Our country has a good history of doing just that.

If your difference has no distinction, you have no standing to criticize my position, which actually does create a distinction from the status quo.



WB

I'm saying we need to clean up the system to avoid clear violations that we currently have while retaining the necessary parts. We can talk about how to do that after we acknowledge that a total lack of qualified immunity is not a good idea.

Removing it entirely without a suitable replacement would be reckless, and basically destroy all policing as every police department gets sued into oblivion for doing things that we need them to do.

What you fail to grasp is that police DEPARTMENTS don't get sued into oblivion in this scenario, individual officers in their personal capacities do. The departments can create legal distance between themselves and bad actors in tort situations by pointing to training standards that the officer failed to adhere to.

It really doesn't matter either way because the end result would be officers getting "officer insurance" for lawsuits the way doctors get malpractice insurance now, and it would be funded by the department hiring them in the form of a pay increase. So effectively the same thing.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jun 2 2020 10:45pm

...except that bad officers can't be insured. Too risky.

Except without qualified immunity every officer is at risk for doing the normal functions of their job.

Officer went through all of the legal channels to obtain a warrant and in carrying it out broke something? Small claims for that. There's a gunman killing people and the police unload 10 Rounds to stop him but a bullet ricochets and hits a bystander? Officers going to jail or being personally sued for the damages. Don't even get me started on the liability for high speed chases where necessary.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jun 2 2020 11:05pm

How is it absolutely essiential?

I don't see a problem in any of this.

Is your aim to dismantle the police?

I don't see how you can expect a relatively low paying job to take on so much additional legal risk, in addition to the personal risk that is already present.