A new GOP bill would make it virtually impossible to sue the police
What the hell? These 'law n order' fascists in DC are trying to turn us into a full blown police state. Why not just give cops a license to kill and badges that say GOD while they're at it?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/05/24/a-new-gop-bill-would-make-it-virtually-impossible-to-sue-the-police/?utm_term=.895ae8243959#comments
ut perhaps the most disturbing part of the bill is the new restrictions it puts on suing police officers for constitutional violations. As we’ve discussed here several times before, it’s already extremely difficult to even get in front of a jury with a claim against law enforcement, much less win an award. Police officers are protected by qualified immunity, which requires you to show that not only were your rights violated but also a reasonable police officer should have known that the actions in question were a violation of the Constitution. Under this bill, even if you can show all of that, if the police can show that the violation and resulting injuries were “incurred in the course of, or as a result of, or . . . related to, conduct by the injured party that, more likely than not, constituted a felony or a crime of violence . . . (including any deprivation in the course of arrest or apprehension for, or the investigation, prosecution, or adjudication of, such an offense),” then the officers are liable only for out-of-pocket expenses. What’s more, the bill would bar plaintiffs from recovering attorneys fees in such cases.
This means that if the police raid your home with a search warrant for pot and shoot you dead, even if your family can show that the shooting was unlawful, the police would be liable only for something like funeral expenses if they could show that “more likely than not,” you had sold some pot, or at some point possessed a large enough quantity of the drug to merit a felony charge. In some jurisdictions, merely resisting arrest is a felony. In theory, this could mean that under a scenario in which the police falsely arrest you, you resist, and they then severely beat you, if they could show that the beating was the result of your resisting, not the false arrest, you could be barred from suing for anything other than the cost of treating your injuries. If the resisting charge could be filed as an assault, that’s already a felony in most jurisdictions, and even where it isn’t, under this bill it would become a federal felony.
If this bill passes, it would become nearly impossible to sue the police in all but the most egregious instances of abuse, and even then, only in cases where the victim is basically beyond reproach. These sorts of lawsuit are incredibly expensive. The relatively rare large award is the incentive for civil rights attorneys to take on these cases in the first place and can often be what funds their ability to take on cases less likely to pay out large damages. Removing the ability to collect compensatory or punitive damages, or even recover attorneys fees, basically means it would become even more difficult for victims of police abuse to find representation. If there’s even the slightest chance that the police could convince a jury that the plaintiff engaged in conduct that was even “related” to a felony or violent crime, there’s no incentive for them to take the case.
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