8 years ago
5
Supreme Court gives police using deadly force in chases more immunity
The Supreme Court made it harder Monday to sue police for using deadly force against fleeing suspects, ruling that officers are immune from lawsuits unless it is “beyond debate” that a shooting was unjustified and clearly unreasonable. By an 8-1 vote, the justices tossed out an excessive force suit against a Texas police officer who ignored his supervisor’s warning and took a high-powered rifle to a highway overpass to shoot at an approaching car.
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http://www.latimes.com
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I'll add it to my list of reasons to stay in right side of the Atlantic. By the way this is going it's probably cheaper to just get rid of criminal courts outright.
I've thought about changing sides of that ocean more than once.
By the recent wave of americans we got at my job you are not the only one, but I wouldn't feel safe if all reasonable americans crossed the pond and left the nukes with the nutjobs.
This ruling turns on it's side the standard of "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt", and pushes the responsibility of "proof" beyond a reasonable doubt onto the defendants. This is NOT how our CJS is supposed to work! Justice Sotomayor is correct that this ruling hollows out the 4th amendment protections. Sad day for justice.
It used to be, the difference between the US and a cruel dictatorship was that we put our criminals on trial and proved they were guilty of something before we shot them. Now? Well, maybe we should seek to ally ourselves with North Korea. It appears our Supreme Court has a lot in common with the regime over there.