Re: SCOTUS on Qualified Immunity / Support local police reform!

Yeah, I heard about that decision Kurt – sounded good! Justin Amash’s bill to end qualified immunity last year was historic – the first piece of legislation introduced by a Libertarian in Congress.

Copying this to the LPSF-discuss list since it is not personal and may be of interest to others.

By the way, I called into the SF Police Commission meeting again tonight, and again raised the issue of asset forfeiture, as I did at their last meeting, along with other topics. Reform-oriented commissioner Petra DeJesus (who spoke at one of our meetings last year), said that it would be useful to have a presentation on how that works, and police commission president Malia Cohen said she’d be happy to put that on the agenda. I asked that we (Libertarians) be part of the process in coming up with what will be presented, to help ensure that the right questions are asked and the public gets answers.

I encourage folks to call and thank her, and ask other members of the Police Commission to support transparency and reform in this area and give Libertarians a voice in the process. You can call the commission at (415) 837-7070 or email sfpd.commission@sfgov.org. (For background on the forfeiture issue, I recommend the libertarian Institute for Justice’s report at Executive Summary - Institute for Justice).

One mildly interesting thing that came up in tonight’s meeting, which was partly a budget discussion: Money being spent by the city government to settle lawsuits against the police (reportedly $1.6 million was spent on this last year) was taken out of the police budget and put under the City Attorney’s office. But this appears to amount to sleight-of-hand to make it look like they’re cutting the police budget, because nothing really changes; the City Attorney (Dennis Herrera, in my estimation one of the most statist local elected officials) is the one who has access to the funds either way, and there is apparently now budget item or limit on how much can be spent on such settlements. I suggested requiring individual officers to buy their own liability insurance, so those prone to committing abuses and generating payouts would see their insurance premiums to go up, and have to pay the cost themselves.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))

···

On Feb 3, 2021, at 5:27 AM, Kurt Schultz wrote:

Hi, Starchild:

If you remember, a while back I made comments about how I felt that the police should be stripped of their qualified immunity and prosecuted under RICO statutes when they act in a criminal manner.

This isn’t exactly that, but it does help relieve the strict standards that people were required to meet if they wanted to sue and were blocked by a Qualified Immunity defense.

I think it’s HUGE.

Chemerinsky: SCOTUS hands down a rare civil rights victory on qualified immunity (abajournal.com)

Sincerely,

Kurt Schultz
Lafayette, California

Starchild said: “I suggested requiring individual officers to buy their own liability insurance, so those prone to committing abuses and generating payouts would see their insurance premiums to go up, and have to pay the cost themselves.”

That is a terrific idea. While unlikely to happen, the idea about publicly quantifying the individual cost of insuring could have a similar effect.

Mike

···

From: Starchild via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2021 10:03 PM
To: mike@dennz.com
Subject: [LPSF Forum] [Discussion] Re: SCOTUS on Qualified Immunity / Support local police reform!

[https://forum.lpsf.org/user_avatar/forum.lpsf.org/starchild/45/533_2.png]
Starchildhttps://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
February 4

Yeah, I heard about that decision Kurt – sounded good! Justin Amash’s bill to end qualified immunity last year was historic – the first piece of legislation introduced by a Libertarian in Congress.

Copying this to the LPSF-discuss list since it is not personal and may be of interest to others.

By the way, I called into the SF Police Commission meeting again tonight, and again raised the issue of asset forfeiture, as I did at their last meeting, along with other topics. Reform-oriented commissioner Petra DeJesus (who spoke at one of our meetings last year), said that it would be useful to have a presentation on how that works, and police commission president Malia Cohen said she’d be happy to put that on the agenda. I asked that we (Libertarians) be part of the process in coming up with what will be presented, to help ensure that the right questions are asked and the public gets answers.

I encourage folks to call and thank her, and ask other members of the Police Commission to support transparency and reform in this area and give Libertarians a voice in the process. You can call the commission at (415) 837-7070 or email sfpd.commission@sfgov.orgmailto:sfpd.commission@sfgov.org. (For background on the forfeiture issue, I recommend the libertarian Institute for Justice’s report at Executive Summary - Institute for Justicehttps://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/executive-summary/).

One mildly interesting thing that came up in tonight’s meeting, which was partly a budget discussion: Money being spent by the city government to settle lawsuits against the police (reportedly $1.6 million was spent on this last year) was taken out of the police budget and put under the City Attorney’s office. But this appears to amount to sleight-of-hand to make it look like they’re cutting the police budget, because nothing really changes; the City Attorney (Dennis Herrera, in my estimation one of the most statist local elected officials) is the one who has access to the funds either way, and there is apparently now budget item or limit on how much can be spent on such settlements. I suggested requiring individual officers to buy their own liability insurance, so those prone to committing abuses and generating payouts would see their insurance premiums to go up, and have to pay the cost themselves.

Love & Liberty,

((( starchild )))
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