If I read Stephen's article correctly and understand what happened, this was a civil rights lawsuit based on violation of their Constitutional rights against search & seizure (which IMO is actually worse, because the Bush judge claimed they didn't have that right).
I haven't read either the complaint or the decision (which ... given what I've read so far, is going to require some additional vodka or other embalming fluid given what this racist Republican's "interpretation" of POCs' civil rights under the law appears to be - and especially given that one of Repugnican's general goals is deprivation for marginalized people of their money and property so as to try to force them - us - to accept 2nd class caste 'citizenship' on their terms) -- but it's looking from a first reading as though the plaintiff's attorneys didn't sue for fraud or embezzlement in the alternative.
In order to allege theft they would've had to get a prosecutor to press charges.
I'm not sure Jeff Sessions got around to dismantling Baltimore's before he had to leave for not doing ALL the criminal will of the wanna-be dictator who appointed him.
How does law enforcement in this country, top to bottom, differ in any meaningful way to any organized crime setup that ever existed:
If they're Nazis who're currently defined as "U.S. Republicans" -- it generally, probably, actually doesn't.
Go look up the Weimar Republic before it fell. With all the corrupt Nazis and wanna-be "good Germans", this is pretty much exactly how they acted too if they were given so much as a soupçon of authority.
He's a Republican. If he did anything about it, they couldn't keep stealing ... which would mean that they'd have a hell of a difficult time forcing members of marginalized classes into the 2nd class citizenship caste they want them in.
And you know things - all of the "things" - are supposed to be easy for white people.Especially when they're male.
The problem is that the cops did have a warrant, so no 4th Amendment violation - the search and seizure weren't "unreasonable". It's a unanimous opinion because the Constitution just isn't the right basis for the lawsuit.
Contrary to what Republicans believe, "cops had a warrant" =/= "do what you want".
You can have a warrant and still have an unreasonable search, if whatever was found and/or whatever "methods" were used for the search were not within the scope of the original warrant.
Which is where this gets messy ... and of course given the fact that this judge was a Bush Republican, was clearly a window positioning him to take advantage and write as sweeping an opinion taking away the rights of as many already marginalized citizens as possible.
You're being unreasonably charitable. it's not that you're wrong about what the court is saying. It's that what the court is saying is unreasonable.
We have MOUNTAINS of case law saying that you can't take property without a valid warrant. We have MOUNTAINS of case law stating that this is not merely a statutory requirement, but a constitutional one.
Police stealing property without a valid warrant is a SUBSET of police taking property for any purpose in a manner not pursuant to a valid warrant. If it has ever been found that police taking property for any purpose in a manner not pursuant to a valid warrant violates the restrictions imposed by the constitution, then police taking property for personal enrichment in a manner not pursuant to a valid warrant violates the restrictions imposed by the constitution.
Judges saying, "Oh, I'm all sympathetic!" is window-dressing or ass-covering if they have a clear basis to decide in favor of a plaintiff and choose not to do so.
Stephen Robinson failed to cover certain aspects of qualified immunity I thought should be mentioned - in particular that QI protects only the individual officers in their personal capacities, so the plaintiffs can sue Fresno and its police department, it simply cannot collect money directly from the individual officers themselves. Since the individual officers are likely to spend that shit, they're actually more likely to recover money from the city/PD.
But getting your money back isn't the same as getting justice, and if the DA doesn't want to prosecute police officers and/or the justice system gives them extraordinarily lenient treatment to thank them for their service habit of taking public funds in payment for hours that they spent stalking victims, then you might want a personal judgement against them because it is the right and just thing.
So things are a bit complicated - recovering the money really shouldn't be an issue, and QI doesn't change that at all (state court or no). I think the OP should have mentioned that.
HOWEVER, your "clarification" above makes no mention of the fact that taking property without (or not pursuant to) a warrant for the purpose of personal enrichment is a subset of all takings of property without a without (or not pursuant to) a warrant.
This is an easy call for anyone not making up bullshit rationalizations for accountability avoidance.
I haven't read any popular accounts of the case. I've only read the 9th Circuit opinion, but the behavior there described is that of theft, not asset forfeiture.
The "novelty" of the case arises because the search warrant provides for seizing monies, and so the cops who apparently took the money from the possession of the individuals named in the warrant were comporting with the warrant up to and until - so the argument goes - the cops stole the monies from the possession of the City of Fresno.
Since the money was already "seized", the 9 circuit argues, the owners of the property have no easily determined constitutional interest in the property not being stolen. This is true even though the monies in possession of the City of Fresno are still the legal property of the individuals named in the warrant. That the theft from the possession of Fresno coincidentally degrades the property rights and interests of the legal owners is incidental, the court opines.
I think all this is crap, but on the other hand, I think that it's crap that depriving a piece of property of its owner is considered a different constitutional question than depriving an owner of her piece of property. Obviously I'm simply an uncivilized barbarian, ignorant of the protections necessary for officials of a government to pursue their duties without harassment and undue interference.
Some of the worst criminals wear a uniform because it is, in many cases, a license to steal with impunity and hide behind the thin blue line that good cops need so badly.
I don't know if you're right or wrong, and I don't know what statutory remedies may apply. I found it notable that the plaintiffs had chosen the Sec. 1983 route, and can only speculate as to why they did that.
They're not required to take up much. But if it's an issue they want to reach, they will, and a circuit split is a good excuse to do so. But it they really have a hard-on for the issue, they don't need a reason.
If I read Stephen's article correctly and understand what happened, this was a civil rights lawsuit based on violation of their Constitutional rights against search & seizure (which IMO is actually worse, because the Bush judge claimed they didn't have that right).
I haven't read either the complaint or the decision (which ... given what I've read so far, is going to require some additional vodka or other embalming fluid given what this racist Republican's "interpretation" of POCs' civil rights under the law appears to be - and especially given that one of Repugnican's general goals is deprivation for marginalized people of their money and property so as to try to force them - us - to accept 2nd class caste 'citizenship' on their terms) -- but it's looking from a first reading as though the plaintiff's attorneys didn't sue for fraud or embezzlement in the alternative.
In order to allege theft they would've had to get a prosecutor to press charges.
No consent decree?
I'm not sure Jeff Sessions got around to dismantling Baltimore's before he had to leave for not doing ALL the criminal will of the wanna-be dictator who appointed him.
How does law enforcement in this country, top to bottom, differ in any meaningful way to any organized crime setup that ever existed:
If they're Nazis who're currently defined as "U.S. Republicans" -- it generally, probably, actually doesn't.
Go look up the Weimar Republic before it fell. With all the corrupt Nazis and wanna-be "good Germans", this is pretty much exactly how they acted too if they were given so much as a soupçon of authority.
He's a Republican. If he did anything about it, they couldn't keep stealing ... which would mean that they'd have a hell of a difficult time forcing members of marginalized classes into the 2nd class citizenship caste they want them in.
And you know things - all of the "things" - are supposed to be easy for white people.Especially when they're male.
The problem is that the cops did have a warrant, so no 4th Amendment violation - the search and seizure weren't "unreasonable". It's a unanimous opinion because the Constitution just isn't the right basis for the lawsuit.
Contrary to what Republicans believe, "cops had a warrant" =/= "do what you want".
You can have a warrant and still have an unreasonable search, if whatever was found and/or whatever "methods" were used for the search were not within the scope of the original warrant.
Which is where this gets messy ... and of course given the fact that this judge was a Bush Republican, was clearly a window positioning him to take advantage and write as sweeping an opinion taking away the rights of as many already marginalized citizens as possible.
You're being unreasonably charitable. it's not that you're wrong about what the court is saying. It's that what the court is saying is unreasonable.
We have MOUNTAINS of case law saying that you can't take property without a valid warrant. We have MOUNTAINS of case law stating that this is not merely a statutory requirement, but a constitutional one.
Police stealing property without a valid warrant is a SUBSET of police taking property for any purpose in a manner not pursuant to a valid warrant. If it has ever been found that police taking property for any purpose in a manner not pursuant to a valid warrant violates the restrictions imposed by the constitution, then police taking property for personal enrichment in a manner not pursuant to a valid warrant violates the restrictions imposed by the constitution.
Judges saying, "Oh, I'm all sympathetic!" is window-dressing or ass-covering if they have a clear basis to decide in favor of a plaintiff and choose not to do so.
Stephen Robinson failed to cover certain aspects of qualified immunity I thought should be mentioned - in particular that QI protects only the individual officers in their personal capacities, so the plaintiffs can sue Fresno and its police department, it simply cannot collect money directly from the individual officers themselves. Since the individual officers are likely to spend that shit, they're actually more likely to recover money from the city/PD.
But getting your money back isn't the same as getting justice, and if the DA doesn't want to prosecute police officers and/or the justice system gives them extraordinarily lenient treatment to thank them for their service habit of taking public funds in payment for hours that they spent stalking victims, then you might want a personal judgement against them because it is the right and just thing.
So things are a bit complicated - recovering the money really shouldn't be an issue, and QI doesn't change that at all (state court or no). I think the OP should have mentioned that.
HOWEVER, your "clarification" above makes no mention of the fact that taking property without (or not pursuant to) a warrant for the purpose of personal enrichment is a subset of all takings of property without a without (or not pursuant to) a warrant.
This is an easy call for anyone not making up bullshit rationalizations for accountability avoidance.
Facts and stuff are hard......you're missing the main point here, which one is easier to understand?
Needs moar manspreading while mansplainin' https://uploads.disquscdn.c...
If he can get us to 270 EV in 2020, I;m OK with Joe
I submitted a modern parody of "A Modest Proposal" in my feminist jurisprudence class. I may still have it somewhere.
So the difference between that ruling and this one is the appellants sued on the wrong grounds?
https://www.wonkette.com/sc...
I haven't read any popular accounts of the case. I've only read the 9th Circuit opinion, but the behavior there described is that of theft, not asset forfeiture.
The "novelty" of the case arises because the search warrant provides for seizing monies, and so the cops who apparently took the money from the possession of the individuals named in the warrant were comporting with the warrant up to and until - so the argument goes - the cops stole the monies from the possession of the City of Fresno.
Since the money was already "seized", the 9 circuit argues, the owners of the property have no easily determined constitutional interest in the property not being stolen. This is true even though the monies in possession of the City of Fresno are still the legal property of the individuals named in the warrant. That the theft from the possession of Fresno coincidentally degrades the property rights and interests of the legal owners is incidental, the court opines.
I think all this is crap, but on the other hand, I think that it's crap that depriving a piece of property of its owner is considered a different constitutional question than depriving an owner of her piece of property. Obviously I'm simply an uncivilized barbarian, ignorant of the protections necessary for officials of a government to pursue their duties without harassment and undue interference.
Seems like that "unless you're a cop" has been appended to far too much bad behavior and actual criminality in our society
Some of the worst criminals wear a uniform because it is, in many cases, a license to steal with impunity and hide behind the thin blue line that good cops need so badly.
I don't know if you're right or wrong, and I don't know what statutory remedies may apply. I found it notable that the plaintiffs had chosen the Sec. 1983 route, and can only speculate as to why they did that.
They're not required to take up much. But if it's an issue they want to reach, they will, and a circuit split is a good excuse to do so. But it they really have a hard-on for the issue, they don't need a reason.