We are officially living in a police state (Shaver case update)

[Guest Lobo]

So you’re saying we can’t have nice things?

[XYZ 2154]

1 hour ago, HRSchenker said:

One thing that comes to mind when watching the video: wouldn't he have been better off ignoring the police commands? Instead of doing this simon says stuff just lay on the ground with legs crossed and hands on head? 

I think playing dead would be the best course of action.

It is unreal that that motherfucker got acquitted.

[DigglerontheHoof 21273]

That cunt cop needs to be 6 feet under.  I'm sure @Constant  will be around shortly to say what a hero this bitch is. 

[Homesickhorn 2213]

I watched that video once, when it was first released.  Just remembering how I felt after watching it then is the reason I'm not going to watch it again, ever.  Fuck that piece of shit.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4980]

Ok, devil's advocate. PTSD can really screw someone up. I've seen the effects on my brother when he came back from Afghanistan. If we went out shooting we had to make sure he knew we were about to shoot something. He had it pretty mild. This guy obviously had it bad enough that he killed a man for basically nothing. And it sounds like his bosses were well aware with his PTSD issues. So how much of the blame is on him versus the PD who hired him and kept him on duty despite knowing that this could be an issue? 

[Brisketexan 105569]

12 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, this won't actually create a case precedent.  Firstly, it's an acquittal, so it can't be appealed, so no appellate court opinion will issue.  Second, it's a jury verdict, so there's not even a trial court opinion to cite as precedent.  You can't argue one jury's verdict to another jury, even in the same state/jurisdiction.

Even when a case can be appealed (guilty verdict or civil case), a jury's decision is almost never reversed and a opinion generated.  The written instructions to the jury can be, for misstatements of law.  Various procedural decisions by the judge can be reviewed. But the jury's application of the jury instructions to the facts they find, almost never, unless the jury really went against the evidence (which they might have here, but acquittal, so no).

No one is ever going to successfully argue the case of Phillip "Mitch" Brailsford in defense of another cop.

When the expert witness gets on the stand and talks about police training in general, police stresses, trained responses, etc.....damned right it will come up.  In fact, that's an issue with police testimony/evidence in general -- so much of it relies on and incorporates concepts of "training," and "the view of law enforcement."  You want to invoke evidence of "policing?"  Fine....let's do that.

[Goo Punch 4275]

23 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Ok, devil's advocate. PTSD can really screw someone up. I've seen the effects on my brother when he came back from Afghanistan. If we went out shooting we had to make sure he knew we were about to shoot something. He had it pretty mild. This guy obviously had it bad enough that he killed a man for basically nothing. And it sounds like his bosses were well aware with his PTSD issues. So how much of the blame is on him versus the PD who hired him and kept him on duty despite knowing that this could be an issue? 

seriously? you're going to play devils advocate in THIS case? what's next, you gonna defend the dudes who dragged James Byrd to his death? maybe one of them had PTSD too....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JESUS CHRIST it's too early for someone to be posting something this egregiously fucking stupid. NAAL is a cop confirmed. probably WilCo. Christ.

Edited July 15, 2019 by Goo Punch

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

24 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Ok, devil's advocate. PTSD can really screw someone up. I've seen the effects on my brother when he came back from Afghanistan. If we went out shooting we had to make sure he knew we were about to shoot something. He had it pretty mild. This guy obviously had it bad enough that he killed a man for basically nothing. And it sounds like his bosses were well aware with his PTSD issues. So how much of the blame is on him versus the PD who hired him and kept him on duty despite knowing that this could be an issue? 

the PTSD cause was the shooting, correct?

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4980]

11 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

seriously? you're going to play devils advocate in THIS case? what's next, you gonna defend the dudes who dragged James Byrd to his death? maybe one of them had PTSD too....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JESUS CHRIST it's too early for someone to be posting something this egregiously fucking stupid. NAAL is a cop confirmed. probably WilCo. Christ.

Not a cop, bud. And I generally agree with the thoughts on cops most here have. So here me out. PTSD can royally screw people up. I don't think anybody here would hesitate to blame the machine that hired a cop who was a known schizophrenic. Would you blame the schizophrenic dude for something like this or blame the person who put them in the situation to set them up for it? Again, PTSD can really mess a person up. Yet we have police agencies who don't really care about it hiring them for high stress jobs that are likely to trigger the crazy. If the cop was truly messed up from PTSD because he thought he was serving our country when he signed up, is he more to blame or is the administration who overlooked it more to blame?

Edited July 15, 2019 by NotActuallyALonghorn

[TwiceHorn 31678]

20 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

When the expert witness gets on the stand and talks about police training in general, police stresses, trained responses, etc.....damned right it will come up.  In fact, that's an issue with police testimony/evidence in general -- so much of it relies on and incorporates concepts of "training," and "the view of law enforcement."  You want to invoke evidence of "policing?"  Fine....let's do that.

You think a defense expert would actually invoke this incident as an example of top-flight or bottom-flight policing or training?  "Hey, my guy may be a trigger happy dumbshit, but he's not as a big an asshole as this guy, you should acquit."

Cmon, man.

If you have this kind of jury, you don't need to cite other examples, and if you don't have this kind of jury, or aren't absolutely certain you do, you sure as hell don't want to enrage them by using this as some kind of example.  Besides, it's minimally relevant to another case and prejudicial as hell.

[TwiceHorn 31678]

Regardless, it is not any kind of legal precedent. It is a factual data point that to me establishes poor training and selection as much as anything. And also that Americans are entirely too deferential to law enforcement. 

[ztejas 43741]

On 7/13/2019 at 10:54 PM, Lobo said:

I still maintain most police are good people with a tough job.  The problem they need to help the rest of us address is the bad eggs among them keep getting bigger guns, broken bodycams, and pay increases.  

The other problem is that it is a profession where being either not a good person or simply incompetent can have fatal consequences. There are just certain occupations where the standard should be higher than most of them being good at their job. 

It isn't acceptable for most anesthesiologists to be good at their job. Or most crane operators. Or most air-traffic controllers. The problem is that we need less of those people, and the ones that we do hire that do have a good track record make a lot more money than Joe Power Trip. 

[PilotsError 2338]

Eleventh Circuit Grants Immunity to Officer Who Shot Child Lying on the Ground

 

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Corbitt v. Vickers, handed down last week, constitutes one of the most grotesque and indefensible applications of the qualified immunity I’ve ever seen. The case involves a claim of excessive force against Michael Vickers, a deputy sheriff in Coffee County, Georgia, who shot a ten-year-old child lying on the ground, while repeatedly attempting to shoot a pet dog that wasn’t posing any threat. Without even deciding the constitutional question, a majority of the Eleventh Circuit panel granted qualified immunity to Vickers, simply because there was no case on point with this particular set of facts.

The key facts as alleged in the complaint are as follows: Vickers and other officers were pursuing a criminal suspect, Christopher Barnett, when Barnett wandered into the backyard of Amy Corbitt (who had no relation to Barnett). At the time, one adult and six minor children were in the yard, and the officers demanded they all get on the ground. Everyone immediately complied, and the police took Barnett into custody.

But then, the family’s pet dog Bruce walked into the scene. Without provocation or any immediate threat, Vickers fired his weapon at Bruce. His first shot missed, and Bruce retreated under the home. About ten seconds later, Bruce reappeared and approached his owners, and Vickers fired again – missing once more, but this time striking Corbitt’s ten-year-old child, who was at the time still lying on the ground only 18 inches away. The bullet tore through the back of the child’s knee, causing serious injuries. The child suffered severe pain and mental trauma and has to receive ongoing care from an orthopedic surgeon.

Corbitt, individually and on behalf of her child, filed a lawsuit against Vickers under Section 1983, the text of which guarantees that any state actor who violates someone’s constitutional rights “shall be liable to the party injured.” Vickers filed a motion to dismiss, but the district court held that he wasn’t entitled to qualified immunity, emphasizing that the facts as alleged in the complaint indicated that there was no conceivable safety threat or any need to discharge his weapon at the family’s dog.

But in a split decision, the Eleventh Circuit panel reversed, holding that Vickers was entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law. Judge R. Lanier Anderson, for the majority, said that there was no prior case law involving the “unique facts of this case,” in which a child was accidentally shot while the officer was intending to shoot someone (or something) else. Although the majority dutifully recited Supreme Court precedent purporting to say that overcoming qualified immunity does not require that “the very action in question has previously been held unlawful,” it is clear from the rest of the opinion that the majority was, indeed, requiring this level of specificity:

No case capable of clearly establishing the law for this case holds that a temporarily seized person—as was [the child] in this case—suffers a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights when an officer shoots at a dog—or any other object—and accidentally hits the person.

Given the shockingly reckless nature of Vickers’ actions here, it is of course unsurprising that no prior case involving precisely this sort of misconduct. The majority’s analysis vindicates the stinging criticism of Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett, who recently stated in another case that “[t]o some observers, qualified immunity smacks of unqualified impunity, letting public officials duck consequences for bad behavior—no matter how palpably unreasonable—as long as they were the first to behave badly.”

To add insult to injury, the majority here took the common but cowardly option of declining even to decide the constitutional question, ensuring that the law will not be “clearly established” going forward either. In other words, Vickers could commit the exact same sort of misconduct tomorrow and receive qualified immunity yet again. Despite the majority’s reluctant finger-wagging that Vickers “could have acted more carefully” (!), the practical bottom line is the federal judiciary green-lighting some of the most reckless police misconduct imaginable.

The case did provoke a powerful dissent from Judge Charles Wilson, who appropriately began his opinion by noting that “ecause no competent officer would fire his weapon in the direction of a nonthreatening pet while that pet was surrounded by children, qualified immunity should not protect Officer Vickers.” The dissent also took the majority to task for dismissing the “conclusory” allegation that the family pet was non-threatening. To the contrary, the complaint specifically alleged that the dog “posed no threat,” that “[no]one appear[ed] to be threatened by its presence,” and that it was merely “approaching his owners” at the time Officer Vickers fired. Of course, if the case had actually been permitted to go to a jury, Vickers would have had the opportunity to dispute these allegations. But by dismissing the case outright on the basis of qualified immunity, the majority short-circuited the exact mechanism — a public jury trial — that is supposed to ensure accountability for public officials.

The result in Corbitt is especially atrocious, but far from unique. As David French has already noted, this case it is not simply an unfortunate outlier, but rather an illustrative example of why “it’s time to rethink qualified immunity entirely.” The doctrine has no legal basis in either the text or history of Section 1983, severely undermines official accountability, and routinely results in morally indefensible decisions. I hope the Supreme Court is listening.

https://www.cato.org/blog/eleventh-circuit-grants-immunity-officer-who-shot-child-lying-ground-while-trying-shoot?fbclid=IwAR1mBNpoDBAYKT96RyV3JBB6I8K-Fx1lS8RagOtP7LJkjCendCqOp7xGlrY

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[immortal13 4059]

That one needs it's own thread

[TwiceHorn 31678]

Worth noting that the 11th Circuit was split off from our own Fifth Circuit and has actually, inconceivably gotten worse.

Go Don Willett.

[Brisketexan 105569]

Worth noting that the 11th Circuit was split off from our own Fifth Circuit and has actually, inconceivably gotten worse.
Go Don Willett.

Donnie Ray!

[TwiceHorn 31678]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Donnie Ray!

Probably the best judicial appointment made by the great Satan.  I imagine there are some others with functioning brains.