being a devils advocate, but who is going to enforce that?

With qualified immunity the only people allowed to enforce that are prosecutors, but they often can't afford to jeopardize their relationship with police. Federal prosecutors are further removed from local cops and have better incentives on that front, but they often run into issues around jurisdiction.

The point of repealing qualified immunity is to let the victims sue as a means of enforcing checks on police.

That lets criminals use the legal system as a DDOS attack on the police. I'm not sure that's a desirable outcome.

Not really. The courts should toss any frivolous claims fairly quickly. If it is still an issue, then perhaps we need wider ranging changes to the legal system as any abuse that could happen with these cases surely happen in other areas of the law too.

Why couldn't the judge?'

Just do things the normal way...and the sentence is announced... oh, you're a cop, and were on duty. Multiply any sentence/fine/community service by 1.5.

The key, as I see it, is less about what the number is, or the details, but that's something very black and white. I'm normally really not a fan of "zero tolerance" type rules but I think this is a case where it makes sense.

In today's political climate (including the current Supreme Court which is pretty strongly political), the most likely answer is local jurisdictions who have been paying out millions in civil penalties for this behavior. They won't be able to enforce criminal liability, but they could start making changes to training, use of force policies, hiring, etc. If the jurisdictions start taking out insurance to pay these claims, then the insurance companies will probably start mandating changes as well.

I have no issue with your post, but what a ridiculous situation we find ourselves in. We can't get rid of bad apples because of police unions and the relationship between prosecutors and police. It's not politically viable for politicians to enforce standards for police. So, instead, we have to hire a for-profit intermediary to come up with profit-centered reasons to enforce these standards. Yikes.

> who is going to enforce that?

That's exactly why the penalties should be greater. The deterrence factor is a function of both the size of the penalty and the chance of being caught & prosecuted. If the chance of being caught and prosecuted is lower, then the penalty has to be higher for it to have a similar deterrence effect.

DA's office. Its separate from the police for a reason

It still works for a government controlled by the ruling class. The problem is not some malfunction with "police departments" as though a department with a new name could reform it.

"Checks and balances" is and always was a laughably naive and probably intentionally unserious response to overtly structural problems.

What is your serious response to these structural problems then? How do we improve?

Structural problems require structural solutions. A best first step would be reforming the brainwashed American conception of Marxist studies so we can someday conduct a serious discourse concerning the contradictions and consequences of capitalism, which belie the origins and effective purpose of our police departments as we know them.

If anything is for sure, defunding the police was never a remotely serious proposal and it's not lost on Marxists why working people found it such a laughable phrase. Calling it a "proposal" or "strategy" would be giving far too much credit.

In what ways are the existing police services "capitalist"?

All of the police services that I'm familiar with in places like the US, Canada, and Europe lack the fundamental traits of capitalism.

For example, they're the creations of centralized, monopolistic (and often quite socialist) governments, and funded with taxpayer money, rather than arising from the private sector.

As such, there's no competition. Residents and visitors don't get to individually choose which, if any, police service(s) they'll voluntarily receive services from, and what compensation they'll provide, if any. They can't just switch to some other police service if they're dissatisfied with one they've already been choosing to use. They can't unilaterally opt out of dealing with a particular police service.

Entry to the market is also extremely limited. An individual can't just declare himself to be a police officer, and then start offering policing services. An organization of such people can't declare themselves to be a police force.

Unionization of police officers is quite common, as well.

While private security may be available in some areas, it's typically very limited, with no real ability to intervene. They merely monitor an area for trouble, and alert the government's police service(s) if anything arises.

The problems with policing today seem to me to be due to its highly-socialist nature.

Many prisons have been bought up by private companies.

Judges have been convicted of taking bribes in exchange for convictions: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-ma...

The first business of the first modern police forces in the US were catching runaway slaves in the south and crushing strikes in the north.

Calling something a "union" doesn't make it socialist. Did you really need me to hold your hand with that?

On what planet are police so-called "socialist"? I suspect this is the brainwashing I was referring to. This kind of nonsense is extremely unique to the United States.

The issue with placing that in the DA's office is they work closely with police on basically all their other cases so they have an incentive to not antagonize the police by actually holding them accountable. The ideal situation is a separate body just charged with dealing with police misconduct so they don't have to worry about police torpedoing their day to day case load in retaliation.

That’s a feature not a bug. Just because they work with the DA doesn’t mean they should be all buddy-buddy.

Prosecutors, if they'd do their jobs.

The issue is prosecutors rely on police a lot for their normal criminal cases so whenever one does get the courage to seriously pursue things like this they can get sabotaged or slow walked by the rest of the department in retaliation.

Since we ( hopefully ) do not have an army of cops to arrest set up independent specialized task force just for that.

Classic "Who watches the watchmen?"

A few ideas I like:

- Make police get individual insurance, similarly to doctors. Malpractice should have a monetary impact that doesn't hurt the taxpayer.

- A mirror to the DA, exclusively for prosecuting crimes committed by police. Remove the conflict of interest with the current DA system.

- Make police have some form of practitioners license, and have a board that can revoke it, similarly to the BAR association.

- Mandatory N years of desk duty after being involved in a fatal shooting (regardless of justification)

Isn't this what Internal Affairs are for?

Qualified immunity is a civil doctrine. It has nothing to do with criminal law.

More importantly it’s not a law at all. It’s as you say a doctrine established by the courts. If congress wanted to improve civil protections from the police, they would clarify the law and end qualified immunity as a doctrine. It’s absurd this stems from the courts.

Why would anyone become a Police if they were going to face increased penalties? How does that incentivize people to be Police?

To avoid increased penalties, they just need to not commit crimes. That shouldn't present a problem at all. They have a great deal of expertise in the practical applications of the law and thus should be really well-equipped to follow it.

What is the argument to hold them to a higher standard when they are off duty?

As a class, police officers are expected to be highly knowledgeable of the law and have been trained in both hand-to-hand combat and conflict de-escalation. Off duty police officers should know when they're doing something illegal, they should be ready to stop a volatile situation from coming to blows, and they are at an unfair advantage in a fight vis-a-vis the average civilian and should thus be slower to resort to violence.

> How does that incentivize people to be Police?

Why should we incentivize people to be "Police" where "police" implies a free license to abuse civilians? In fact, people who are deterred by an abuse license repeal are probably the right people to deter from service jobs like policing.

Your analogy is flawed. If someone is a board/director in a company they have additional scrutiny. Why would they ever take that job?

The question should be, would otherwise great people NOT join the force if such a control isn't in place?

Also, without controls - you attract exactly the wrong people (power-hungry bullies).

The question as phrased assumes that the primary incentive for joining the police is impunity for casual lawlessness. That's dystopian.

You could also ask the same question of skilled martial artists and armed forces veterans. Both classes can face higher penalties, but that doesn't deter people from becoming Army Rangers or karate black belts.

It should incentivize them to act with a high degree of professionalism and regard for the law. What’s the point of granting them extraordinary powers over life and liberty if they’re not held to a higher, not lower, standard?

People who work for a broker or market making bank are heavily scrutinized and they, their family, and to some degree associates (room mates, etc) are restricted in their basic conduct - political activity, investing, etc, and face increased penalties for financial crimes vs the average person. It’s telling we hold our money handlers to a higher standard than the armed representatives of the government with extraordinary rights to deprive people of their liberty and life. Money is more important than our freedom and safety?

On recruiting officers by making the job come with the perks of immunity for criminal behavior, seems like we should find another strategy. If you can’t identify yourself as the police before you beat someone half to death, maybe you’re not qualified to be a law enforcement officer? Maybe we should be glad they wouldn’t take the job if it came with reasonable protections for the people they’re supposed to be protecting?

Seriously, most professional careers come with obligation of avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.

As a friendly reminder, the legislature crafts the laws while the courts judge if they are followed or not.

There is a definite place for the legislature to step in and be clear here.

To be clear, qualified immunity is entirely a judicial branch legal principle, and not a law that was passed by the legislative branch.

If laws are created in this space than the judicial legal principle MUST to be reworked/updated/changed to accommodate it. The law is a higher priority.

There IS a law (Section 1983), which stood whole for almost a century, before the Supreme Court largely gutted by inventing this legal principal out of thin air.

"while the courts judge if they are followed or not."

Or in the case of qualified immunity, create it out of thin air.

It's not created out of thin air. There is a lot of reasoning and background on it. Whether I agree with it or like it is entirely different.

Is there a law granting this power? No. It was created by the court.

I can reason about something all I want, but it doesn't make it the law.

In most states, CDL holders receive harsher punishments for traffic violations because they are licensed, trained, and should know better. In some states, they are even treated more strictly in their personal vehicles for the same reason. Truck drivers can lose their job because they were speeding in their free time. LEOs really don't like it when you point out the discrepancy between this logic and how they are treated.

I called the police on the police for reckless driving in Canada and they were pulled over promptly. RCMP really doesn't like it when their reputation is soiled by 'the locals'. Best police force I've interacted with across all countries where I've visited and lived combined. It only happened once but it really made me feel that 'the system works' when those that uphold the law are not above the law.

I'm reminded of a situation some years ago when a Florida Highway Patrol officer pulled over a Miami police officer for speeding in Florida. The Miami officer was fired, but FHP officer was harassed by other police officers.

https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/miami-police-fire-cop-pul...

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-sb-jane-watts-...

A good way to implement this would be to have payouts from lawsuits come out of their pensions instead of from taxpayers.

I’m not sure that works. I’m tact, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.

The situation you have to avoid is when higher ups ALSO want to sweep something under the rug to make their own numbers look better.

There has to be some sort of teeth for those who hire, train, and manage bad cops.