[contubernio]

The sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority. That he doesn't reflects a structural weakness in US law. In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

[okeuro49]

In the UK 30 people are arrested a day for social media posts online. Only about 10 percent resulting in convictions.

Police don't face criminal charges for this.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

[kimixa]

Note that the quoted laws also cover things that would be restraining or harassment orders in the USA.

[pembrook]

It is similar in Germany, where you can be arrested for simply posting an insult (non-violent) to a politician. No police will face charges if you aren't convicted. And you will NEVER get a settlement.

I don't know why HN has become full of authoritarian anti-free-speech apologists. The current political divisions are turning people insane.

[ndesaulniers]

I find it ironic; George Orwell was English!

[adampunk]

That’s not Europe. They had a whole vote about it and everything!

[giancarlostoro]

Telegram creator arrested for the crimes of his users on his platform. He did not commit any of these crimes, he's being held as complicit, when every other social media giant is not being held to this standard, and its ridiculous to hold most platforms like this liable, unless it's the only thing they host.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel...

[pixl97]

> when every other social media giant is not being held to this standard, and its ridiculous to hold most platforms like this liable, unless it's the only thing they host.

My guess is there's a little bit of confusion on why this happened on your part. If the government wanted to, they can and will go after the other platforms. But you see the other platforms aren't end to end encrypted and gladly give up the data to law enforcement. If they keep giving over the data, there is no risk of prosecution.

[giancarlostoro]

> the other platforms aren't end to end encrypted

This is false. Discord (Voice & Video), Facebook Messenger, iMessage (to the point law enforcement has to rely on "leaked" message contents from the phones notifications), WhatsApp, Signal, Viber, and plenty others. They all have end to end encryption in some way, shape or form. There's also Twitter / X that has this as well.

[ImJamal]

Europe is a continent which the UK is a part of.

[jknoepfler]

It was a joke about Brexit. A joke about a joke, if you will.

[tessierashpool]

this is false

[andrepd]

What are these messages? Threatening your ex-wife? Plotting to commit arson? Or saying you don't like immigrants? They all fall under this umbrella, yet the vast majority of people would agree the first two are criminal in nature.

[jim33442]

UK police aren't breaking laws by arresting people for those social media posts. They don't have free speech to begin with.

[Manuel_D]

The UK has different speech laws than the United States. Presumably, the actions of the police making those arrests are within the scope of UK law. Even if 90% don't result in a conviction, the police may still be operating within the scope of their authority in those arrests.

[implements]

Excuse the whataboutism, but how many Americans are arrested for “disorderly conduct” each day? (Which from my YouTube police footage watching appears to be “being an annoying arsehole in public” [1] ie a broadly similar moral misbehaviour)

> [1] An overt act or conduct in public (or affecting the public) that disturbs the peace, safety, morals, or order (e.g., fighting, making unreasonable noise, using obscene/abusive language or gestures, obstructing traffic, creating hazardous/physically offensive conditions, refusing to disperse).

Our online laws which Americans often seem to view entirely through the lens of free speech are more about public (dis)order. It’s not ideas that are being censored, it’s personal conduct online which may be harassing, threatening, abusive or may create a breach of the peace.

[graemep]

Similar in the UK, and there has been along history of the police misusing things such as "causing an obstruction" here

[OGWhales]

My understanding is that saying anything "grossly offensive" is illegal there, so it's not clear those police were blatantly overstepping their authority like in the case from the OP.

[ToValueFunfetti]

I don't think GP is advocating that the US become more like europe by increasing the authority of police officers.

[rbanffy]

I see a huge problem in increasing the authority of US police officers. They need to be held to much higher standards than they are now.

[bdangubic]

you pitch this and next election cycle you will out as soft on crime which is why this can only ever go (significantly) into the opposite direction unfortunately

[rbanffy]

We need a better system than this one.

[OGWhales]

Right, nor was that the suggestion of my comment. I just wasn't sure they were comparing how abuse of power is handled in different legal systems so much as how freedom of speech laws are handled.

[HDThoreaun]

The UK doesn’t have free speech

[helsinkiandrew]

Those 30 aren’t arrested for just for writing “social media posts” but for possibly “harmful communication including incitement to terrorism and violence, online threats and abuse, and unwanted communication via email and other means”

Of the 90% many will accept their fault and receive a caution or warning

Edit: and none of those cases would involve pretrial remand/jail

[loeg]

The vast majority of those arrested are just for mild insults, which are illegal under the censorious UK regime; not incitement to terrorism or threats.

[orwin]

I'm pretty sure it's threat of violence. Sure, in some of the cases, the threats are mild ('i will fuck you up'), but they are often repeated, which, to be clear, should be considered harassment in any case (and the fact that it still isn't in other countries is wild. Someone keeps sending me insults, I should be able to legally retaliate to make him stop, no?)

[kypro]

Do you live in the UK? This isn't true.

Here in the UK it is illegal to be grossly offensive online. Racism for example will have you charged under the Communications Act 2003.

[Hikikomori]

Have the racists tried not being racists?

[kypro]

Not UK but in Germany you can face criminal prosecution for insulting the chancellor,

https://x.com/Pirat_Nation/status/2056692341399081235

While here in the UK you can be arrested and charged for saying mean things about the royal family on private whatsapp groups,

https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-09-07/five-former-met-p...

[graemep]

The second one was for specifically racist messages - i.e. breaching hate speech laws - not just being mean.

I am opposed to criminalising hate speech, BUT I think its important to be clear its not just "saying mean things".

[kypro]

> The second one was for specifically racist messages - i.e. breaching hate speech laws - not just being mean.

Can you provide a definition of "hate speech" which doesn't also apply to "mean words"?

Are you suggesting racist words are a special category of mean words or something? If so why?

[866-RON-0-FEZ]

> possibly “harmful communication including incitement to terrorism and violence, online threats and abuse, and unwanted communication via email and other means”

That's a lot of colorful language to say "words hurt".

I could point you to 30 BlueSky posts that would qualify.... posted in the last 5 minutes.

[gruez]

>Of the 90% many will accept their fault and receive a caution or warning

Why do you need to arrest someone just to warn them?

[dmix]

In the UK the police can detain you for up to 24hrs without a judge and extend it to 36hrs in some cases.

One case I read of a guy who got in trouble for a social media post, he was called into the station and they basically forced him to sign a paper otherwise he couldn't leave as they'd just keep interrogating him, where I'd imagine they threatened to get the courts involved unless he admitted he was wrong for doing it. Which is why most of them don't end up as convictions.

It's basically a very aggressive warning.

Example: https://www.aol.com/police-apologise-arresting-former-specia...

> Mr Foulkes was detained in a police cell for eight hours and questioned in relation to a potential charge of malicious communications. He said he ended up accepting an unconditional caution because he feared the investigation could affect his visits to his daughter in Australia.

Another https://www.foxnews.com/world/blogger-arrested-sharing-anti-...

> After being questioned for several hours, North was released without charge.

[pixl97]

>In the UK the police can detain you for up to 24hrs without a judge and extend it to 36hrs in some cases.

So pretty much half the time than in the US. (County of Riverside v. McLaughlin)

-In the United States, police generally cannot hold you for more than 48 hours without formal charges or a probable cause hearing before a judge.

[dmix]

Yep pretty similar, technically in the UK they can go up to 96hrs if the police just ask a judge for an extension, even without formal charges. So about twice as long as the US's theoretical upper limit.

My main concern is the fact they are raiding peoples houses, taking electronics, and aggressively interrogating people for hours over a tweet, then pushing them to sign a document admitting they did something wrong without charging them. While everyone pretends they just got a 'warning' and it's not a big deal that this happens to thousands of people a year.

[pipes]

Given the met police chief thinks they shouldn't be doing this, I doubt that there isn't problem with the level of police involvement:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/03/met-police-c...

[ljf]

Great summary here of the kind of things people are arrested for and a bit more about the laws this refers to https://open.substack.com/pub/monkdebunks/p/are-30-people-a-...

[pipes]

Sorry, that is far from a great summary. It quite obviously sets out to prove that there is nothing wrong. Evidence for this includes arrests have increased from 5k 12k a year but the number of convictions has gone down. That is far from reassuring. It seems to be claiming that all arrests fall into "bad" categories and have nothing to do with political thought. That is misrepresentation. Also narrowing of the argument in a attempt to refute the whole problem.

Here's one horrible example:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j718we6njo

As an aside the police body cam footage one of the officers searching his house says "lots of Brexity books'

There are countless awful examples of arrests for online comments. Here's another:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921

She posted the lyrics of her dead friends favourite rap song, and was convicted. How this even resulted in an arrest never mind court and conviction is beyond me.

[account42]

I'm pretty sure most people will "accept their fault" for whatever claims you make if you hold a gun against their head.

[cortesoft]

I mean, this is exactly what the Tennessee sheriff accused this guy of doing. The Sheriff said that a meme referencing Trump saying that people 'needed to get over' a school shooting was actually a threat against the school.

This is the problem with going after 'harmful communication'. It is not something that can be defined precisely, which allows government officials to choose to interpret it in whatever way they want when the enforce it. Obviously in these cases, the courts ruled against the official's interpretation, but that didn't stop this guy from having to spend 37 days in jail before they released him.

As they say "you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride".

While it is good that the UK version doesn't send you to pretrial jail, you still have to fight the charge. You have to respond, spend time in court, hire council, and hope you can convince the courts that your post doesn't fit the definition of incitement to violence.

This has a chilling effect on free speech, even if all the cases are eventually thrown out. This is a tactic the Trump administration has used repeatedly. Go after people in court for things that are clearly not illegal. You make the person fight the charges, both in court and in the public eye, and then the cases are dismissed eventually and the administration moves on. All it does is make people factor this in when deciding how to act; is my act of protest worth having to fight this in court?

[petesergeant]

> While it is good that the UK version doesn't send you to pretrial jail, you still have to fight the charge

The UK has much stronger protections at the start of this process though. Pre-charge detention is capped at 96 hours, charging decisions are by a professional, non-political, and non-elected governmental department who have accountability, political cases require sign-off right up the ladder, and bail is presumed in favour of release. You might get a police visit, worst case scenario an arrest and your devices seized, but it's also a case that will go nowhere because the CPS won't charge it. And you don't really get this whole "rogue sheriff" issue in the first-place, because we're not insane enough to politicize local law-enforcement.

[ImJamal]

And harmful communication can be "Fuck Hamas" which may be hateful, but not harmful.

[Supermancho]

"In return, Bushart will drop the federal civil rights lawsuit he filed against Sheriff Nick Weems, investigator Jason Morrow and the county for violating his constitutional rights."

Even at his age of 60 (I'm getting up there), I wouldn't have made that deal.

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates...

[criddell]

Maybe he should try to get compensation through the new Anti-Weaponization Fund.

> “The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...

[axus]

I was just thinking that James Comey would also have a valid claim

[autoexec]

I hope he applies (he's thought about it) just to further point out what a joke the whole thing is. Zero chance they treat his case fairly.

[crooked-v]

What that actually is, is a reward pool for Jan 6 participants and other people who have done illegal things to support Trump.

[georgemcbay]

The vast majority of the money from that pool will certainly go to Trump himself (and his family when he dies) in the long run.

He'll dole out small amounts of it to J6ers and other supporters in a public display of rewarding loyalty, but enriching himself is always the prime directive over every other concern and who (in his mind) has been the biggest target of "DOJ/govt weaponization?"... himself, of course.

He will take almost all of it to go along with the various other billions of dollars he has scammed away from the American people as president.

[autoexec]

I think there's something in place where he's not directly eligible, but I doubt that applies to his family.

[LastTrain]

Under today’s administration and courts a federal lawsuit like that was going nowhere anyway, except maybe an executive order praising the Sheriff.

[Analemma_]

"Thrown out due to Qualified [read: absolute] Immunity"

[nickff]

Absolute immunity is much broader than qualified immunity; the former generally applies to government officials (judges, prosecutors, legislators, etc.), and the latter applies to law enforcement officers (e.g. police).

[craftkiller]

While we'd all like to see justice, I can understand taking this offer. SPY has averaged 15% APY over the past decade, which means if you dropped the full $835k into SPY you'd have passive income of $125k per year without touching the principal. That's a never-work-again, very comfortable life in large parts of the country. He's in Lexington Tennessee where the median income is less than half of that, and those people actually have to work for their money. I'm sure some of that money is going to pay the lawyers but I'm also assuming he's not starting at $0 savings either so he really should never have to work again, especially considering at his age he'll be raking in that sweet social security and medicare.

[LeifCarrotson]

Potentially winning a drawn-out lawsuit against that sheriff, investigator, and county would have been a big improvement for the rights of his neighbors and friends, but I'd wager that with even half of those settlement winnings that he could do a lot more good than one lawsuit.

For example, there are surely dozens of others who are taking plea deals because they can't afford a lawyer to bring such a lawsuit, a few hundred thousand could multiply the impact tenfold.

[_DeadFred_]

His choice makes sense when you consider that the Supreme Court under Trump has essentially gutted Bivens. Our legal system is currently very broken sadly requiring strategic choices versus just (as in justice) choices. It's not clear the Supremes wouldn't contort to just gut 1983 as well (especially with their judicially created qualified immunity nonsense).

https://ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics/supreme-court-ice-r...

[Arubis]

In a sane, fair, and (crucially) long-term stable system, persons given privilege and authority over others are subject to a higher standard for their own behavior. The long-running US trend of the inverse (additional legal protections for positions of authority) is incredibly destructive. This is a moral and values judgment, yes, but it's not just that -- it communicates to the population at large that they should find their own solutions rather than using the established system.

More succinctly, down this path lie guillotines.

[TimTheTinker]

One of the worst examples in the US is the consequence asymmetry for speech. Law enforcement and federal agents can lie as much as they like with impunity when dealing with citizens, but (a) it's a federal crime to lie to a federal officer (18 US Code § 1001, up to 8 years imprisonment), and (b) truly, anything you say to law enforcement when under any suspicion can and will be used against you in a court of law, even the act of pleading the 5th, regardless of (or perhaps especially because of) your innocence. "I want a lawyer", repeated ad-nauseam, is always the least harmful response, regardless of context[0].

Also, the body of federal law and regulations is so vast that smart people estimate the average person unknowingly breaks roughly 3 federal criminal laws per day[1], giving the federal government the legal ability to arbitrarily arrest anyone they want.

[0] James Duane, You have the right to remain innocent, 2016

[1] Harvey Silverglate, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, 2011.

[hirvi74]

> legal ability to arbitrarily arrest anyone they want.

As the famous Russian saying goes, "Был бы человек, а статья найдется" (Show me the man, and I will show you the crime.)

[FireBeyond]

Absurdities in US case law:

1. You do not assert the right to remain silent - you must state verbally that you are doing so. Otherwise the prosecution can describe your communication as "refused to cooperate with or answer questions from law enforcement" which is a "negative" finding, whereas the right to remain silent is at least meant to be interpreted neutrally.

2. Beware anything beyond the simplest statement: "Yo, I want a lawyer dawg" can be successfully argued in the (state) Supreme Court as "Defendant asked for a canine attorney. Law enforcement were unable to find one, but had fulfilled their obligation to attempt to provide counsel for the defendant. Therefore, any statements he made after his were done knowing he had no counsel and were as a result admissible."

[IAmBroom]

The alternative extreme is likewise unworkable.

"OK, before we begin this meeting of the capas of our totally legitimate, not at all criminal business... Is anyone here an undercover officer of the law?"

"Shucks, you got me. I'm FBI."

However, your implied extreme isn't accurate. Lying to suspects can in some cases result in entrapment charges (although it is historically more likely for suspects with power and public office). Etc.

Yes, the current system is injust. No, it's not as bad as you claim.

[autoexec]

A reasonable exception can be made for undercover work without permitting most of the instances where police lie to people.

[sidewndr46]

This distinction doesn't make sense. A police officer's job is to lie to you. Are we expecting jailtime for doing their job?

[MSFT_Edging]

Then it shouldn't be a crime to lie to the officer.

I genuinely don't think certain charges relating to preserving one's freedom should even be a crime in of it self.

Unless you endanger others in an extreme manner, things like "resisting arrest", running from police, or attempting to escape prison shouldn't be charges within themselves.

People love the phrase "you can beat the rap, not the ride", but that essentially gives broad power to harass and damage one's life without recourse sans extremely expensive legal routes. In this example, a man lost his freedom for 37 days over a bogus charge and was paid by the taxpayers to essentially shut up.

[FireBeyond]

I believe in certain Scandinavian or northern European countries, there is no crime or additional punishmented meted out for attempting to or escaping from prison, as "the desire to be free is inherently human". You will be looked for, and retrieved and returned, to be sure, but you won't then be charged with escaping from custody.

[MSFT_Edging]

I learned about that years ago and really internalized it.

[breezybottom]

It's not. You might be thinking of perjury, which is lying under oath.

[TimTheTinker]

> A police officer's job is to lie to you

Federal statute should categorize that as a fireable offense and an intentional tort incurring punitive damages at minimum, and any subsequent proceedings (after the lie) as inadmissible evidence.

If that makes investigation more difficult, then so be it. For too long, law enforcement and federal investigators have relied on inappropriate and immoral techniques to obtain conviction. Mass surveillance, warrantless wiretapping, manipulating suspects -- what happened to old-school investigation that was after truth via smart observation and deduction? There's a reason people love watching Poirot: it's a (admittedly stylized) snapshot of real justice in progress.

Their expected standard of behavior should be higher than that of citizens.

[autoexec]

> A police officer's job is to lie to you.

No it isn't. Their job is to enforce the law. The only time it's reasonable for an officer to lie is when they're engaged in authorized undercover operations.

[wat10000]

How is it their job to lie to me?

[mjh2539]

When trying to obtain evidence, investigators or regular officers will make frequent recourse to lies and intimidation to get you to admit to things that you may or may not have done. For example, "If you don't tell us where you were that day, CPS will take your kids away" or "Look, if you just admit what you did, we can let you go" or "We've already detained your wife/brother/mother/father and they've fessed up; just yadayada."

[wat10000]

I'm well aware of when they will lie, but it's a choice, not an inherent part of the job.

[echelon]

> In a sane, fair, and (crucially) long-term stable system, persons given privilege and authority over others are subject to a higher standard for their own behavior.

The US military is subject to a higher standard, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Penalties for US service members breaking the law or codes of conduct are much higher and much more severe than civilians. The US military makes routine example of law breakers and misconduct.

The US police force, by contrast, is civilian. They are not licensed, commissioned, or subject to additional standards. Certainly not nationwide standards that would bar police removed from their post from finding similar work elsewhere.

We should pay our police officers more, make them undergo nationally standardized training and licensing, and then hold them to a higher standard if and when they break the law.

Police court-martial.

[AngryData]

I agree with most of that, but are cops around you paid low enough to get anything in exchange for giving higher wages? Ive lived in many poor places across the US and the cops are often among the highest paid workers in the area already despite currently needing a jokes worth of training and knowledge. The wages ive seen cops around me getting seemed to already be in the top 50% of skilled proffessionals with college degrees.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Penalties for US service members breaking the law or codes of conduct are much higher and much more severe than civilians. The US military makes routine example of law breakers and misconduct

Honest question, is this currently true?

[ceejayoz]

No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gallagher_(Navy_SEAL)

[lokar]

The death penalty should be reserved for people who violate a position of public trust and authority.

[helterskelter]

Yeah that would never be weaponized with trumped-up charges against political opponents.

[Teever]

But the same thing could happen right now with the existing death penalty -- has that been a trend in American politics?

[autoexec]

There are some troubling signs that things are headed in that direction (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/11/20/sediti...)

The greater problem is that many innocent people have already been and certainly will be murdered because of the death penalty. That should be totally unacceptable.

[helterskelter]

POTUS has been throwing around the "treason" label a lot this term, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he started pushing for executions of his political opponents or reporters he doesn't like.

[cgriswald]

You want to give the government the legal ability to threaten the life of the entire civil service, judiciary, and all elected representatives.

I’m sure that would never be abused.

[actionfromafar]

The government already has that, since currently anyone (except the King) can get the death penalty.

[cgriswald]

I am opposed to the death penalty in all cases, for a variety of reasons.

However, currently the court has to at least find that a murder has occurred or in some cases child rape (sometimes with conditions like a second offense). These are categorically different offenses that are unlikely to occur during the normal course of a public servants job, except perhaps if police kill someone there may be a question whether it was murder.

If “violation of trust” is given the death penalty than any normal act in the course of a public servant’s service history could potentially be used to hang him by questioning the legitimacy of the act.

[actionfromafar]

For the record, I am also against the death penalty. I just thought it would be a funny Venn diagram to keep it for the existing crimes, but only if the perpetrator is also a public servant. But better abolish it completely.

[kube-system]

Because it is irreversible, the death penalty should be reserved for cases in which there is no possibility of mistake. Which, given the fallibility of humans, is never.

[hilariously]

I think when you admit on public television and public comms that you will commit war crimes and then you do commit war crimes we should have a notable exception - there's no possibility Pete Hegeseth didn't know exactly what, how, and when his war crimes were going to be perpetuated.

[kube-system]

The death penalty was supposed to be for exceptional circumstances now, and look where we are. This country has put innocent people to death.

If you make exceptions, you will make more exceptions, and you are eventually guaranteed to put an innocent person to death due to the law of large numbers. A justice system must have a way to reverse mistakes to deliver justice properly, period.

[hilariously]

Bad people doing bad things doesn't invalidate good people doing the right thing. If we kill innocent people that is bad, and we should require an incredibly high bar for this type of thing.

It becomes a slipper slope argument - well if we allow people to be jailed then inncocent people will be jailed and that's due to the law of large numbers, and there's no way to reverse our incredibly horrible prison system as it stands.

So now its my job to build our restorative justice system or... take out a few more nazis.

[cgriswald]

I don’t see how the death penalty adds anything here. There are already significant consequences. People who commit such crimes either do not expect to face the consequences or don’t consider the consequences at all.

[hilariously]

Sure, and that might as well be said for any punishment at all for them. When you take mass human life you should not expect to stick around for your cronies to bust you out of jail in 10 years when the political winds have shifted for the worse again.

[autoexec]

The death penalty should just be abolished. Where it exists there will always be innocent people who are murdered by the state.

[embedding-shape]

Hot take, but I feel like no humans should be killed as a punishment... But I'm also probably too European to understand the true value of death penalty.

[Sohcahtoa82]

I'm only against the death penalty for the simple fact that courts have convicted innocent people. Sometimes, that conviction happens when the court actively blocks exonerating evidence.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/284/

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/547/319/

[OkayPhysicist]

Anybody who is wrongfully executed was basically guaranteed to spend their entire life in prison. Death row inmates get dramatically more access to legal aid than anybody else rotting in a cell, so if they couldn't win their appeal, the guy doing life isn't, either.

Generally, I'm against incarceration for that reason. I think the relatively muted violence of it is too easy to stomach for the public, which leads to people letting the system get sloppy. For public and infamous crimes, however, where the question is not "what act took place", but rather "did this act constitute a crime, and if so, what is the punishment?"-type cases, I'm perfectly fine with capital punishment being on the table. We trust public officials with significant authority, and abuse of that authority is utterly irredeemable. Frankly, for elected officials I'd support a "two-thirds vote and you hang" policy. If you want power, and seek out power, you have an immense responsibility to live up to your constituent's expectations.

[cortesoft]

That isn’t true. There have been death row inmates exonerated, both before and after their execution.

The ones that were executed would have been alive for the exoneration if we they had been given life in prison instead.

[embedding-shape]

> "did this act constitute a crime, and if so, what is the punishment?"

I guess that last part is the perspective I'd change, for a more compassionate world. I'd much rather ask "did this act constitute a crime, and if so, what made the person commit that crime, and how can we help them not do that in the future again?".

[eudamoniac]

So why aren't you against imprisonment for the simple fact that courts have imprisoned innocent people? We have to accept a certain amount of false positives in all things.

[Sohcahtoa82]

The death penalty can't be undone, a prisoner can always be released. Sure, they'll never get that time back, but at least they can live.

[boredumb]

If someone kills a family member and the court gives them 6 years and a parole officer, the remaining family will and has taken justice into their own hands and that has a much higher blast radius and margin of error than executing a guy convicted of the murder in a court of law and sat on death row making appeals for 10-15 years.

If dylan roof was allowed to live his full natural life in jail, there would be race riots in the US by the end of the press conference.

[jgwil2]

> If someone kills a family member and the court gives them 6 years and a parole officer, the remaining family will and has taken justice into their own hands and that has a much higher blast radius and margin of error than executing a guy convicted of the murder in a court of law and sat on death row making appeals for 10-15 years.

There's a huge gap between "6 years and a parole officer" and the death penalty.

> If dylan roof was allowed to live his full natural life in jail, there would be race riots in the US by the end of the press conference.

This is both offensive and untrue. Black Americans oppose the death penalty at much higher rates than white Americans and in fact, several survivors and victims' family members have come out against his execution.

[embedding-shape]

Cool, maybe rather than aiming to punish people, aim to rehabilitate them, and they don't need to spend their full natural life in jail. And if they're "unsalvageable" like many would claim, we (maybe not you, in the US, I dunno) have hospitals for those that are ill.

[hirvi74]

We also have state operated forensic psychiatric facilities for criminals deemed "unsalvageable." Many are not the same facilities that civilians seeking mental health would attend. Though, some facilities house both on separate units.

While prisons in the USA are often more punitive and dangerous than a forensic psychiatric facility, that does mean forensic psychiatric facilities are not their own form of Hell rife with their own problems. Essentially, autonomy, dignity, and human rights are stripped from individuals in both facilities -- you do not want to go to either.

[boredumb]

Cool, but I'm not sure the victims and the public are always thrilled when they see murderers get off by reason of insanity, despite it being a life sentence and essentially a medically induced solitary mental confinement. People were furious about Yates and Bobbitt despite not even living within a 1000 mile radius because they felt it was a miscarriage of justice and are aware that rehabilitating people who drowned their own children is naive at best or yet another grift to siphon public money into their own pet projects and feign moral superiority.

[CamperBob2]

It's a uniquely-American perspective: "Our government can't do anything right. But hey, I still trust it to kill the right people."

[1234letshaveatw]

so true, citizens of the dozens of other countries with the death penalty believe their governments to be infallible

[happosai]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country

Vast majority of death penalties happen in countries where citizens don't have much of a say what their government does...

[idle_zealot]

In the US we grant immunity to the law in proportion to power. Rather seems it should be the opposite if you ask me.

[p0w3n3d]

> In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

I wouldn't say in most. In many they wouldn't

[vitally3643]

It's not a structural weakness, it's an intentional feature. Our legislature specifically and intentionally made it impossible for citizens (or anyone) to hold police responsible for anything.

[mandevil]

Not the legislature: the Supreme Court. Qualified Immunity was created out of whole cloth by the Supreme Court back in the 1960's when a police officer arrested- and then a judge convicted- a group of black and white Episcopal priests for "making a disturbance of the peace"- that is, having black and white people out in public together as equals. This was Pierson v. Ray, decided by the Supreme Court in 1967.

The current implementation of it- where you need to have "clearly establish" a Constitutional right with a prior case in this region- is based on Pearson v. Callahan from 2009, and it takes a terrible Supreme Court precedent and makes it even worse. This has created the patchwork "no case in the circuit has clearly established that a police officer must not make a warrantless search on a Tuesday in May" sort of quibbling.

The work of legislatures has been to roll back qualified immunity. Colorado, New Mexico, and California have removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level. LEO's can still claim qualified immunity for suits under federal law, but they cannot for some suits brought under state law or the state constitution in those states.

The Supreme Court has also, at the same time they've made it harder to hold police to account, made it harder to hold politicians to account, gutting bribery laws and expanding "free speech" to include paying politicians. And the recent idea that a President can't be prosecuted for any "official acts" is also nonsense created by the Supreme Court. This isn't Congress fault, there were laws that prevented it. The Supreme Court just decided that they didn't want to enforce those laws.

The Supreme Court at the root of a lot of the dysfunction in American politics, and somehow still has more respect than they deserve.

[sidewndr46]

Isn't it way more narrow than what you're saying? For New Mexico's cases it only applies to civil rights violations. If the police officer just for example kills someone in the line of duty, he still has qualified immunity

[mandevil]

Civil Rights law is how these sorts of things are enforced by individuals who were harmed, in your example a Law Enforcement Officer violated someone's civil rights by killing them in the line of duty and their family can sue for violation of the deceased's civil right to life. Qualified Immunity short-circuits that entire process for the individual LEO's (it does not protect the organization, just individual officers).

If the prosecutor thinks they can get a criminal conviction for murder (or whatever) that is a totally separate process that is between the People (whom the prosecutor represents) and the defendant (in this case, the LEO who killed the guy in the line of duty). Qualified Immunity never applied to criminal cases(1). But criminal cases will not provide any money or anything like that to the victim (or their family)- that comes from civil suits alleging that the LEO violated someone's civil rights. And that is what removing Qualified Immunity encourages, individuals who were harmed can sue individual officers and receive payments from those individual officers (Colorado's police reform bill holds individual officers responsible with their own money up to certain limits where the organization becomes responsible; I don't know about other states).

1: Which are rare against LEO's because prosecutor's don't want to anger the LEO's that they work with regularly. This is why civil suits are generally the main avenue for people to get justice from over-zealous LEO's.

[sidewndr46]

How can I have a civil right to life? I'm aware I have a civil right to things like voting, a jury trial (for certain charges), legal representation. Those are all things the civic institutions provide to me. Civic institutions don't provide me life.

[mandevil]

The US Constitution is an amazing document, I suggest you read it if you are an American. It's pretty short and has a lot of stuff that is useful to know, even if you aren't a lawyer (I am not). Because I am not a lawyer, I didn't word it exactly correctly.

The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution says, in its entirety:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The key in this context is "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." If a government agent takes that from you without due process that is a civil right of yours being abridged, at least in the US. I can't speak for other countries.

[throwworhtthrow]

What's your source for:

> California [has] removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#State_law, it's Connecticut, not California, as the third state which limited qualified immunity.

[mandevil]

California SB 2, signed by Gavin Newsome in 2021, removed Qualified Immunity as a defense for all lawsuits brought under the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act.

I'm not a lawyer, and I have never lived in California so I don't know how much that covers. The QI removal I knew best was Colorado (CO's law also made individual LEO's have to pay with their own money, up to certain limits), and was doing some googling which listed California and New Mexico.

[db48x]

This is a misunderstanding. In most cases you cannot sue the federal and state governments, with very important exceptions, but you can definitely sue the police. Government officials, such as the police, usually only have _qualified_ immunity rather than absolute or sovereign immunity, and even then only when they were acting in good faith and are not being accused of violating someone’s constitutional rights.

The real problem right now is how the courts determine if an official was acting in good faith. Right now they are assumed to have acted in good faith unless it has already been “clearly established” that what they did was illegal. This means that the official can argue that they didn’t know that their actions were illegal because no prior case ever dealt with that exact fact pattern. This works far too often and has let a lot of very guilty police get away with their crimes. Still, some police officers _are_ held to account, so it is not actually impossible.

[petsfed]

Which has led to police officers using "the punishment I received is far in excess of the last time an officer of this department was punished for habitually arresting and raping minors!" as a defense, and it works.

[idle_zealot]

It is a weakness, but yes, an intentional one. Why a weakness? It leads to structural instability.

[maerF0x0]

The Sheriff absolutely should face some consequences, at least to his career. The money paid to Bushart ultimately is no skin off the government's back. It's taxpayer money, they will just underfund a good thing, raise taxes, or print debt to pay it if there's a shortfall.

It'd be an interesting thing to see garnishing of wages, deductions from pension funds, or loss of some kind of bonus system to help balance the scales.

[wat10000]

Merely facing some consequences to his career would be far too weak. This dude knowingly imprisoned somebody for over a month. The minimum consequence should be, say, two days in jail for every day this guy spent locked up. Better would be whatever punishment we'd levy against any common criminal who kidnapped someone for 37 days. Ideally we'd be even harsher than that, due to the abuse of authority involved.

This wasn't some honest mistake. This was a deliberate violation of a citizen's civil rights. This was a crime, and the only reason it's treated so lightly is because the criminal is an officer of the law.

But who am I kidding, even him losing a single day's pay would be a victory here. Nothing will actually happen to him.

[etskinner]

Seems to me that law enforcement officers should be required to carry liability insurance that they personally pay for. Have a lot of settlements / claims? Your insurance rate goes up. That happens enough and now it's not economically feasible to hold the job

[joe_mamba]

Not just law enforcement, all civil servants should.

I had to spend money to sue the local unemployment office because a bureaucrat there illegally cut off my unemployment payments. They lost and had to pay me back in arrears but that money came from the taxpayers(so me and you) and that asshole who did that is still working there just fine collection golden handcuff paychecks and a gold plated pension when she retires.

All civil servants need a form of direct accountability with consequences for their mistakes at work, especially when malicious and repeated. Currently they're untouchable and the taxpayer foots the bill for their mistakes with no repercussion.

[AngryData]

It is better than nothing but it is also adding another middleman between civilians and justice with its primary motivation as personal profit above anything else.

If supressing cases or throwing big money lawyers against legitimate lawsuits is cheaper, they will do it. If teaching cops to hide their corruption is easier than rooting out all the corrupt individuals to raise rates, thats what they will do.

[ajross]

> The money paid to Bushart ultimately is no skin off the government's back.

The suit was filed against Perry County, TN, not the state or federal government. A quick google says that its budget is $33M, so in fact this is a very impactful settlement for the county.

[briffle]

Their insurance rates will go up. Its not like they are cutting a check from their county budget...

[suzzer99]

*County taxpayers. The people who actually work for the country won't face any consequences.

[sidewndr46]

I highly doubt Tennessee is going to start printing USD.

[kube-system]

States and municipalities can issue bonds, which is what I presume they meant given a charitable interpretation.

[joe_mamba]

>In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it.

No they won't face anything like that. Police lawyers will claim they were just enforcing hate speech laws to protect the country's leadership from far right supremacists and will be let go scuff free. You also won't get anything remotely close to $835,000 from the state for being falsely imprisoned. You're lucky to get maybe 5000 Euros for your trouble.

In Germany for instance the politicians are protected by dedicated law against negative comments from the public. You can't even call them fat or they send the police after you. Sure, you won't get locked up for the fat comment, but the point of the police going after people with mean comments is only intimidation, to get people to self censor and stop criticizing the leadership and accept the propaganda like obedient cattle.

Americans with their 1st, 2nd and Nth amendments, have an overly rosy view of the EU justice system which is far more lenient to law enforcement abuse of power and speech crackdowns. It's why you easily saw Americans attacking and throwing rocks at masked ICE officers in the US, and why Germans would never dare touch a law enforcement officer in their country, because the courts would never tolerate public attack on law enforcement and challenging the state authority.

[calgoo]

Well, its not like thats going to happen when people settle out of court. Not sure if his first amendment rights have been vindicated really...

Today, the parties announced in a joint statement that Larry will receive $835,000 in exchange for dismissing his complaint.

“I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” said Larry.

[AmVess]

The same Europe where people who criticize the rapist of their child does more time for causing offense than the rapist did for the actual rape? THAT Europe?

[kgwxd]

At the very least, taxpayers should be looking to make him personally responsible for the $835,000.

[Kapura]

i don't know if you've seen how american law is faring; the supreme court recently legalized racism as long as it's partisan.

[suzzer99]

In the US, we just pay out a lot of taxpayer money to the victim, and the authority abuser gets some time off with pay.

[pjc50]

Eh, in the UK this is only true for the most absolutely serious cases where someone has been killed or seriously injured. Wrongful arrest doesn't. It may face career risks.

Ultimately the US lacks some sort of Federal "inspectorate of police" that would be able to ban people from being law enforcement officers or at least require e.g. retraining or restriction of duties, without leaving it up to frankly corrupt local authorities.

Double-edged sword though when the Feds get captured by the Party, though.

[ericmay]

> US lacks some sort of Federal "inspectorate of police"

I don't think this is true, or at least it's not entirely true.

Various states and law enforcement agencies have an office of the inspector general which at least should provide some oversight. We also have the courts and individual officers and agencies can be sued in the court of law which also provides a means of oversight. You seem to be suggesting that everything is corrupt, corrupt local authorities, corrupt feds captured by the party. I think that level of perceived corruption is not reflected in operational reality.

Some states or local police organizations do in fact look at past police records for applicants. There's a bit of variation here, but it's probably a bit better organized than, say the EU where outside of other bureaucratic hurdles I don't believe there is any real way to stop some German citizen who should be banned from being a police officer from moving to Estonia and being a police officer. Though perhaps I'm wrong and there is an EU-wide database that all countries and their police forces use?

I know the UK isn't in the EU, but I just bring that up as I think it may be a bit closer of an example.

[tialaramex]

Piscis primum a capite foetet

[ericmay]

Catchy, I suppose, but ultimately without much meaning.

[tialaramex]

Huh? It's a widely recognised proverb, you might as well say that "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" is without much meaning. You could insist it's wrong if you like, or that it somehow doesn't apply but meaning is its whole thing.

[ericmay]

I would say that goose phrase is also without much meaning. It's just a phrase. Like ok, you said a phrase? So what?

Let's bring up the Iran war - you could say a few things about how it's wrong or something and I can just reply de oppresso liber.

Ok? That's not a discussion, it's a drive-by, feel good zinger.

[anonymars]

Yeah. Did any meaningful consequences befall anyone for the Horizon IT scandal?

[tialaramex]

On 23 February 2024, King Charles III revoked Vennells' CBE

So, not very much, and I suppose you can argue about whether it's meaningful, but it is a consequence.

[JumpCrisscross]

> sheriff that arrested him should face criminal charges for misuse of authority

Eh, just fire him and garnish a portion of his future wages to pay back the cost to the city.

> In most European legal systems a law enforcement officer overstepping his legal authority would face criminal charges for it

Do you have a recent example?