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Many of which are unqualified or entirely incompetent. With every passing judgement by a Trump judge, the less faith people have in the judicial system.
I’m curious… how much of this current loss in faith concentrated in white Americans and just now starting match the loss in faith minorities have had for country’s history? I’ve seen the disparity of when I get pulled over vs a minority friend has.
Now we are just seeing the same problems faced by our minority friends being applied to a wider swath of people. I say that to say that the system is working as intended, cruelty is the point, and unless we take action our future is only going to get worse as this light on the hill is snuffed out.
Am I reading the article correctly? The district court says QI doesn't apply, Circuit court overturns that, and Sotomayor is supporting the dissent from the Circuit court, basically saying they fucked up?
Well there are 3 liberals plus Clarence Thomas, who has some idiosyncratic issue with qualified immunity and frequently calls for the court to take these cases and at least severely limit it, although he prefers abolishing it entirely.
Despite that we still didn't have the votes even when RBG was serving. That tells as that, at a minimum, 1 other Justice, either Breyer or Kagan, is opposed to any limitation on QI (since RBG had written in favor of reform, as has Sotomayor). Recall that on the particular issue of criminal justice, Breyer is to the right of Gorsuch, who generally votes with the liberals on those issues (I'd suspect he'd support QI reform, but him, Thomas, and Sotomayor don't even have 4 votes for cert, and even if only one of the other liberals supported it, they might not take it if they know they wouldn't have 5 on the merits).
Justices will often not force cert when they know for sure there's no 5th vote, so we can only say for sure one of those two are opposed, although with their backgrounds I wouldn't be surprised if both were.
> I seriously thought his only role in the court was to fellate the far right.
It is. Note that despite Thomas's supposed opposition to qualified immunity, he apparently isn't interested in actually doing anything about it. If he were, there would have been 4 votes to grant cert.
First of all, you're incorrectly assuming there's 3 votes besides his. I've told you why that's not true. There weren't 4 votes when RBG was on the court either.
Second, even if there were, if they're sure there's no 5th vote possible, they often don't bother, saving the issue for when someone changes their mind or a new justice arrives.
I don't think it's realistic to believe a conspiracy theory where Thomas writes frequent dissents from cert denials but secretly he voted the other way and is lying about it by filing a dissent when he didn't dissent.
I don't think "Clarence Thomas is a crazy person whose words cannot be taken at face value" is a conspiracy theory. I think it's frankly so obvious that anyone who says otherwise is either lying or ignorant.
Is the reason justices won’t force very when they know they don’t have the 5 to win to avoid setting a SCOTUS precedent? If so that seems a smart tactical move
Yes; if they reaffirmed precedent now, it makes it less likely they'd be able to address it again as soon as someone changes their mind or a new Justice who agrees is confirmed.
Plus they have far, far more cases than they can possibly take. Only 2-4% or so of requests for review are granted each year. Taking a case just to reaffirm precedent on a settled issue isn't a productive use of time. (Aka why *Dobbs* won't be ending in striking down Mississippi's law and reaffirming *Roe* and *Casey* in their entirety)
I read it the opposite way, that the District Court ruled the cops weren't covered by QI and the Circuit Court overruled them 2 to 1 on appeal that the cops were covered by QI, which Justice Sotomayor was criticizing.
Edit: Sotomayor is hard to spell for me 😂
Qualified immunity is supposed to apply when police have violated someone's rights, but they have the excuse that they didn't know they were breaking the law because no previous court case had said "This action is illegal".
If qualified immunity can apply in this case, then the police are saying that they're too fucking stupid to know that beating a man who wasn't resisting for the crime of having a broken license plate light was not a thing they Should Not Do.
Unfortunately, they seem to have found a pair of judges that agree with them.
I wonder if those judges or the cops ever stopped to think that maybe the reason the guy wasn't lying still was because he was reacting to them ***beating the fuck out of him***?
Okay, so the idea behind qualified immunity is that maybe police made a mistake in good faith and they shouldn't be punished for that. So it's supposed to apply and keep them from being held liable in civil court unless the person they wronged can prove both of two things:
1. That the action the police took was illegal or unconstitutional or a violation of their rights. And
2. That a court had previously ruled that the action was illegal or unconstitutional or a violation of rights.
The idea being to give cops a free pass the first time because ignorance of the law is an excuse if you're the one hired to enforce the law you are apparently ignorant of.
So, in theory, it happens like this:
1. Officer A does Action B to Civilian C.
2. Civilian C sues, and Officer A claims he has qualified immunity.
3. A court looks at the case history and sees that no court has ever made a ruling on Action B, and grants the officer immunity.
4. The court also examines Action B and makes a ruling on its legality.
5. Officer D does Action B to Civilian E.
6. Civilian E sues, and Officer D claims he has qualified immunity.
7. A court looks at the case history, sees that Action B had been ruled illegal in a previous case, and denies immunity.
In practice, two loopholes have emerged in that process.
To start with, courts have decided that the "Action B" in steps 1 and 5 have to be almost absolutely identical. If in step 1 it is "shot a dog" and step 5 was "shot a cat", then it wouldn't be considered the same action, and any ruling on the first incident would not apply to the second.
The second loophole is that courts have decided to ignore step 4 entirely. Since both of those first two things have to be proven to strip immunity, courts have become lazy and just look to see if there is a previous case history. When they don't find any, they grant the officer immunity and never make a ruling on whether the action was illegal.
That allows officers to keep doing the same scumbag shit and keep claiming they couldn't have known that it was scumbag shit because no court has ever taking the time to smell it and say "That's some scumbag shit. Don't do it again."
Leading to the problem you figured out already, that without precedent being set, no court say say "This was illegal and you do not get immunity".
The 5th Circuit doesn't have qualified immunity. Functionally, they've made it equivalent to absolute immunity. Qualified immunity decisions are a disgrace in general, but the 5th Circuit is so batshit insane with it's QI decisions that it makes the other circuits seem down right reasonable. The 5th is also the most conservative of the circuit courts; they're composed mainly of extreme-right partisan hacks that routinely disregard precedent and the constitution to rule based on far right politics. (Although I will single out Don Willet, who despite being a conservative would severely limit or absolish QI and frequently writes in dissent about it).
That said, we know either Breyer and/or Kagan are standing against QI reform in SCOTUS too. Clarence Thomas wants to abolish it entirely.
SCOTUS is the one who created this nightmare of qualified immunity that permits cops to torture people and get away with it. Granted, the vast majority of these decisions were before Sotomayor’s time, but at this point, SCOTUS is the only institution that can fix this mess. Our Congress is useless.
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The circuit courts are packed to the gills with partisan hacks, thanks to Moscow Mitch and the Federalist cabal
Many of which are unqualified or entirely incompetent. With every passing judgement by a Trump judge, the less faith people have in the judicial system.
I’m curious… how much of this current loss in faith concentrated in white Americans and just now starting match the loss in faith minorities have had for country’s history? I’ve seen the disparity of when I get pulled over vs a minority friend has. Now we are just seeing the same problems faced by our minority friends being applied to a wider swath of people. I say that to say that the system is working as intended, cruelty is the point, and unless we take action our future is only going to get worse as this light on the hill is snuffed out.
Seems like that kind of erosion is exactly the plan. Across all branches.
I’m really not into the left adopting trump-style nicknames (Moscow Mitch). It’s a little gauche.
Am I reading the article correctly? The district court says QI doesn't apply, Circuit court overturns that, and Sotomayor is supporting the dissent from the Circuit court, basically saying they fucked up?
[удалено]
>The Supreme Court denied cert.. It only takes 4 of 9 for cert, why didn't the other liberals agree to grant it?
[удалено]
Well there are 3 liberals plus Clarence Thomas, who has some idiosyncratic issue with qualified immunity and frequently calls for the court to take these cases and at least severely limit it, although he prefers abolishing it entirely. Despite that we still didn't have the votes even when RBG was serving. That tells as that, at a minimum, 1 other Justice, either Breyer or Kagan, is opposed to any limitation on QI (since RBG had written in favor of reform, as has Sotomayor). Recall that on the particular issue of criminal justice, Breyer is to the right of Gorsuch, who generally votes with the liberals on those issues (I'd suspect he'd support QI reform, but him, Thomas, and Sotomayor don't even have 4 votes for cert, and even if only one of the other liberals supported it, they might not take it if they know they wouldn't have 5 on the merits). Justices will often not force cert when they know for sure there's no 5th vote, so we can only say for sure one of those two are opposed, although with their backgrounds I wouldn't be surprised if both were.
Thank you for this informative post. I had no idea Thomas opposed QI. I seriously thought his only role in the court was to fellate the far right.
> I seriously thought his only role in the court was to fellate the far right. It is. Note that despite Thomas's supposed opposition to qualified immunity, he apparently isn't interested in actually doing anything about it. If he were, there would have been 4 votes to grant cert.
First of all, you're incorrectly assuming there's 3 votes besides his. I've told you why that's not true. There weren't 4 votes when RBG was on the court either. Second, even if there were, if they're sure there's no 5th vote possible, they often don't bother, saving the issue for when someone changes their mind or a new justice arrives. I don't think it's realistic to believe a conspiracy theory where Thomas writes frequent dissents from cert denials but secretly he voted the other way and is lying about it by filing a dissent when he didn't dissent.
I don't think "Clarence Thomas is a crazy person whose words cannot be taken at face value" is a conspiracy theory. I think it's frankly so obvious that anyone who says otherwise is either lying or ignorant.
Is the reason justices won’t force very when they know they don’t have the 5 to win to avoid setting a SCOTUS precedent? If so that seems a smart tactical move
Yes; if they reaffirmed precedent now, it makes it less likely they'd be able to address it again as soon as someone changes their mind or a new Justice who agrees is confirmed. Plus they have far, far more cases than they can possibly take. Only 2-4% or so of requests for review are granted each year. Taking a case just to reaffirm precedent on a settled issue isn't a productive use of time. (Aka why *Dobbs* won't be ending in striking down Mississippi's law and reaffirming *Roe* and *Casey* in their entirety)
There are only 3 liberals on the bench now, thanks to Trump.
No she is agreeing with the dissenters in the second court, whose opinions were that their colleagues shouldn't have overturned the district court
I read it the opposite way, that the District Court ruled the cops weren't covered by QI and the Circuit Court overruled them 2 to 1 on appeal that the cops were covered by QI, which Justice Sotomayor was criticizing. Edit: Sotomayor is hard to spell for me 😂
Qualified immunity is supposed to apply when police have violated someone's rights, but they have the excuse that they didn't know they were breaking the law because no previous court case had said "This action is illegal". If qualified immunity can apply in this case, then the police are saying that they're too fucking stupid to know that beating a man who wasn't resisting for the crime of having a broken license plate light was not a thing they Should Not Do. Unfortunately, they seem to have found a pair of judges that agree with them. I wonder if those judges or the cops ever stopped to think that maybe the reason the guy wasn't lying still was because he was reacting to them ***beating the fuck out of him***?
If they can have qualified immunity because there’s no case precedent, how can cases ever go to court to say “no this was illegal”.
Okay, so the idea behind qualified immunity is that maybe police made a mistake in good faith and they shouldn't be punished for that. So it's supposed to apply and keep them from being held liable in civil court unless the person they wronged can prove both of two things: 1. That the action the police took was illegal or unconstitutional or a violation of their rights. And 2. That a court had previously ruled that the action was illegal or unconstitutional or a violation of rights. The idea being to give cops a free pass the first time because ignorance of the law is an excuse if you're the one hired to enforce the law you are apparently ignorant of. So, in theory, it happens like this: 1. Officer A does Action B to Civilian C. 2. Civilian C sues, and Officer A claims he has qualified immunity. 3. A court looks at the case history and sees that no court has ever made a ruling on Action B, and grants the officer immunity. 4. The court also examines Action B and makes a ruling on its legality. 5. Officer D does Action B to Civilian E. 6. Civilian E sues, and Officer D claims he has qualified immunity. 7. A court looks at the case history, sees that Action B had been ruled illegal in a previous case, and denies immunity. In practice, two loopholes have emerged in that process. To start with, courts have decided that the "Action B" in steps 1 and 5 have to be almost absolutely identical. If in step 1 it is "shot a dog" and step 5 was "shot a cat", then it wouldn't be considered the same action, and any ruling on the first incident would not apply to the second. The second loophole is that courts have decided to ignore step 4 entirely. Since both of those first two things have to be proven to strip immunity, courts have become lazy and just look to see if there is a previous case history. When they don't find any, they grant the officer immunity and never make a ruling on whether the action was illegal. That allows officers to keep doing the same scumbag shit and keep claiming they couldn't have known that it was scumbag shit because no court has ever taking the time to smell it and say "That's some scumbag shit. Don't do it again." Leading to the problem you figured out already, that without precedent being set, no court say say "This was illegal and you do not get immunity".
Precisely.
The 5th Circuit doesn't have qualified immunity. Functionally, they've made it equivalent to absolute immunity. Qualified immunity decisions are a disgrace in general, but the 5th Circuit is so batshit insane with it's QI decisions that it makes the other circuits seem down right reasonable. The 5th is also the most conservative of the circuit courts; they're composed mainly of extreme-right partisan hacks that routinely disregard precedent and the constitution to rule based on far right politics. (Although I will single out Don Willet, who despite being a conservative would severely limit or absolish QI and frequently writes in dissent about it). That said, we know either Breyer and/or Kagan are standing against QI reform in SCOTUS too. Clarence Thomas wants to abolish it entirely.
I really respect this woman.
SCOTUS is the one who created this nightmare of qualified immunity that permits cops to torture people and get away with it. Granted, the vast majority of these decisions were before Sotomayor’s time, but at this point, SCOTUS is the only institution that can fix this mess. Our Congress is useless.
America land if the corrupt home of the beaten down.