TexasCHLforum.com

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:24 amKeep no-knock warrants legal, but remove ANY of the protections of qualified immunity whenever one is served.

TAM, I agree that qualified immunity is something that needs to be reformed, and most of it should be done away with. But, like in almost all things, we cannot do away with it completely as it is a valuable process. It would certainly help if we had some laws explaining qualified immunity and when it applies and when it doesn't. This is a policy that was created by the courts and therefore is less clear than any law (most of which are too vague to begin with).

The policy of qualified immunity was created to allow police officers and other government officials to work in the gray areas of the law and not get punished for a reasonable error in judgement. For example, the 4th Amendment says only unreasonable searches are forbidden, so officers had to judge what is unreasonable in the eyes of the law. They still need to do this and have this ability. But, the current court policy of immunity anytime unless it was an already decided fact that should be well known that something was wrong has resulted in crazy decisions that make no sense. The one most recently that bothered me was when the cops stole from the seized evidence but not the part taken on the warrant. How do you not know that A: stealing is wrong, and B: taking evidence more than what the warrant authorized is wrong? But since there were no court cases saying this, the court let them go.

Since I am not sure we could write a law explaining it clearly enough to cover the gray areas, I would be willing to say qualified immunity only exists when the law is clear that the person was doing something legal. That is almost as bad as saying only when it is not clearly illegal, but has a lot less potential for abuse. It does allow an officer to do his job and protects him from false claims. And just because there is no automatic defense of qualified immunity, it does not mean the officer in the gray area would be found liable. But I don't see a problem with qualified immunity if the officer shoots a man attacking him with a knife (another recent case where the public wants to remove qualified immunity) since the law already clearly makes this legal self-defense.

chasfm11 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 05, 2020 7:35 am No knock warrants are but one of the things, like civil asset forfeiture, that I believe need to be banned. But I'm always willing to listen to reason:
1. Given the situation that we are in with political police forces (an are buddy Art puts Houston in the running) what do you suggest to use to keep enough pressure on departments to keep no-knock warrants under control?
2. What, besides drugs and a non-family associated kidnapping, is a no knock warrant needed for?
3. We agree that the war on drugs has been a dismal failure in its original purpose and one of the worse things in terms of trampling individual rights. I'm not in favor of legalizing even pot but what is going on now is awful. What do you suggest that we do differently.

I fully agree that civil asset forfeiture should be banned. To me, it is a violation of the constitutional requirement that what the government takes has to be paid for at full market value. Actual evidence of a crime can be seized without violating this clause because it is not being taken for public use, but the whole principal of asset forfeiture is that they are taking things worth money to sell and use the money, so it is wrong, IMO. It is also wrong because it is set up to promote abuse by making certain police activities profitable to the department, so administrators with strained budget can emphasize taking things.

On no-knock warrants, there are so many circumstances I can think of which justify it that it is hard to pick just a few to show you. Consider the case of the two bank robbers involved in the Miami shootout of 1986. They had started killing people for sport and not for any reason others can understand. If they had been in a house instead of a car, I think a no-knock warrant would have been fully justified to prevent a gun fight from erupting that would have endangered neighbors. This actually goes to any case where the suspects are likely to start a violent firefight in a densely populated area and endanger lives nearby. Cases where the person may be suicidal and the knock gives him enough time to shoot himself where a no-knock could let the police in in time to save his life. A third reason, though this is most common with drugs, is any case where the evidence could be destroyed in the time it takes to enter. I see no reason to limit it to non-family kidnapping as family kidnappings go wrong much more often than non-family. I did not mention that it could save police officers lives in cases also, but that should be considered too. it is not nearly as important to me as saving other citizens, but it should be considered. I fully agree that all of these have to have some evidence to justify the belief of what would happen, and it must be reviewed and approved by the judge (though I will also be the first to admit that judges have not done such a great job at reviewing these applications already). And a no-knock should require by law that the officers be in regular police uniform. Texas has a legal presumption that the person knows it is an officer if they are in the distinctive uniform of the police department and I support this concept. But the SWAT team wearing BDUs, either in green or camo or black, is not the distinctive uniform of the department. That uniform is what the average patrolman wears on patrol duty so that people see and recognize it.

I believe in the legalization of drugs for multiple reasons, besides the way the enforcement has trampled on people's rights. I do not believe that government has the legal or moral right to protect us from our own dumb decisions, such as using drugs. But if we are going to do it, then the only other way to do it is to keep all instances of drug possession, no matter the size, a felony and put people in jail for it. Strict enforcement of this will cause an overcrowding of the jails at first, but it will also scare enough people way from drugs that it will reduce the problem. I don't like this option, but I am pragmatic enough to realize what it takes to get people to obey the law. Nothing will deter everyone, but this would deter a lot of the people from getting into drugs.

I cannot support a law banning no-knock warrants. They are a necessary tool for police officers to be able to do their job. I agree that they have been abused and we may need to put political pressure on the police departments to change the way they are used, but I do not agree that all the cases that have had bad results for either the police or the victims/suspects have had anything to do with it being a no-knock warrant. I also do not believe that there is any way a law can be written to allow no-knock warrants under some circumstances while banning them under others. For the law to be enforceable, it almost has to be a complete ban and that is a bad thing.

I strongly suggest we rethink the laws we are enforcing, as opposed to keeping things illegal while restricting the police. The war on drugs has been an abysmal failure at everything except restricting citizen's rights and increasing the violence in crime and law enforcement. And that is just one area of law where the cops get the blame but it should be on the legislator's shoulders.