No, I think the government paying is right. It wasn't just the offending officer acting alone that led to the gross mistreatment of this man. The officer was working within the context of a system of local government that ought to have righted the wrong on its own. But the man had to appeal to the federal government to get it righted. The fact that the system lacked enough accountability to avoid or fix this wrong shows that more than just the one officer is the problem.
Thus, the appropriate remedy should put pressure on the conduct of the whole local government, whose use of tax-payer funds is accountable to the electorate. Punishing just the one officer by depleting his private resources won't move toward systemic reform.
And finally, on the principle of the matter, the officer can't and doesn't jail people on his own power and private authority as a citizen. He does so on the power and authority of the government that grants him his office. His actions as a private citizen did not harm the man. His public actions as an agent of the government harmed the man. In other words, the government did wrong, through the officer.
I at least partly disagree, speaking from my perspective as a small-time city council member. I agree that ideally taxpayers shouldn't pay money for this kind of misconduct. But in practice, misconduct must face consequences, those affected must be made whole, the offending employee likely can't pay the judgment in full, and most importantly, the monetary judgment is the most effective way to motivate city governments and their constituents to effect change to prevent further misconduct.
I know it gets more complicated, especially with larger cities--and doubly so where states have control over police departments or similar. But in general, in a great number of cities and localities, this judgment alone would have a big impact on oversight and governance of the department, probably even if the governing body also disliked the plaintiff's political views. $835k is almost 3 mills of property tax revenue in my city. So, that's my $0.02.
Many (most? idk) governments that employ the cops (city, county, whatever) do have insurance for this, and grant police qualified immunity. There are some attempts to hold cops liable as well - https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb20-217. The City Council in my town immediately restored qualified immunity for their police. Don't underestimate the level of absolute blind support for cops that exists among the US population.
They did not say governments should have legal insurance. They said cops should have malpractice insurance. Insurers calculate individual rates and want profit.
In a democracy the populace should in fact bear the consequence of their own government's actions.
Try electing more sensible politicians and put more checks and balances into work to stop this from happening again if you don't want your tax money wasted on this.
Yes, but it should never have even gotten to evaluating whether the speech was 1A protected. Even if it wasn't, it wasn't remotely illegal, threatening or anything. The content never needed a 1A exemption. The arrest was illegal for selective prosecution before we even get to 1A.
> the offending officer ahould pay it
There should definitely be consequences for such gross misconduct under color of authority but it's not just the arresting officer. The victim was in jail for over a month. That means, at minimum, in the first couple days a local prosecutor decided to charge this case AND a local judge didn't toss it out. One cop can be negligent, stupid or evil but those other people are also officers of the law with more training and higher pay. They are there to stop individual stupidity before it turns into systemic calamity - and they abjectly failed in their duty.
Cops generally don't care because it's not coming out of their pocket. And around where I live for a multitude of reasons, cops don't generally work in their hometown but the next one over. So it's not even their tax dollars paying for their fuckups (directly or indirectly through insurance and premiums).
The govt/state granted that sheriff the power to do that action. The govt/state therefore have a responsiblity for his actions. Otherwise companies/govt could never be held accountable (because an organisation can never take action only humans can)
When a cop does millions of dollars of damage they only choice is for tax payers to pay, or for the victims to get nothing. Definitely the cops should also face consequences though.
Eh, I’d prefer they get punished. Imagine if you misconfigured a service and then had to pay out the fee for breaking your company’s reliability contract…
And to say the least, I doubt the officer has $800K.
Thus, the appropriate remedy should put pressure on the conduct of the whole local government, whose use of tax-payer funds is accountable to the electorate. Punishing just the one officer by depleting his private resources won't move toward systemic reform.
And finally, on the principle of the matter, the officer can't and doesn't jail people on his own power and private authority as a citizen. He does so on the power and authority of the government that grants him his office. His actions as a private citizen did not harm the man. His public actions as an agent of the government harmed the man. In other words, the government did wrong, through the officer.