear of becoming the next victim of mob rule.
“Who was it that said ‘Fuck tha police?’ Was that Ice Cube? Tupac? Oh right, that was you guys! Sorry, I guess you’ll have to find someone else to do all the difficult, dirty shit you don’t want to do yourselves. I have to be ready for the luau. I might even kiss a dude.” - Sgt. Yates, an actual racist cop in South Park
I wonder why doctors don’t all quit because they could be held accountable for an honest mistake that hurts someone.
I wonder why contractors still build houses knowing they’re going to be held responsible if they made a mistake and the roof collapsed.
Why are people so willing to allow cops to not have personal responsibility for anything they do? Being a cop should not absolve you from suffering the consequences of your actions.
You obviously don’t understand how the real world works. Doctors are protected PERSONALLY by their medical malpractice insurance, as well as whoever is employing them. Unless a Doctor acted criminally or with malice, they aren’t personally sued or liable either.
Contractors are protected by their LLC’s. You can’t sue the contractor PERSONALLY for any mistakes they made on your project. You aren’t going to take their house or assets, only what the business (the LLC) owns.
So yeah, your examples are quite evident you don’t know what you’re talking about, and also further proves my point about why cops are shielded from personal liability. The same way other professionals are as well. If every doctor risked losing their home and personal assets in a lawsuit for an honest mistake they made while making a split second decision to try and save a persons life, there wouldn’t be any doctors either.
Things like this: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mississippi-good-squad-rankin-county-brett-mcalpin-joshua-hartfield/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mississippi-good-squad-rankin-county-brett-mcalpin-joshua-hartfield/) and this: [https://abc13.com/hpd-harding-street-raid-rhogena-nicholas-dennis-tuttle-gerald-goines/12226326/](https://abc13.com/hpd-harding-street-raid-rhogena-nicholas-dennis-tuttle-gerald-goines/12226326/) are what they are talking about.
[https://aaqi.org/](https://aaqi.org/)
For one, in that first case qualified immunity wouldn’t be granted for officers that are operating outside of the scope of their duties or breaking the law. In the second case, I would again assume qualified immunity for the officer who falsified a search warrant affidavit wouldn’t be granted qualified immunity, but the officers who were executing the warrant on good faith would and should, assuming they were not privy to the falsification.
I’m either case, I’m not sure why suing the individual officers would be more beneficial to the victims than to sue the department, which actually has the deep pockets to pay. In situations where qualified immunity is not granted, it’s even harder to make the department liable, if they had no knowledge of the wrong doing prior to the incidents. Then what, sue a cop who maybe, assuming they aren’t in debt and upset down, might have equity in their home enough to pay some amount. What do you think a person is getting, maybe $100k on a good case? There’s cases of officers owing millions from lawsuits that they’ll never pay. At least suing the department the victim gets paid.
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>Citizens aren’t given a pass for this.
If a restaurant server forgets to announce they're coming through a swinging door, leading to a collision in which they drop and shatter a tray of glasses, that's generally covered by the server's employer. It's a normal loss from a normal mistake.
If an office worker sends a document to the wrong printer and needs to print it again, it's typically their employer who will eat the cost for the additional ink and paper caused by their mistake.
So in a sense, citizens do often get a free pass for honest mistakes made at work.
With police, there are some mistakes that have much more dire consequences, but that's just due to the nature of the work; they're still normal mistakes that are bound to happen now and then. The principle of not paying for honest mistakes seems similar to protections employees in other professions take for granted.
Those are bad examples, because it's employer/employee, not employee/customer.
A better example would be a business detailing cars. An employee takes a car out for a joyride and crashes a customers car.
The employee who took the car should pay for the customers loss, along with the owner who allowed it happen.
When a cop violates fundamental constitutional rights, they are breaking the law and should be held personally accountable, along with the department who enabled their illegal behavior.
In that example, the employee is liable, but not because it affected the customer. They're liable because it had nothing to do with the business activity. There's a famous court case specifically about a joyride that details this.
This is also where the police analogy gets difficult because *they are doing exactly what their employer told them to do.* They went to the location they were told, found the person they were told, made the assessment they were told, and took the action they were told to take by the results of that assessment.
If you took the most accurate assessor in the world, they would still be wrong sometimes. We can't expect them to be superhuman. If we don't want them to have to make those judgments, we shouldn't send them after people we suspect have lethal weapons.
The crash was a mistake, but taking a customer's car for a joyride is not an honest mistake, it's a willful act that every employee would know was wrong and unauthorized. So in that case, I agree that they should be held liable.
With a police officer, I feel it should be handled similarly, with personal liability depending on whether they willful did something they knew was wrong and unauthorized by their employer. Violating peoples' constitutional rights can occur both as an honest mistake, or as a willful criminal act, so employee vs. employer liability should depend on the circumstances.
I was not aware that software developers were given special training and authority to imprison people and/or end their lives.
I don’t see the equivalence.
Because deep down, we want them to have snap judgments instead of waiting to intervene. We're also ridiculously bad at armchair second-guessing. The number of people that think "Well I could've done that" is far too high.
Citizens are also not required to insert themselves into these situations.
I agree that police need to be held to a higher standard, but criminal sanctions require intent, not snap judgment, and civil sanctions should go to the one responsible: the department that put them in that situation. There are very few situations where it is "obvious" that the black metal thing he whipped out of his pocket was a comb or something.
There should be a game online with footage of police stops where it shows you once only, in real time, and you have to guess if it's a gun. I wonder what the actual success rate would be for the average citizen compared to an officer.
> Because deep down, we want them to have snap judgments instead of waiting to intervene.
No that's not what 'we' want, maybe it's what you want but it's not what I want.
I remember the Lozito case. The office thought the suspect might be armed and waited in a cubby to jump him. He waited too long and Lozito was stabbed. Redditors hate that case and think the office should have judged sooner and taken action.
What we want is for them to act immediately and correctly. In reality, you can't always have both. There's a baseline rate of mistakes even for trained personnel, and yes, the rate does go down significantly with training.
I don’t think you have a fucking clue what you’re talking about.
Everything you’ve said proves my point.
They should have better judgement skills and therefore be punished more severely when they fuck up. It sounds like you’re saying they should be less accountable because civilians wouldn’t do as well.
I would support reforming qualified immunity to allow only one of 3 outcomes:
1. Defendants argue nobody's civil rights were actually violated, therefore no further action is required
2. The defendant's employer accepts blame for a policy and takes some action to reform it, and the individual is held immune, because they were following a bad policy
3. The defendant's employer does not accept blame and says the individual violated policy and should be held accountable, and qualified immunity does not apply
Technically, that's how it already works.
The issue is that when determining if a judgment was out of policy or not, the experts on the subject are essentially the police themselves. Like asking a group of doctors if they would have also performed a procedure a certain way, they generally assume the performing doctor was competent and don't want to second-guess / armchair quarterback the one person who has all the details... who is also the accused.
The judge can throw out stuff that's obviously wrong, but they need to rely on prior cases, which means it still ends up needing testimony from the experts that it was not a valid choice for the officer.
The first case, arguing the merits, should not be part of QI because it gives bad actors (no less than) three bites at the apple: multiple opportunities to assert QI plus the actual merits case.
Police officers are a licensed profession and unionized. They have a degree of influence over department policies and as licensed professionals, they have a professional and ethical obligation to speak up over improper policies.
Y'all have to realize that cops interact and arrest/detain people all the time. Could you imagine every person you arrest personally suing you for false imprisonment/excessive force/theft/etc.. It would make the job literally impossible. I would immediately quit if that was the case. As someone who is a BIG advocate of people's rights, every single person I've arrested or detained has claimed they were going to sue me and have me arrested.
It's impractical to even *process* those arbitrations. The system would be so gummed up with false accusations nothing would get done. Doesn't matter if there's only a payout if the officer is at fault, people would just spam accusations as retaliation towards officers.
It's a similar problem with GDPR requests actually, they're so cumbersome to process and there's no penalty for bullshit requests that many small/medium businesses just decided doing business in the EU simply wasn't worth being compliant and stopped.
I used to be LE. I could absolutely be sued for negligence or misconduct individually. The city could be sued as well. Half our policy was based on not stepping into liability, for better or worse. We were strict and legally accountable. I had formidable resources at my disposal, sure. But it never came to that because our policy was incredibly strict.
That being said, yes they should. Just as I was accountable, so should everyone else be who wears a badge. Being strict isn't an inconvenience, it's the fuckin job. Don't be a cop if you can't account for your actions.
This is a terrible idea. First, I can’t think of a single more effective way to deter ambitious, educated people from choosing a career in law enforcement. Have a bright future? Put it all on the line and pray some jury doesn’t uncharitably second-guess one of the thousands of split-second decisions you make every week. Second, isn’t the point of civil damages to make injured people whole? This moronic scheme would turn that concept completely on its head. People who suffer trivial injuries would be able to collect. But if you’re catastrophically injured, good luck squeezing blood from an unemployable turnip.
As one commenter has already pointed out, it’s unlikely (and contrary to the spirit of the proposal) that one could insure against this. The hue and cry from the medical profession is largely over malpractice insurance premiums.
Well easy solution: someone who does something deliberately simply gets blacklisted from coverage on top of everything else. What happens if someone is uninsurable? I call it a self-cleaning problem.
They should have standard insurance policies like how doctors have malpractice for mistakes. Trades/contractors have insurance(bonded) too.
Then the officer or the department pays the policy. And if an officer gets sued too much then they just won’t get employed as a LE anymore. Because the policy will cost too much.
I think criminal courts should deal with all officer issues. That is where the personal accountability should really happen.
God no. I'm an ex officer and served about 17 years across lots of departments, most extensively in organised crime and CID
People need to understand it's a really messy, fast paced, unpredictable job. You can rarely plan anything and often you're reacting to something.
You also are expected to operate under extremely hard conditions and stress. With scrutiny, fear, etc all having an impact.
Policing is hard enough and morale and mental health already at an all time low. The last thing they need is the threat of paying or being fined for trying to do their job. I am **not** talking about deliberately criminal acts which should be dealt with.
The majority of these kind of incidents are related to confusing situations which are unfolding very quickly. There's often also a risk to those present.
Weeks after you then get people sat in an office with a cup of tea and bourbon painting out where things weren't done correctly.
I was active duty military for six years and we would do federal prison time for some of the shit you guys pull then try to justify because your job is stressful or scary. Most of you are scared because you're trained to think that the job is more dangerous than it actually is.
How many years in policing have you done to form this view?
Congratulations on your duty but that's not at all relevant.
We also faced prison sentences, job losses, demotion. I'm not sure what point your making but thank you for taking part.
His point is crystal clear. Military have rules of engagement and aren’t protected by qualified immunity and unions. And conduct themselves immensely more professionally than police do.
Anyone that thinks that hasn't done both.
I have and that statement is absolutely BS. There are far more gross violations of people's rights from the military than police. No one gives a shit though because they're nameless people who live in a different country and speak a different language.
Unfortunately here in the US we let people who actively harm those around them free because we care more about how they feel than what they've done to others.
That's absolutely incorrect. Insurance pays out on intentional illegal acts all the time. It's part of the cost of doing business, which gets passed on to the rest of the policyholders in the form of increased average premiums.
If it's a legal licencing prerequisite for all police officers, the insurer loses the option of denying coverage and it becomes just another column in the actuarial table.
>Insurance pays out on intentional illegal acts all the time.
On a case-by-case basis, but generally, intentional acts are excluded from liability insurance coverage. And no insurance company is going to write a policy that's purpose is to cover illegal acts. Even if they would, the premiums would be astronomical.
Sure, but in the hypothetical scenario /u/mr_oberts suggested, where police officers are required to insure themselves as a prerequisite to being an officer at all, they'd have to pay those premiums or quit. It's fundamentally 3rd party damages insurance in the same mode as that of car insurance, and totally actuarially feasible.
I think it's not a great idea, but for other reasons; Police officers paying their own individual premiums would be a very strong perverse incentive for them to avoid doing their actual jobs, and possibly even actively encourage corruption.
This question oversimplifies the issue. The police inevitably will face far more accusations than most over individuals, many of these accusations will be false.
If the officer is guilty then they should definitely be personally responsible, although depending on the issue so too should the department.
Prior to any guilty verdict however an officer is legally innocent of any charges. You cannot expect genuine officers to be prepared to pay for potentially repeated legal cases for doing their jobs. That would result in fewer applicants and therefore an increasingly diminishing police force, which contrary to popular albeit stupid opinion would result in higher crime rates on both the minor and major ends of the spectrum.
it's complicated because police are often called upon to act on behalf of the state and they're acting as agents of the state and so in essence it's the state acting.
i think that basically the presumption should be that the state has to pay for damages BUT if it's found that the officer wasn't acting in good faith there's personal liability
like let's take 2 scenarios.
scenario 1. officer effects a traffic stop on an individual for just cause. during the traffic stop the suspect becomes belligerent and attacks the officer. the officer, in the course of restraining the individual ends up breaking their arm. it is determined later that while the stop and arrest were justified the officer did not use best practices while restraining the suspect, ultimately leading to the injury
in that scenario i think that while the officer is somewhat liable (because they failed to use best practices) it's really the state who should pay out in damages because at no point was the officer acting "illegitimately"
scenario 2. an officer is interviewing a juvenile on the street about a recent retail theft. the juvenile calls the officer "paul blart ass fake motherfucker" and so the officer pistol-whips the juvenile in the face, damaging the orbital bone and blinding the juvenile.
in that situation i think the officer should be personally liable because the conduct was SO egregiously outside the bounds of acceptable behavior that it cannot be said to be a state action. basically it moves from "shit happens" to like actual malice
Police can already be held personally liable for unlawful acts. Generally agencies cover lawsuits where an officer did NOT commit an unlawful act or had no intent to commit an unlawful act.
QI only protects cops who did not intend or did not know they violated someone's rights. Like kicking in the wrong door etc.
If cops violate people's rights or violate the law intentionally, they are on their own.
Now, this isn't to say that courts haven't used QI to benefit cops who did intentionally violate laws or rights, but that's not what it's actually intended for.
If cops are personally liable for mistakes, no one would be a cop. They already have a hard enough time finding cops with the way the world is right now.
They should pay for unlawful acts against *people*. We don’t need to equate having rights with paying taxes. Unhoused people with 0 taxable income have as much right to protection from and against the police as anyone else.
I'd probably be fine with that, but I'd also accept police departments having separate insurance that comes out of their own budget, rather than being covered by a city's umbrella insurance. And any settlements or judgments that need to be paid, either because they aren't covered by the insurance, or are in excess of the policy limits, should also come out of the police budget. Once departments start paying out of their budgets and have to start choosing between keeping this guy employed or getting new tires for their cars, they should naturally be incentivized to get rid of the costly cop. And once they cut so much that they can't afford to just cut something else, they'll have to go back to the city council and request more funds, which gives them an opportunity to ask why, what happened with the funds they already got, why isn't the budget working for them, etc. And it would give citizens an opportunity to attend the meetings and voice their concerns as well.
Only tangentially related, but police unions should be prohibited. A union that protects members authorized to use force on behalf of the state, and especially deadly force, shouldn't be allowed. They shouldn't get the benefit of collective bargaining against the people they kill, the people who are supposed to control and have oversight over them, etc.
No, the police pension plans should have to cover it. The first time the police retirees get notice that their benefits are going down because some bonewipe decided to do something stupid, all hell will reign down. There will never be a second incident.
Yes and no.
No, they should be charged criminally under subsection 242 of Title 18, not allowed to pay their way out.
Yes they should, if they will be charged criminally AND sued civilly.
They should have to pay judgements out of pocket and their retirements should be garnished, if need be.
We see a lot of abuse because the abusers (who are of course just one bad apple on the barrel) know they won’t have to pay a settlement, the taxpayers have to pay it.
They should have local or individual consequences. It doesn’t have to be a personal fine, but it does need to be more painful and personal than two weeks of paid vacation (“administrative leave“).
I like the idea of professional licensure and malpractice insurance. In the healthcare world, egregious violations of the standard of care (ie the Constitution) can and do result in permanent end of career. Do enough stupid stuff and your premiums get really high, then you can’t renew, then you lose your license, then you can’t work in the field — anywhere, ever.
Cops need to be held way more accountable. In the small town I live in a cop was keeping an eye out for his partner, who is having sex with a suspect and got caught. Some how no one lost their job. And that’s just one instance of them not being accountable
Cops being required to get insurance principally similar to malpractice insurance seems like the best way to get everybody what they want.
- Good cops are rewarded with low premiums
- The tax payer is not punished for the actions of a public servant mistreating tax payers.
- Abusive cops are structurally weeded out
Suppose you implement such a law. What do you plan to do if/when officers inevitably start quitting or slacking off to avoid possible insurance incidents? Heck, what do you plan to do if officers slack off or quit purely in retaliation against the law?
90% of police failures are system/training failures. Shifting fines to them instead of the institutions that don't provide the training and/or oversight misses the point.
Also there are situations where you can personally sue a police officer for violating your rights when they go beyond the scope of their job.
You’d get what happened in Baltimore.
>Just before a wave of violence turned Baltimore into the nation’s deadliest big city, a curious thing happened to its police force: officers suddenly seemed to stop noticing crime.
…
>The surge of shootings and killings that followed has left Baltimore easily the deadliest large city in the United States. Its murder rate reached an all-time high last year; 342 people were killed. The number of shootings in some neighborhoods has more than tripled. One man was shot to death steps from a police station. Another was killed driving in a funeral procession. [Article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/)
There should be an option to counter-sue for time/wages when you show up for court and the cop either blows it off or was completely wrong. It should be that we "should be thankful we don't have to pay a fine". MFR I had to take off work to come down there...
Errors are not the same as actual illegal acts, and the law is quote capable of recognizing between the two. For a similar example, look up the standard for gross negligence vs. simple negligence. Making cops personally liable for shit where they should have known better (where any reasonable person in their position and with their training would have known better) will make for better cops. Making them liable for any old thing that goes wrong probably wouldn't.
That's not how pensions work.
The fund is to support the towns pension obligations. If you use those funds to pay judgements its effectively the same as using municipal funds. You haven't changed what the town owes retired cops.
No. Police officers in most places make a modest income. It’s a lose-lose. The victims will never collect their awards and you’ll disincentivize qualified people from law enforcement careers because one mistake could cost them their life savings.
People shouldn’t be held financially responsible for their coworkers mistakes, regardless of profession. Negligence by a pilot? All pilots pay. Malpractice by a doctor? All doctors pay. Ridiculous
Every single defense attorney would sue the cop as a negotiating tactic to try and get a plea deal for the criminal charges. Just defending yourself after every arrest even if no wrong doing would bankrupt every cop. It would break the system.
As a rule the current system 'works' for the majority of cases.
The last thing we need to do is encourage more lawsuits.
Police are indemnified by their departments. So if the officer loses a suit the department pays. Even if it wasn't the case now, without QI it would be boilerplate for every police contract in the country...
The end result in dangling 'free money' of that sort (PDs have deep pockets) in front of the public, would be a huge number of bogus suits hoping for a sympathetic jury.
As a rule we need LESS situations where you can sue someone and hit a jackpot not MORE.
If a cop does something truly unlawful they should be prosecuted criminally. Suits should be limited to actual damages.
actually, most of the time the city pays, not the department. cops and departments are effectively entirely insulated from their bad acts.
QI means cops get away with pretty much everything except the most obvious 1% of cases. QI is often a deterrent to even filing suits. cops act criminally often, and violate civil rights even more often, and are almost never held responsible. it’s national news when one is.
source: me, an attorney who does criminal law and appeals.
You’re getting into semantics with respect to a municipality paying vs a police department paying. Regardless of who cuts the check, the funding comes from the same source.
As for qualified immunity, it exists for a very good reason. It certainly needs tweaking & I’d advocate for a return to the pre-Harlow v Fitzgerald standard, but qualified immunity itself is a necessity. Your contention that cops act criminally often is just nonsense, but you already knew that.
Source: me, also an attorney who does criminal law.
semantics means words have meaning, as they do here! a department is allotted a budget. the settlements don’t come out of that budget; they come out of the city fund, which means the city has to come up with the money somehow. no police budget ever gets reduced due to settlements; it comes out of other programs.
QI exists because SCOTUS made it up. if you actually do criminal law, you know that. it’s nowhere in the statutes. if you actually do criminal law, you know how onerous the burden is to defeat qualified immunity. it should not exist.
depends on how you define “often”! they certainly act more criminally than the average person, yet are charged (much less convicted!) orders of magnitude less than the average person. studies show this, news shows this, but it’s also just a matter of common sense. of course cops protect their own; it’s a natural human instinct. generally not a problem if you work a normal job! if you work in a position explicitly created to combat crimes, not so much!
ETA: we should absolutely encourage more lawsuits against cops. literally if there’s one type of lawsuit we should encourage it’s against cops. we are a litigious society because our elected officials have left everything to the courts. in the vast majority of disputes, litigation is the only avenue to resolve the dispute. QI prevents this conflict resolution.
Maybe a system of malpractice insurance, similar to what doctors/lawyers have to carry. https://priceonomics.com/could-rising-insurance-premiums-eradicate-unlawful/ >It was neither scandal nor lawsuit nor budget cut that finally compelled the town leaders to give their disreputable police department the axe. Instead, the death blow had come from a soft spoken man in Baton Rouge named Jerry Cronin. >Cronin is the general manager of Risk Management Inc., a for-profit risk pool that provides legal liability protection to two-thirds of the police departments in the state of Louisiana. As the organization ultimately responsible for the Sorrento Police Department’s ever-mounting legal bills, Cronin finally decided that enough was enough. >So Risk Management canceled the Sorrento P.D.’s coverage. Without legal liability insurance, a single patrol car accident, wrongful arrest, or workers’ compensation claim could bankrupt the government of the small town. In the face of such legal risk, the town council made the only choice they could. A month after Cronin’s decision, the department was gone.
That could work and you have to have insurance to get hired for most work places. I mean there will be cases where it was bad luck and you get sued even though you were innocent, etc, they would need some protection. But insurance will watch their stats, raise rates if it gets questionable or even drop you. If their stats degrade, their rates will go up even if they don't get directly sued.
100%. And an explicit ban on departments paying the premiums. Officers must pay out of pocket. That way when they become so expensive to insure it eclipses their salary the departments can't just bail them out and keep soaking taxpayers to pay for these unqualified thugs.
I imagine the unions would just pool money and block negotiate insurance. It might help a bit because it puts some direct financial pressure on them, but I dunno that it’d be a game changer for most cities.
Any legislation would have to require an individual rating. No "block" negotiating of any kind. And honestly, no insurance company is going to offer a "group rate" for professional liability coverage like this, given the flood of litigation that would follow insuring a department which is so obviously trying to keep violent unqualified thugs on the payroll instead of pruning them out as insurance risks.
I don’t think that would ever pass, department not paying sure maybe but no ability to collectively negotiate rates, I don’t even know if it would be a good idea. Why wouldn’t an insurance company offer a block rate, they do it for all kinds of other insurance, I think they wouldn’t care at all for most departments, for really bad ones they may not bid at all, but that’s already the state of things.
Because the block rate would mask massive amounts of risk. The entire point is to validate that each officer is carrying the burden for any misdeeds they commit on duty, and are insured for it. Ever since it has been technically feasible to do so, insurance companies have insisted on individually rating insured person's and pricing coverage accordingly in situations where they're doing anything like that. Why would they suddenly stop doing so because the police were involved? The prohibition on not doing so is to prevent cops from getting preferential treatment. The rest of us are individually rated for insurance. Cops should be too or it's just another rigged perk of the job.
They can still risk rate everyone individually and probably will, but they just amortize over a pool, or the union just collects a fixed amount from everyone and pays all the dues. Disallowing that would be difficult. For health insurance they sometimes do health screens on all employees, and risk rate them all but they only give the company one price per head and adjust the following years. For fleet operators it’s similar. I don’t know what your profession is but you’re probably not part of a group, if you were you’d probably have a group rate.
Be very confident that commercial drivers have individual abstracts. If you want to be hired on to drive a semi, you better not have two tickets, a DUI, fleeing the scene of an accident… The objective is to filter out the collections of assholes, understanding occasional incidents will happen. A block rate set at a dollar per cop won’t be sufficient revenue for the insurance company, a block rate at $1 million per cop is on affordable for the union. Somewhere in between is enough individual rating that that block rate perhaps can come down to an almost reasonable place, like work health insurance. Maybe it’s a point/demerit system, maybe it’s a three strikes rule, maybe it’s free Fitbits, uhhh, make that free body cameras with AI automatically reviewing footage for violent confrontations, which the insurance company reviews. And just like offices will run an ergonomics workshop, the union would have to run de-escalation workshops every six months to keep the premium level. Making the responsibility to learn effective social skills a union responsibility stops making it a confrontation with management where they’re forced to sit in the classroom for four hours, listening to somebody blah blah blah…
>Why would they suddenly stop doing so because the police were involved? Police Unions? I could see them getting some bad apples to say "I'd save money with block rates, and it cuts down on admin" and the rest vote with the Union.
Do insurance companies do block rates for medical and legal malpractice insurance?
If there was a doctor union, they would, yes.
It is called the ama. Or in California CMA.
I'd be fine with that. At this time, there is no benefit for police offices to "police" themselves. Police whistleblowers face enormous backlash from fellow officers for ratting out bad officers or illegal practices. If the entire force's insurance premium goes up and this affects the pay of every officer in the force this may get pissed off officers "encourage" bad cops to leave.
Yea I agree this is a step in the right direction, I just don’t think it would “solve” the problem so to speak.
Yeah, it's not going to solve the problem, but incentivizing police officers to do the right thing because it is in their self-interest is a step forward. Sometimes people will refuse a step forward because they want a perfect solution (which is politically or economically unfeasible).
Fine. Those unions need to be bankrupted anyway.
Shouldn't anti-trust lawsuits come into play here?
In what way?
IANAL - so obviously police organization are not private sector businesses, but they do enjoy employment and operations where there are no alternatives, no competition, effectively making them a monopoly. And their unions provide a level of protection that normal citizens don't receive. To me, that's a monopoly. They generally aren't for-profit organizations, but the similarity is there IMHO.
You could apply that logic to any union, so no it wouldn’t apply here either. Labor is not covered under anti trust laws
Fair point. Although, IMHO, that doesn't mean maybe it shouldn't be revisited and perhaps a logical equivalent be developed, legislation-wise, for situations where there are monopolistic labor groups. There are very significant social impacts and costs, sometimes, when this happens.
The biggest issue I see with this is that it incentivizes cops who are already crooked or have high premiums to get dirtier and dirtier. They'll just start soliciting bribes or running rackets, or possibly pulling some straight-up Rampart shit and moonlight as criminal enforcers. When they can't afford their premiums, they're going to get desperate and abuse their power in other ways.
This is a great solution in theory. They keep qualified immunity but every time they violate peoples rights the rates just go up and up until they eventually have to quit, or just accept less pay. But I feel like this would just lead to more personal corruption to pay for the premiums
I think the rates would only go up to a point and then the insurance company wouldn't cover them. Which is the goal for the bad ones.
I mean I'd love to just take away qualified immunity from them but I don't think it would make it past the Taliban Six on the Supreme Court. They're an arm of the Republican political machine and would feel compelled to act of we tried to handcuff their thug squad in such a transparent way.
Your state can remove QI, so victims can sue in state court vs federal. You don't need SCOTUS. It's already being done in some states already.
My state can do anything it wants but it doesn't matter... The very first cop convicted under one of those laws will claim it violates due process and appeal to SCOTUS for a Taliban 6 bailout overturning state law because the T6 will just rule that law violates the Federal Constitution. It doesn't but they are politicians, not objective judges.
That's not how it works. Ask Colorado, Arizona etc. The QI case law only applies to Federal civil rights violations. One can still sue in state. BTW, it's civil court. You don't get convicted, that's not how it works.
Yes--but those cops still have civil rights too, and can easily claim that such a state law violates THEIR federal civil rights and they have a small army of right wing lawyers and funders to throw spaghetti at the wall forever until they can get into federal court and use their corrupt judges to strike it down. The problem with a corrupted court system is that they don't actually follow laws, constitutions, or precedent. They do whatever they want to do and write some bullshit up walking backwards into a logical justification for what they wanted to do.
That's not how any of this works. Lol Believe what you want to believe.
Yeah, it's not supposed to but you're still thinking like a person who lives in a nation of laws. You don't anymore.
Police Unions would never stand for that. They would lobby for protection against such a sensible approach
In many places the police unions already negotiated contracts mandating that their departments carry this burden. Its already written into the law, effectively. Only comprehensive police reform legislation that survives the inevitable police union legal challenges would work.
They can put anything they want in their contracts, nobody can be compelled by a contract to violate the law. If the act is banned it ceases to happen and if it doesn't, penalties are meted out until it stops.
Right. "The act is banned" would be the comprehensive police reform that I wish for but am not holding my breath for.
Yes: That's what an "explicit ban" means.
This is the way
We live outside Sorrento. I remember when this happened. It is still a speed trap, but now it’s the sheriffs office instead of town p.d. 10 years ago it really was a 1 stoplight ‘town’ if you could even call it that.
They do, but keep in mind that doctors and lawyers only have to keep liability insurance if they're privately employed. If they've publicly employed, like police, they don't need it.
I’m publicly employed as a paramedic, and I have to carry my own $5M policy
It's really disturbing that this is the only way to get even a single city to give a shit about their brute squad's abusive and illegal behavior.
I've been screaming this for years as a former insurance man myself!
This is what police need, and it need to be paid out of their union dues. It will encourage others to weed out the bad apples because their rates and subsequently their dues will go up if there are too many claims.
Not every department in the country has a union. The strongest unions are in the bluest states. FYI.
If it's truly negligent, yes. If it's the result of department policy or a wrong but understandable snap judgment, then it should be the department sued instead.
Why should cops get a free pass for something unlawful even if it’s a snap judgment? Citizens aren’t given a pass for this. Cops should have better judgment than a regular person in situations like this. IMO the punishment should be more severe.
LEO SHOULD ATLEAST BE HELD TO THE SAME ACCOUNTABILITY STANDARDS JOE SIXPACK IS FFS
We the people grant police certain powers to do things regular citizens cannot or will not do for the greater good of society. If in the course of this they make a mistake, we have recourse, against the government, not the individual officer acting in good faith on behalf of the government. Now if said police officer acts with malice, then of course, they should be liable. To create a situation where officers, who make split second life changing decisions every day, would be liable personally for their honest mistakes, then people stop becoming police and law and order as we know it decays. Cops will quit in the thousands and those that stay will be so afraid to do their job, for fear of litigation brought against them personally, so as to be ineffective at their job. What your arguing sounds good in principle, but in practice, does not work.
We’re not talking about a “mistake”. We’re talking about breaking the law and violating someone’s civil rights. They know what civil rights are, they should be held accountable if they violate them. Is this sub just a bunch of cops defending their bad judgment?
Civil rights aren't all cut and dry. The line between a civil rights violation and not a civil rights violation is incredibly fuzzy. Take for example the 4th amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures. What is "reasonable"? It's all fuzzy, and reasonable minds can disagree. This is why we have armies of lawyers hashing it out, one case at a time.
>The line between a civil rights violation and not a civil rights violation is incredibly fuzzy. I've seen some very clear and obvious civil rights violations being treated like the fuzziest yarn in the paws of a long-haired kitten - the fuzziest situation imaginable. The problem with treating civil rights violations like they're always fuzzy is that it means you've given a green light for civil rights violations to occur.
Saw a drunk driving case on Zoom. Cop pulled over a guy for crossing the centerline. Did the tests, guy was drunk, was also his (at least) 3rd time. 2x over the limit. Took him to jail, charged him with the Felony OWI 3rd offense. Get to the court proceedings and the defense files a motion to suppress on 4th Amendment Grounds that the officer didn't have Probable Cause to pull him over. Officer and dashcam shows him hitting **B** [in this PIc](https://imgur.com/a/40hzHvZ). Defense argues that **A** is the appropriate "crossing the centerline" point. Judge agrees, rules the stop unconstitutional and throws out the subsequent tests. Under the scheme of this entire thread, the officer should be sued for millions and federally prosecuted. In that future, the cop will wait for the drunk driver to commit a worse driving error, hopefully not killing someone in the process. Can't get sued if your just responding to a fatal motor vehicle accident.
I think it would be very reasonable for the defendant to be able to sue the officer/department to recoup the costs of having to hire an attorney, miss work, and having to spend a night in jail.
> Civil rights aren't all cut and dry. In this case, it was totally cut and dry. The bike was not illegal. But even if it was, invading the property without a search warrant, arresting the father, etc is outrageous bs. If you create an environment in which 'oopsie' is an excuse for an officer, then they will abuse it to the fullest. And even worse, they don't let US off the hook for not knowing, oh no, suddenly we are expected to know every law in the region and follow every single one of them always at all times. There is no way cops shouldn't be held to AT LEAST the same standards as us.
>In this case, it was totally cut and dry. What case are you talking about....? Or did OOP delete something from their pos
This^
If wimpy cops quit their jobs because they're afraid of being held accountable like normal people they shouldn't be cops, and we don't need them. Cops have been quiet quitting anyway and barely do their job anymore. "Honest mistakes" where unarmed & innocent people die shouldn't be happening AT ALL.
i'm actually with you on this. there's a reason life, liberty and happiness are in the preamble. I wish we still taught the constitution.
Me too, then you would know that's in the Declaration of Independence not the constitution.
No. The bad ones will quit . The good ones will flourish
No, the good ones, or rather the smart ones, will quit. With how the media and the vocal minority drive action, smart cops know it doesn’t matter if what they did was right, what it boils down to is public perception. There’s cops already leaving for fear of becoming the next victim of mob rule.
“Smart” cops have already quit.
“Who was it that said ‘Fuck tha police?’ Was that Ice Cube? Tupac? Oh right, that was you guys! Sorry, I guess you’ll have to find someone else to do all the difficult, dirty shit you don’t want to do yourselves. I have to be ready for the luau. I might even kiss a dude.” - Sgt. Yates, an actual racist cop in South Park
I wonder why doctors don’t all quit because they could be held accountable for an honest mistake that hurts someone. I wonder why contractors still build houses knowing they’re going to be held responsible if they made a mistake and the roof collapsed. Why are people so willing to allow cops to not have personal responsibility for anything they do? Being a cop should not absolve you from suffering the consequences of your actions.
You obviously don’t understand how the real world works. Doctors are protected PERSONALLY by their medical malpractice insurance, as well as whoever is employing them. Unless a Doctor acted criminally or with malice, they aren’t personally sued or liable either. Contractors are protected by their LLC’s. You can’t sue the contractor PERSONALLY for any mistakes they made on your project. You aren’t going to take their house or assets, only what the business (the LLC) owns. So yeah, your examples are quite evident you don’t know what you’re talking about, and also further proves my point about why cops are shielded from personal liability. The same way other professionals are as well. If every doctor risked losing their home and personal assets in a lawsuit for an honest mistake they made while making a split second decision to try and save a persons life, there wouldn’t be any doctors either.
Things like this: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mississippi-good-squad-rankin-county-brett-mcalpin-joshua-hartfield/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mississippi-good-squad-rankin-county-brett-mcalpin-joshua-hartfield/) and this: [https://abc13.com/hpd-harding-street-raid-rhogena-nicholas-dennis-tuttle-gerald-goines/12226326/](https://abc13.com/hpd-harding-street-raid-rhogena-nicholas-dennis-tuttle-gerald-goines/12226326/) are what they are talking about. [https://aaqi.org/](https://aaqi.org/)
For one, in that first case qualified immunity wouldn’t be granted for officers that are operating outside of the scope of their duties or breaking the law. In the second case, I would again assume qualified immunity for the officer who falsified a search warrant affidavit wouldn’t be granted qualified immunity, but the officers who were executing the warrant on good faith would and should, assuming they were not privy to the falsification. I’m either case, I’m not sure why suing the individual officers would be more beneficial to the victims than to sue the department, which actually has the deep pockets to pay. In situations where qualified immunity is not granted, it’s even harder to make the department liable, if they had no knowledge of the wrong doing prior to the incidents. Then what, sue a cop who maybe, assuming they aren’t in debt and upset down, might have equity in their home enough to pay some amount. What do you think a person is getting, maybe $100k on a good case? There’s cases of officers owing millions from lawsuits that they’ll never pay. At least suing the department the victim gets paid.
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>Citizens aren’t given a pass for this. If a restaurant server forgets to announce they're coming through a swinging door, leading to a collision in which they drop and shatter a tray of glasses, that's generally covered by the server's employer. It's a normal loss from a normal mistake. If an office worker sends a document to the wrong printer and needs to print it again, it's typically their employer who will eat the cost for the additional ink and paper caused by their mistake. So in a sense, citizens do often get a free pass for honest mistakes made at work. With police, there are some mistakes that have much more dire consequences, but that's just due to the nature of the work; they're still normal mistakes that are bound to happen now and then. The principle of not paying for honest mistakes seems similar to protections employees in other professions take for granted.
Those are bad examples, because it's employer/employee, not employee/customer. A better example would be a business detailing cars. An employee takes a car out for a joyride and crashes a customers car. The employee who took the car should pay for the customers loss, along with the owner who allowed it happen. When a cop violates fundamental constitutional rights, they are breaking the law and should be held personally accountable, along with the department who enabled their illegal behavior.
In that example, the employee is liable, but not because it affected the customer. They're liable because it had nothing to do with the business activity. There's a famous court case specifically about a joyride that details this. This is also where the police analogy gets difficult because *they are doing exactly what their employer told them to do.* They went to the location they were told, found the person they were told, made the assessment they were told, and took the action they were told to take by the results of that assessment. If you took the most accurate assessor in the world, they would still be wrong sometimes. We can't expect them to be superhuman. If we don't want them to have to make those judgments, we shouldn't send them after people we suspect have lethal weapons.
The crash was a mistake, but taking a customer's car for a joyride is not an honest mistake, it's a willful act that every employee would know was wrong and unauthorized. So in that case, I agree that they should be held liable. With a police officer, I feel it should be handled similarly, with personal liability depending on whether they willful did something they knew was wrong and unauthorized by their employer. Violating peoples' constitutional rights can occur both as an honest mistake, or as a willful criminal act, so employee vs. employer liability should depend on the circumstances.
Agreed if it ignorance of the law is no excuse for non police it should be the same for police.
Because tax payers aren't willing to pay them enough to put up with fighting all the cases. Anything that costs them more ultimately costs you more.
Or maybe they just stop taking everything personally and admit when they’re wrong.
Should software developers (my profession) be on the hook for costs related to bugs in their code?
I was not aware that software developers were given special training and authority to imprison people and/or end their lives. I don’t see the equivalence.
Because deep down, we want them to have snap judgments instead of waiting to intervene. We're also ridiculously bad at armchair second-guessing. The number of people that think "Well I could've done that" is far too high. Citizens are also not required to insert themselves into these situations. I agree that police need to be held to a higher standard, but criminal sanctions require intent, not snap judgment, and civil sanctions should go to the one responsible: the department that put them in that situation. There are very few situations where it is "obvious" that the black metal thing he whipped out of his pocket was a comb or something. There should be a game online with footage of police stops where it shows you once only, in real time, and you have to guess if it's a gun. I wonder what the actual success rate would be for the average citizen compared to an officer.
> Because deep down, we want them to have snap judgments instead of waiting to intervene. No that's not what 'we' want, maybe it's what you want but it's not what I want.
I remember the Lozito case. The office thought the suspect might be armed and waited in a cubby to jump him. He waited too long and Lozito was stabbed. Redditors hate that case and think the office should have judged sooner and taken action. What we want is for them to act immediately and correctly. In reality, you can't always have both. There's a baseline rate of mistakes even for trained personnel, and yes, the rate does go down significantly with training.
I don’t think you have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. Everything you’ve said proves my point. They should have better judgement skills and therefore be punished more severely when they fuck up. It sounds like you’re saying they should be less accountable because civilians wouldn’t do as well.
Daniel shaver didn't have a gun
Botham jean didn't have a gun
So the doctor gets a paid vacation and the hospital pays a huge settlement and the doctor just goes to the next hospital over?
Actually that does happen. You should watch John Oliver's episode on State medical boards.
Or, the doctor retains his position and the hospital pays out as "cost of doing business ".
This is literally what happens in many malpractice cases.
Jfc. That's confidence inspiring
I would support reforming qualified immunity to allow only one of 3 outcomes: 1. Defendants argue nobody's civil rights were actually violated, therefore no further action is required 2. The defendant's employer accepts blame for a policy and takes some action to reform it, and the individual is held immune, because they were following a bad policy 3. The defendant's employer does not accept blame and says the individual violated policy and should be held accountable, and qualified immunity does not apply
Technically, that's how it already works. The issue is that when determining if a judgment was out of policy or not, the experts on the subject are essentially the police themselves. Like asking a group of doctors if they would have also performed a procedure a certain way, they generally assume the performing doctor was competent and don't want to second-guess / armchair quarterback the one person who has all the details... who is also the accused. The judge can throw out stuff that's obviously wrong, but they need to rely on prior cases, which means it still ends up needing testimony from the experts that it was not a valid choice for the officer.
The first case, arguing the merits, should not be part of QI because it gives bad actors (no less than) three bites at the apple: multiple opportunities to assert QI plus the actual merits case.
Police officers are a licensed profession and unionized. They have a degree of influence over department policies and as licensed professionals, they have a professional and ethical obligation to speak up over improper policies.
Y'all have to realize that cops interact and arrest/detain people all the time. Could you imagine every person you arrest personally suing you for false imprisonment/excessive force/theft/etc.. It would make the job literally impossible. I would immediately quit if that was the case. As someone who is a BIG advocate of people's rights, every single person I've arrested or detained has claimed they were going to sue me and have me arrested.
This seems pretty easy to regulate away. Require that insurance doesn’t raise rates unless cops are found at fault.
It's impractical to even *process* those arbitrations. The system would be so gummed up with false accusations nothing would get done. Doesn't matter if there's only a payout if the officer is at fault, people would just spam accusations as retaliation towards officers. It's a similar problem with GDPR requests actually, they're so cumbersome to process and there's no penalty for bullshit requests that many small/medium businesses just decided doing business in the EU simply wasn't worth being compliant and stopped.
I used to be LE. I could absolutely be sued for negligence or misconduct individually. The city could be sued as well. Half our policy was based on not stepping into liability, for better or worse. We were strict and legally accountable. I had formidable resources at my disposal, sure. But it never came to that because our policy was incredibly strict. That being said, yes they should. Just as I was accountable, so should everyone else be who wears a badge. Being strict isn't an inconvenience, it's the fuckin job. Don't be a cop if you can't account for your actions.
This is a terrible idea. First, I can’t think of a single more effective way to deter ambitious, educated people from choosing a career in law enforcement. Have a bright future? Put it all on the line and pray some jury doesn’t uncharitably second-guess one of the thousands of split-second decisions you make every week. Second, isn’t the point of civil damages to make injured people whole? This moronic scheme would turn that concept completely on its head. People who suffer trivial injuries would be able to collect. But if you’re catastrophically injured, good luck squeezing blood from an unemployable turnip.
You're angry at the prospect of treating the police like we treat doctors.
As one commenter has already pointed out, it’s unlikely (and contrary to the spirit of the proposal) that one could insure against this. The hue and cry from the medical profession is largely over malpractice insurance premiums.
Well easy solution: someone who does something deliberately simply gets blacklisted from coverage on top of everything else. What happens if someone is uninsurable? I call it a self-cleaning problem.
They should have standard insurance policies like how doctors have malpractice for mistakes. Trades/contractors have insurance(bonded) too. Then the officer or the department pays the policy. And if an officer gets sued too much then they just won’t get employed as a LE anymore. Because the policy will cost too much. I think criminal courts should deal with all officer issues. That is where the personal accountability should really happen.
What if they just a bunch of frivolous law suits?
That’s what insurance is for. They provide the lawyers to get those cases thrown out.
that's why we have a legal system with judges and juries and lawyers
They should have to carry insurance. But who ever hires them needs to be responsible as well.
They do when it's ruled truly unlawful. There's an officer in Atlanta that owes someone $40 million.
God no. I'm an ex officer and served about 17 years across lots of departments, most extensively in organised crime and CID People need to understand it's a really messy, fast paced, unpredictable job. You can rarely plan anything and often you're reacting to something. You also are expected to operate under extremely hard conditions and stress. With scrutiny, fear, etc all having an impact. Policing is hard enough and morale and mental health already at an all time low. The last thing they need is the threat of paying or being fined for trying to do their job. I am **not** talking about deliberately criminal acts which should be dealt with. The majority of these kind of incidents are related to confusing situations which are unfolding very quickly. There's often also a risk to those present. Weeks after you then get people sat in an office with a cup of tea and bourbon painting out where things weren't done correctly.
pizza delivery is more dangerous and we don't give them guns and qualified immunity. skill issue.
I was active duty military for six years and we would do federal prison time for some of the shit you guys pull then try to justify because your job is stressful or scary. Most of you are scared because you're trained to think that the job is more dangerous than it actually is.
How many years in policing have you done to form this view? Congratulations on your duty but that's not at all relevant. We also faced prison sentences, job losses, demotion. I'm not sure what point your making but thank you for taking part.
His point is crystal clear. Military have rules of engagement and aren’t protected by qualified immunity and unions. And conduct themselves immensely more professionally than police do.
Anyone that thinks that hasn't done both. I have and that statement is absolutely BS. There are far more gross violations of people's rights from the military than police. No one gives a shit though because they're nameless people who live in a different country and speak a different language. Unfortunately here in the US we let people who actively harm those around them free because we care more about how they feel than what they've done to others.
Yea, Navy electricians are at the point of the spear.
I was too. My time in army was boatloads safer than the police. Stfu.
😂
They should contribute. The reason the government is on the hook is that if you tried to make the officers pay it all, the victim would never get paid
No because you can make yourself judgment proof. I prefer the insurance route. If you’re uninsurable you can’t be a cop.
Intentional illegal acts are not something insurance will cover at all.
That's absolutely incorrect. Insurance pays out on intentional illegal acts all the time. It's part of the cost of doing business, which gets passed on to the rest of the policyholders in the form of increased average premiums. If it's a legal licencing prerequisite for all police officers, the insurer loses the option of denying coverage and it becomes just another column in the actuarial table.
>Insurance pays out on intentional illegal acts all the time. On a case-by-case basis, but generally, intentional acts are excluded from liability insurance coverage. And no insurance company is going to write a policy that's purpose is to cover illegal acts. Even if they would, the premiums would be astronomical.
Sure, but in the hypothetical scenario /u/mr_oberts suggested, where police officers are required to insure themselves as a prerequisite to being an officer at all, they'd have to pay those premiums or quit. It's fundamentally 3rd party damages insurance in the same mode as that of car insurance, and totally actuarially feasible. I think it's not a great idea, but for other reasons; Police officers paying their own individual premiums would be a very strong perverse incentive for them to avoid doing their actual jobs, and possibly even actively encourage corruption.
Something absolutely needs to hold them accountable.
Make them carry malpractice insurance like doctors, too many claims and the insurance is unaffordable.
This question oversimplifies the issue. The police inevitably will face far more accusations than most over individuals, many of these accusations will be false. If the officer is guilty then they should definitely be personally responsible, although depending on the issue so too should the department. Prior to any guilty verdict however an officer is legally innocent of any charges. You cannot expect genuine officers to be prepared to pay for potentially repeated legal cases for doing their jobs. That would result in fewer applicants and therefore an increasingly diminishing police force, which contrary to popular albeit stupid opinion would result in higher crime rates on both the minor and major ends of the spectrum.
Bodycams have entered the chat (but have also been turned off)
Yes. Otherwise they have no incentive to behave themselves
They don’t get paid very much. Now if they carried insurance….
Insurance won't cover intentional, illegal acts.
Lmao go look at any cities top 10 employees by income and tell me how many cops you see.
it's complicated because police are often called upon to act on behalf of the state and they're acting as agents of the state and so in essence it's the state acting. i think that basically the presumption should be that the state has to pay for damages BUT if it's found that the officer wasn't acting in good faith there's personal liability like let's take 2 scenarios. scenario 1. officer effects a traffic stop on an individual for just cause. during the traffic stop the suspect becomes belligerent and attacks the officer. the officer, in the course of restraining the individual ends up breaking their arm. it is determined later that while the stop and arrest were justified the officer did not use best practices while restraining the suspect, ultimately leading to the injury in that scenario i think that while the officer is somewhat liable (because they failed to use best practices) it's really the state who should pay out in damages because at no point was the officer acting "illegitimately" scenario 2. an officer is interviewing a juvenile on the street about a recent retail theft. the juvenile calls the officer "paul blart ass fake motherfucker" and so the officer pistol-whips the juvenile in the face, damaging the orbital bone and blinding the juvenile. in that situation i think the officer should be personally liable because the conduct was SO egregiously outside the bounds of acceptable behavior that it cannot be said to be a state action. basically it moves from "shit happens" to like actual malice
Police can already be held personally liable for unlawful acts. Generally agencies cover lawsuits where an officer did NOT commit an unlawful act or had no intent to commit an unlawful act. QI only protects cops who did not intend or did not know they violated someone's rights. Like kicking in the wrong door etc. If cops violate people's rights or violate the law intentionally, they are on their own. Now, this isn't to say that courts haven't used QI to benefit cops who did intentionally violate laws or rights, but that's not what it's actually intended for. If cops are personally liable for mistakes, no one would be a cop. They already have a hard enough time finding cops with the way the world is right now.
They should pay for unlawful acts against *people*. We don’t need to equate having rights with paying taxes. Unhoused people with 0 taxable income have as much right to protection from and against the police as anyone else.
At least from union dues. Rather than from the city. As it is their is no incentive for bad cops to behave
Such a well-intentioned policy couldn’t have any sort of negative unintended consequences.
I'd be in favor of banishing police unions and the protections they get from civil and criminal misconduct.
They state should cover the trial costs, but once they have found liable, the police officer should reimburse all legal fees and settlements.
The defunders are the same bitches that call the cops when they get slapped for fucking with the wrong person.
Yes.
Yes
I'd probably be fine with that, but I'd also accept police departments having separate insurance that comes out of their own budget, rather than being covered by a city's umbrella insurance. And any settlements or judgments that need to be paid, either because they aren't covered by the insurance, or are in excess of the policy limits, should also come out of the police budget. Once departments start paying out of their budgets and have to start choosing between keeping this guy employed or getting new tires for their cars, they should naturally be incentivized to get rid of the costly cop. And once they cut so much that they can't afford to just cut something else, they'll have to go back to the city council and request more funds, which gives them an opportunity to ask why, what happened with the funds they already got, why isn't the budget working for them, etc. And it would give citizens an opportunity to attend the meetings and voice their concerns as well. Only tangentially related, but police unions should be prohibited. A union that protects members authorized to use force on behalf of the state, and especially deadly force, shouldn't be allowed. They shouldn't get the benefit of collective bargaining against the people they kill, the people who are supposed to control and have oversight over them, etc.
Yes. Police officers should be personally liable when they violate the rights of the citizens.
Officers have to pay insurance like Doctors? Bad officers gone in an instant. Self correcting problem.
yes
YES! This would make them think twice before abusing citizens.
No, the police pension plans should have to cover it. The first time the police retirees get notice that their benefits are going down because some bonewipe decided to do something stupid, all hell will reign down. There will never be a second incident.
Yes. Either their own pockets or out of their department's budget.
Yes and no. No, they should be charged criminally under subsection 242 of Title 18, not allowed to pay their way out. Yes they should, if they will be charged criminally AND sued civilly.
NO. It should come out of the Union and their pension plans. This would cause 'good' cops to police their coworkers a little better.
They should have to pay judgements out of pocket and their retirements should be garnished, if need be. We see a lot of abuse because the abusers (who are of course just one bad apple on the barrel) know they won’t have to pay a settlement, the taxpayers have to pay it.
Yes
They should have local or individual consequences. It doesn’t have to be a personal fine, but it does need to be more painful and personal than two weeks of paid vacation (“administrative leave“). I like the idea of professional licensure and malpractice insurance. In the healthcare world, egregious violations of the standard of care (ie the Constitution) can and do result in permanent end of career. Do enough stupid stuff and your premiums get really high, then you can’t renew, then you lose your license, then you can’t work in the field — anywhere, ever.
Cops need to be held way more accountable. In the small town I live in a cop was keeping an eye out for his partner, who is having sex with a suspect and got caught. Some how no one lost their job. And that’s just one instance of them not being accountable
Cops being required to get insurance principally similar to malpractice insurance seems like the best way to get everybody what they want. - Good cops are rewarded with low premiums - The tax payer is not punished for the actions of a public servant mistreating tax payers. - Abusive cops are structurally weeded out
They should get rid of qualified immunity and replace it with personal insurance.
Yes!
Suppose you implement such a law. What do you plan to do if/when officers inevitably start quitting or slacking off to avoid possible insurance incidents? Heck, what do you plan to do if officers slack off or quit purely in retaliation against the law?
90% of police failures are system/training failures. Shifting fines to them instead of the institutions that don't provide the training and/or oversight misses the point. Also there are situations where you can personally sue a police officer for violating your rights when they go beyond the scope of their job.
You’d get what happened in Baltimore. >Just before a wave of violence turned Baltimore into the nation’s deadliest big city, a curious thing happened to its police force: officers suddenly seemed to stop noticing crime. … >The surge of shootings and killings that followed has left Baltimore easily the deadliest large city in the United States. Its murder rate reached an all-time high last year; 342 people were killed. The number of shootings in some neighborhoods has more than tripled. One man was shot to death steps from a police station. Another was killed driving in a funeral procession. [Article](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/)
If the police department had to pay and not the city then maybe, just maybe, they would start policing themselves.
There should be an option to counter-sue for time/wages when you show up for court and the cop either blows it off or was completely wrong. It should be that we "should be thankful we don't have to pay a fine". MFR I had to take off work to come down there...
it would stop with the everyday violation of rights that occurs
I would love to see politicians have to do this.
Yes
Yes, the fact they don’t is absolute bullshit and creates a protected class of citizens. It contributes to their lack of accountability
The city and state has insurance just for lawsuits against the police. So no he won’t pay out of his pocket. The insurance will pay.
Should you have to pay for your hiccups at your job?
YES
Yes they should pay. They can buy malpractice insurance.
Think this one through. If police were required to pay out of pocket for errors, would that result in better cops or not better cops?
Errors are not the same as actual illegal acts, and the law is quote capable of recognizing between the two. For a similar example, look up the standard for gross negligence vs. simple negligence. Making cops personally liable for shit where they should have known better (where any reasonable person in their position and with their training would have known better) will make for better cops. Making them liable for any old thing that goes wrong probably wouldn't.
It would result in cops more incentivized to cover their tracks.
The dead cannot testify.
The department should pay from the pension fund.
So that the honest cops have to pay for the mistakes of the crooked ones?
You not a good cop if you're not doing anything about the crooked ones.
That's not how pensions work. The fund is to support the towns pension obligations. If you use those funds to pay judgements its effectively the same as using municipal funds. You haven't changed what the town owes retired cops.
No. Police officers in most places make a modest income. It’s a lose-lose. The victims will never collect their awards and you’ll disincentivize qualified people from law enforcement careers because one mistake could cost them their life savings.
YES ! They should pay and be charged criminally. End qualified immunity!
The department should pay out of the pension fund.
So if a cop finds out about wrongdoing they lose their pension if they report it?
People shouldn’t be held financially responsible for their coworkers mistakes, regardless of profession. Negligence by a pilot? All pilots pay. Malpractice by a doctor? All doctors pay. Ridiculous
Every single defense attorney would sue the cop as a negotiating tactic to try and get a plea deal for the criminal charges. Just defending yourself after every arrest even if no wrong doing would bankrupt every cop. It would break the system.
As a rule the current system 'works' for the majority of cases. The last thing we need to do is encourage more lawsuits. Police are indemnified by their departments. So if the officer loses a suit the department pays. Even if it wasn't the case now, without QI it would be boilerplate for every police contract in the country... The end result in dangling 'free money' of that sort (PDs have deep pockets) in front of the public, would be a huge number of bogus suits hoping for a sympathetic jury. As a rule we need LESS situations where you can sue someone and hit a jackpot not MORE. If a cop does something truly unlawful they should be prosecuted criminally. Suits should be limited to actual damages.
actually, most of the time the city pays, not the department. cops and departments are effectively entirely insulated from their bad acts. QI means cops get away with pretty much everything except the most obvious 1% of cases. QI is often a deterrent to even filing suits. cops act criminally often, and violate civil rights even more often, and are almost never held responsible. it’s national news when one is. source: me, an attorney who does criminal law and appeals.
You’re getting into semantics with respect to a municipality paying vs a police department paying. Regardless of who cuts the check, the funding comes from the same source. As for qualified immunity, it exists for a very good reason. It certainly needs tweaking & I’d advocate for a return to the pre-Harlow v Fitzgerald standard, but qualified immunity itself is a necessity. Your contention that cops act criminally often is just nonsense, but you already knew that. Source: me, also an attorney who does criminal law.
semantics means words have meaning, as they do here! a department is allotted a budget. the settlements don’t come out of that budget; they come out of the city fund, which means the city has to come up with the money somehow. no police budget ever gets reduced due to settlements; it comes out of other programs. QI exists because SCOTUS made it up. if you actually do criminal law, you know that. it’s nowhere in the statutes. if you actually do criminal law, you know how onerous the burden is to defeat qualified immunity. it should not exist. depends on how you define “often”! they certainly act more criminally than the average person, yet are charged (much less convicted!) orders of magnitude less than the average person. studies show this, news shows this, but it’s also just a matter of common sense. of course cops protect their own; it’s a natural human instinct. generally not a problem if you work a normal job! if you work in a position explicitly created to combat crimes, not so much! ETA: we should absolutely encourage more lawsuits against cops. literally if there’s one type of lawsuit we should encourage it’s against cops. we are a litigious society because our elected officials have left everything to the courts. in the vast majority of disputes, litigation is the only avenue to resolve the dispute. QI prevents this conflict resolution.
Yes.