Unverified Voracity Says End Qualified Immunity
Michigan's most prominent coaches on the murder of George Floyd. Jim Harbaugh:
“Today I’ll tell you what, I’m really very upset about the George Floyd death,” Harbaugh said. “That’s got me preoccupied today. Horrendous. I’m just watching right now and looking forward to there being an investigation and waiting for charges. That’s completely outrageous.” …
Harbaugh told Eisen he and Kaepernick speak or text every few weeks.
“There was a graphic I saw that too -- this is why he knelt,” Harbaugh said. “If you didn’t know then, you know now. That spoke volumes I thought.”
Witnessing murders of unarmed black men has been gut wrenching. Knowing my very own sons are at risk is a fear Jenine and I live with every day.
John Beilein, coach emeritus:
— John Beilein (@JohnBeilein) June 1, 2020
Concrete steps are always missing from these things. Here is a concrete step: Michigan congressman Justin Amash has introduced a bill to end qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that says cops can do damn near anything as long as no one in the same jurisdiction has previously been sued for it. This would be a good first step towards reforming what's obviously a badly broken institution.
The other concrete step is to vote in people who care about these issues. I assume the choice on the national level is obvious. If you're in Washtenaw County, you have an opportunity to vote for Eli Savit for prosecutor.
[After THE JUMP: stuff that doesn't matter at all]
I mean, yeah. This AP article on colleges shuttering sports teams seems intentionally deceptive:
Number of Eliminated College Sports Programs Nearing 100
That's bad.
44 were from three schools that closed at least in part because of financial fallout from the pandemic.
…did you expect the schools that closed to continue having athletic departments?
This article does feature arguments from a couple of university officials who assert that the top line costs of sports are exaggerated:
Akron athletic director Larry Williams was ordered to chop 23%, or $4.4 million, from his budget. Akron depends on student fees for 40% of its athletic budget and enrollment is expected to be down 20% this fall. The school dropped men’s cross country and golf and women’s tennis two weeks ago, and there will be other spending and staff reductions.
Williams noted the accounting system used by his and other universities often consider the athletic department a cost center and revenue is generally not considered.
“So we in athletics don’t get credit for any of those tuitions that are paid by the walk-ons. The university does,” Williams said. …
“The tuition the athletic department pays to the university on behalf of the student-athlete is really an internal transfer and it doesn’t really matter,” [Idaho president] Staben said. “The tuition the student pays matters.”
Department cutting programs instead of salaries are preserving themselves instead of helping their institution.
We support any attempts to self-flagellate about sports. Ace made an appearance on Homefield Apparel's podcast to discuss the recent history of the Michigan-Indiana series, which has been excruciatingly painful for Indiana fans and not a whole lot better on the other end of the W/L divide:
Last week, @AceAnbender joined us to enumerate all of IU's devastating losses to Michigan in the last decade (worse than you think).
— Homefield (@HomefieldApparl) June 1, 2020
We later talked #9WINDIANA origin story with @kylerrobbins and @ChrisSchutte3.
APPLE: https://t.co/dyu3haR76X
SPOTIFY: https://t.co/0WLLRhlXYZ
This was the genesis of Ace remembering the 2009 Indiana game, for all those who asked "why would you do this?" That's why. Not that we need a reason to do such things. Why would the Indiana side do this? I cannot begin to speculate, but I also argued with Ace that we should do the Michigan/UK Elite 8 game so…
FWIW, Homefield has this superior Detroit Mercy T-shirt.
The origins of the Mike Legg goal. I feel like there's a longread on this every year, but here's a longread on the origins of the lacrosse-style goal. Legg was the first guy to score it in a televised game, but he actually picked it up from a guy who grew up in his hometown:
“I’m like, ‘Oh, I gotta watch this guy,’” Legg says from outside of Vancouver. For the past 14 years, he has worked as a firefighter, and now also coaches minor hockey. “‘Look at how smooth he is. Wow, look at the reach, look at his hands.’ I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, he’s the new Mario Lemieux.’” For Legg, the lanky 6’2” Armstrong looked even taller, his size inflated by Legg’s admiration. “He was the man,” Legg says. “I just wanted to do what he was doing.”
During one warm-up skate in the summer of 1993, Legg watched Armstrong scoop a puck onto the blade of his stick and stuff it into the net. Legg, who was still a few months away from enrolling at the University of Michigan, had never seen anything like it: “He wrapped it in and I’m like I have no idea how he just did that.”
The article does not mention that Legg tossed in a Score-O goal from the opposite blue line some decades later, which is still one of the damndest things I've ever seen. It does mention that the goal is called a "Zorro" in Sweden, though, so points for that.
A massive draft package. Scott Wheeler has one at The Athletic. Of particular interest for Michigan fans are the four commits on it. Thomas Bordeleau is #32, and this sounds ideal for the hockey program:
The most consistent offensive threat in his NTDP age group, Bordeleau is an imaginative creator who has learned to pick apart teams in the offensive zone with his blend of puck skill, cross-ice vision and ingenuity. I wouldn’t say he’s particularly dynamic as a scoring threat (his shot is accurate but I wouldn’t label it as powerful) but he’s a threat to make something out of nothing with the puck on his stick, he’s capable of beating goalies 1-on-1 with his hands and he’s deceptively strong on the puck for his size. I suspect it’s going to take him a couple of years at the University of Michigan before he really hits his stride and adds the strength he needs to take his game (and his speed) to the next level.
Having Bordeleau around for a few years would mean he's still around when the absurd 2021 and (hopefully) 2022 classes hit campus.
Wheeler's lower on Brendan Brisson(#40) than a lot of draft analysts who have him at the tail end or even the middle of the first round, but again this writeup sounds good for Michigan:
He’s not a volume shooter and thus won’t be a volume scorer. … his adjustment to the college game may be a little slower than expected given where he’s likely to be picked, but he’s got a spatial awareness to his game that should help him blossom into a dominant college player in time. He reads and reacts to pressure at one of the highest levels in this draft with the puck on his stick, which helps him navigate in and out of trouble to make the small plays that drive results.
Jacob Truscott is #75 and 2021 D Ethan Edwards is 88; both have moved up a fair bit from Wheeler's previous rankings. That would land both in the third round.
In other news: Wheeler lists "Calle Clang" in his honorable mentions, causing a quick "please be a goalie, please be a goalie" google. Yup!
Etc.: 5% chance Dabo immolates himself at 3PM. Athletic staffers on their personal experiences with racism. Chris Evans back.
One of our close friends is African-American (she and my wife have worked together for nearly 20 years, she calls me her brother from another mother due to our shared love of 80s new wave) and she said that it's absolutely true that those in the African-American community have "the talk" with all their kids at a certain age. And no, it's not about the birds and the bees. The talk to which she's referring is what to do when you encounter police, whether you're pulled over in a car or stopped on the street. Know what to say, know what not to say, know how to act. It's a serious conversation that goes beyond, "Pull over if you see flashing lights behind you, keep your hands on the wheel, and be respectful." To them, it's potentially about life and death.
I - and many of us - take that for granted, that we shouldn't live in a world where a routine traffic stop or a jog down the street could end in death primarily because of the color of our skin.
I just talked with a Black friend and he said it's so much more than just the danger too. It's the concern for your children, family, and friends. And it's the cost of tickets, insurance rates going up, and for him he has a physical injury. It's hard to be mistreated and he says it's a struggle to communicate without feeling ashamed even if he didn't do anything wrong.
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Ed-Ace: we're dealing with some moderation issues from both a technical and manpower standpoint but we're working on both. In the meantime, I'll do my best to clear out the worst of this stuff.
Not sure about your source, but "redlining" has been used for decades in this country. Fair or not, it's been a practice for mortgages and insurance premiums.
Ah Ace! How's the free shit everyone gave you going? Fucking jerk.
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And surprise - whites are more likely to be killed by whites. And murder victims of other races (i.e., not black or white) are more likely to die at the hands of those of other races. This is not at all a surprise and your comment is intentionally provocative without any sort of context.
This data is from 2016, but the data today is still very similar:
In our household, we didn't have that talk. Our talk was about which neighborhoods to avoid and how to conduct yourself if you have to go through them and to get through them quickly. It's not always about life and death. Sometimes it's about just wanting to be treated fairly and decently.
Beilein always a class act.
Thanks for the love on the Detroit Mercy tee, and of course to Ace for coming on the show. I still do not know why I decided to run an episode detailing some of my school's most painful losses.
"Justin Amash has introduced a bill to end qualified immunity"
I am just curious .... How would that have helped the poor guy in Minnesota.
I mean, the most furious part is their were innocent bystanders standing 10 feet away, watching the guy die. Knowing the guy is going to die. And NOT being able to do a single thing about it except yell at the cop to take his knee off. And the frustration of continuously yelling at him to take his knee off, and the cop not doing it.
I mean, if a person/people are seeing that another person cant breath and someone is killing another person, couldn't the bystanders have rushed the police and .... killed them?
It would create actual consequences for this type of behavior, and deter officers from feeling like they can do anything they want to black people.
I've thought about this and what would I do? If you rush the cop and save his life, you could get shot and if you save his life how do you prove that? You can't prove he would have died. The other cops had a duty though, in tort, crim law, you name it.
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I think the idea is that if the officer thought there was a chance he could lose his personal freedom or money over what he was doing, he would change his behavior and that would have saved Mr. Floyd.
Unfortunately, police officers often do not pay for civil judgments against them. Police officers are often indemnified by their municipalities, so neither they nor their unions/departments/etc are directly impacted by civil judgments.
(Sources: 1 2. Interesting discussion of its impact on municipal finances. Discussion about this in Chicago.)
Interestingly, smaller municipalities that cannot afford to pay a massive police civil judgment themselves take out insurance, and the insurance companies often demand strict reforms to continue coverage. (I find it, uh, concerning that the group that is most effective at getting the police to reform is liability insurance companies, rather than city government itself or the democratic process more broadly!)
Of course, some municipalities are beyond broke (I suspect that these municipalities are more likely to have police brutality!) and simply refuse to pay civil judgments against them, e.g. East Cleveland.
Ending or reducing qualified immunity would help achieve the outcome you wanted...the idea being cops understanding lawful consequences and acting with caution plus citizens wouldn't be as fearful intervening with additional assurance cops are not above the law.
I've never heard of qualified immunity until this post. I've sat here the last few days wondering if there was anything actionable that could be done to move the needle on this reality, or if it was just a case of bad individuals doing bad things. This concept of qualified immunity seems to be the absolute keystone which needs to be blown to bits for things to start to improve. Bravo, sir.
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It took a lot less than 30 minutes to read those links and form an opinion. But I'm a reasonable man. If you care to enlighten me on a good defense of this policy, I'm all ears.
I have no interest in educating you beyond pointing out that your opinion is far too malleable for an adult who votes.
I just can't trust that your comment took the requisite 8 years to form an appropriate response
It only takes me 8 years when I don't base my opinion on what an overweight neckbeard blogger wrote.
Like clockwork, your ability to pop into threads and be a total douchebag is remarkably consistent -- in these trying times, really nice to have something you can rely on
You don't need to have heard of the legal term to understand that there needs to me more accountability for police officers in this country. Anyone who saw the murder of George Floyd should understand that. Anyone who read about the murder of Breona Taylor should understand that. Anyone who saw the murder of Eric Garner five years ago, or the brutal beating of Rodney king nearly 30 years ago should understand that police brutality is a major issue in our society. If you understand that, it doesn't take long to form the opinion that giving police additional immunity of any sort is problematic.
There's a world of difference between "obviously shit needs to change" and "obviously this one particular thing is clearly the cornerstone of fixing this problem".
Yes, there's no doubt there are a myriad of things that need to be done to change the culture of policing in this country and prevent this kind of violence against minority communities: demilitarizing the police forces; retraining police with a greater emphasis on de-escalation and recognition of inherent bias; establishing some sort of system so that police that are let go by one department for excessive force complaints aren't rehired by other jurisdictions; establishing citizen oversight for all misconduct complaints; making departments more representative of the communities they are policing; spending more money on the people who work in police departments and less on the weaponry; passing serious gun control legislation to reduce the number of weapons police have to face on a daily basis (to name a few)
Increasing accountability by eliminating qualified immunity, or seriously reworking it so it is not just carte blanche for every bad cop is a good step. It's not the only one.
I don't recall anyone claiming this would "fix the problem." But removing damn-near bulletproof immunity from police and government officials seems like a critical first step to being able to hold them accountable. They shouldn't have to put up with frivolous lawsuits, but providing anyone this degree of immunity is unacceptable IMO.
Dude said "seems to be." He didn't get a tattoo of the opinion on his forehead.
What on earth is wrong with you?
Blowing up qualified immunity period is a pretty bad take. Qualified immunity plays a big role in allowing public servants to do their job across a variety of systems.Its pretty indicative of Brian's fire and forget policy stances and why any of the brian for real political positions is an astonishingly bad take. Fun football site though.
The problem is the courts have given way too much deference to qualified immunity and made it basically toothless for cops, prosecutors, and judges. A better law would be to put strict regulations and guidelines around qualified immunity that limits its reach as jurisprudence has interperted it way too broadly.
Please save your stupid comments for football then. Kthx
How does qualified immunity "allow public servants to do their job"? Please give examples of proper police procedures that police officers would not be able to complete without the protection of qualified immunity. How did police do their job prior to the advent of qualified immunity? Was there a rash of police being arrested and convicted for not doing their jobs prior to 1982?
The problem, as ak47 said, is not in Qualified Immunity per se, but in the way it is interpreted, which is overly generous to police. Like many laws and court precedents, what solved one problem created others.
Generally speaking, government immunity is an established doctrine. It makes sense to not waste time and resources of government officials in defending constant lawsuits. Read through Harlow v Fitzgerald, and you'll see how they acknowledge it is a way to balance competing interests.
Being a police officer is a risky job, and there is a legitimate argument that they should be afforded protection from liability for just doing their job. By giving officers guns, we acknowledge that sometimes they will have to use them to protect themselves and others. If we want them to go into harm's way for us, we have to allow for normal, human mistakes. It doesn't do any good for cops to be scared to go into bad situations, or have good people not join in the first place. To answer your question directly: an officer can go into a riot, or a gang war, or a drug house, and know that as long as they are acting in good faith, they won't be fired or personally sued. Without that assurance, they may decide that it's not worth the risk to enforce the laws they are supposed to.
I also think the protection that courts and governments have afforded police is way too lenient. The jurisprudence around QI is basically non-sensical, as situations where the cop was grossly negligent or worse are deemed to fall under the QI standard. It's supposed to protect good cops acting on good faith, but the way it works now it also protects bad ones. I hope that the bill that Rep. Amash is proposing will become law and flip the field position, so to speak, so that cops are properly held to account when their actions are wrong.
Ending QI isn't a silver bullet; if it disappeared tomorrow there would still probably be issues. But it may work to change the way that police are trained to act, and more strongly disincentivize brutality. Also, it is something that Congress can actually address. Other actions to improve are more within the control of the police chiefs, police unions, mayors, and states attorneys general.
Because qualified immunity does not apply solely to police officers, its all government officials. Also qualified immunity concepts have been part of common law and existed before it was officially codified in the 80's, so it was pretty much the same.If you look at the data qualified immunity doesn't even actually get used that frequently, most of the lack of consequence comes from within police departments burying complaints and prosecutors refusing to charge which qualified immunity does nothing about.
The entire principle of qualified immunity is to allow for government officials to use discretion within their role without getting sued and be held personally financially responsible. Laws are often extremely vague and even the best written laws can not account for any eventuality. Our system only works because agencies and line level actors are able to build up practice around the original language of the law. Eliminating qualified immunity would mean any government agency wouldn't be able to address those not clearly defined issues which would cripple government operations because who would make that decision knowing they could be sued for their own money.
I think it's clear that:
- Judges are always going to interpret QI-style defenses in the most favorable way to the government. (So this means that any discretionary "regulations and guidelines" around QI will inevitably expand to the point where it gets back to where it is now.)
- Because judges are so friendly to the government, it's likely that they will interpret other defenses generously to protect government employees from personal liability when they're acting in good faith, sincerely believe they're following the law, and take objectively reasonable actions. (Whether that should be protected is a different question).
The second half of your post is what people effectively mean by "blow up" QI. The doctrine's original goal was to apply strict guidelines on public behavior by civil agents, but SCOTUS (in a series of decisions that dripped with specious logic) decisions made that far vaguer and permissive. So at this point a new act by Congress would effectively blow up the existing legislation and start a new as opposed to trying to get the courts to overturn precedence, something they are loathe to do.
I don’t understand people saying they don't know what to do.
How about body cameras? Shown to curb down police complaints and brutality.
How about DOJ investigations? Showed us how corrupt many police depts are nationwide (Obama did that; Trump stopped it)
How about ending the 1033 program, where police can buy military grade equipment for no reason thus escalating instead de-escalating tenuous situations without appropriate training? (Obama placed limits on that program prior to leaving office...Trump ended it)
The answers are in front of us. People elect Trump n co and then wonder wtf we can do. It’s crazy to me. How about electing people who will actually do shit? Then of course when they DO do shit, people complain about that too. There’s no winning specifically w/ the anti-Kaep crowd.
This also applies to the mayors and governors of these seemingly Democrat strongholds. Vote them out if they dither. Pure and simple.
Edit: Offers possible solutions and facts; gets downvoted. Lmao these dudes are so sensitive it’s crazy.
The true snowflakes who can't handle change or critical thought have always been the "law and order" types. Just like the one hiding in his bunker in the Whitehouse with the lights out,
To me, it's got to start locally. Places like Flint, MI and Camden, NJ have high crime rates, yet held peaceful protests. A lot of that comes down to the fact that those policemen have been making concerted efforts to repair their relationship with the community for years. How much less damage would have been caused over the weekend if this type of policy was implemented nationwide?
In Camden, part of the police's "new beginning" also included developing "a very progressive use-of-force policy" along with NYU School of Law's Policing Project, Wysocki said: "It mandates the sanctity of life. Force is a last resort. De-escalation is mandated."
Hmmm...blaming Trump.
Yet, this went on for the entirety of Obama's tenure and little to nothing was done.
Your Left is showing.
I literally typed out what Obama did... I can type out more paragraphs but your type wouldn’t read that either.
Also this notion that Obama could pass all these pro-black initiatives without people like you crying about it is hilarious to me. Dude could barely pass ACA which was meant to help all Americans with a supermajority (that he lost in midterm elections). What possibly makes you think he could have done more than he did? This guy got vilified for even trying to be sympathetic to Trayvon and Michael Brown but yeah he’ll have support for everything else!
Mhm sure.
Obama called a cop that arrested Henry Louis Gates for breaking into his own home "stupid" and people lost their shit.
Then they’ll post an MLK or Ali quote and act as if they weren’t despised by America back in their day. Comical.
@The Cube -- You are a complete ill-informed Buffoon if you truly believe that the ACA was for the good of the American People...or even intended to be.
The idiocy at this forum astounds me.
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Just hope my fellow mgoblog-gers stay safe out there. There seems to be evidence of escalations coming from all sides, the protestors, the police, and both left and right wing infiltrators. It's easy to point at looters and say that invalidates the actions of the peaceful protesters, but if a few bad apples on that side ruins the message of BLM, then the actions of a few bad police invalidate that entire organization too. Truly hope some good comes from all of this, and soon.
I'm sure there will no consequences of ending qualified immunity for state actors. None whatsoever. /s
Outfit police departments with body cams and have prosecutors (local, state, federal) go after these assholes who clearly abuse their position. Nothing will be perfect, but it certainly is better than doing nothing or ending qualified immunity.
I haven't been hearing too much about the police union either. Those guys fight tooth and nail to keep these crooked fucks on the force.
It's almost like this is a super complicated problem that crosses the political divide.
Can you provide a point or two why you're in favor qualified immunity? On the surface, it sounds way too "teflon" to me. Due to recent events, I'm admittedly feeling a bit unbiased about this. But I'd love to hear level-headed argument of why it should stand in its current form. Obviously, police need to be able to do their jobs without the specter of frivolous lawsuits, but this seems to put an insurmountable burden on the prosecution. To wit, there is a good chance David Chauvin gets off due to qualified immunity.
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