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"the worst first amendment case I've ever seen" just had a good ending! You can read his summary (CEO of FIRE who lead the case) or mine.
A while back, a retired police officer Larry Bushart posted a political meme on Facebook mocking conservatives over the concept of not caring about kids who get shot in schools while cancelling people for not caring about Charlie Kirk's death.
In response, Perry County officials where he lived had him arrested and held in jail for 37 days, setting his bond at 2 million dollars. He lost his job from this disruption and missed his granddaughter's birth and his wedding anniversary.
This arrest was obvious bullshit, another case where corrupt abusive officials utilize the legal system itself as punishment. No one would have seriously expected this case to go through, but the process itself is often meant as the attack.
It ends with good news though, as part of the settlement Bushart is getting almost a million dollars. Bad news, like most abuse by officials it gets paid for by the taxpayers and nothing is likely to happen to the corrupt scumbags who were in charge.
But this is a great lesson at least. In the US, you can just be a random guy, upset the most powerful government organizations and draw their ire, and win against them. America is a country where David can take down Goliath, whether it be your local officials or federal ones. Bushart refused to accept the abuse, he stood up to the bullies, and he won.
This was a clear violation of established civil rights and the victim deserves restitution.
But $835,000 is a lot of money. That is more money than I have made in my entire life. Even in the "good" endings, I shudder to look directly at the massive roulette wheel that is American tort litigation. A back-of-the-envelope calculation for what I think would be a fair settlement (all figures approximate):
Lost wages: $10,000
Physical discomfort: $100,000
Emotional distress: $15,000
Missing life events: $10,000
Legal fees: $50,000
This comes to a total of $185,000. I cannot imagine a fudge factor big enough to make up the extra $650,000. That's pure profit in my book. This isn't even particularly large for a civil rights settlement. Insane that we just accept this.
It is simultaneously not enough money and the wrong people are paying out. The people, cops/judges/staff etc should be personally liable for the money and/or jailtime. I am saying this despite finding the wronged party personally dislikable.
That's easy to say in a case like this, but would abolishing qualified immunity in the US not just result in unlimited lawfare against any government officials enforcing anything with a political dimension, which would presumably lead to said government officials becoming reluctant to do so? Expect impunity for [whatever group pisses you off the most] first, and subsequent further incineration of the commons.
Really, my sense often is that the US would stand to benefit from having its entire legal system burnt down and rebuilt from scratch. So many of your problems, including healthcare costs and inability to build infrastructure, ultimately can be traced back to the possibility of being dragged to court and having to spend the GDP of a minor country on lawyers (because if you don't and the other side does then you lose and are on the hook anyway).
If so, mission accomplished.
Well, just to be clear, the primary example I was thinking of were various minorities that beat the curve in terms of criminal proclivities. Surely there is no shortage of Blue NGOs that would be happy to make an example out of the occasional randomly selected police for giving traffic ticket to a black person. Is disincentivising that a mission you want to see accomplished too?
If
The ticket is legitimate
The NGOs suing can themselves be sued for frivolity
The cop has nothing to fear. Although I can imagine a lawsuit for a frivolous lawsuit for a frivolous lawsuit…getting out of hand.
I believe that generally, the law should, only and be heavily incentivized to, be applied in obvious cases. In ambiguity, the justice system does nothing, except ensures the defendant has a way to prevent or at least record future infractions.
For example:
If someone runs over the speed limit, they get fined. If someone is wrongly fined and has their own evidence, they appeal, and get repaid with extra. If someone is wrongly fined but has no evidence, better luck next time: they can start recording their speed, so if they’re caught again they’ll have evidence to reverse both cases.
If someone has a legitimate claim, they sue. If someone is clearly illegitimately sued, they counter-sue. If someone is illegitimately sued but can’t prove obviousness, both parties waste their time.
Rulings can be appealed a fixed number of times, possibly zero. The appeals themselves will waste everyone’s time, unless the defendant can prove (beyond reasonable doubt) that the prior ruling was clearly wrong (not just ambiguous), or the plaintiff can prove the defendant’s new argument is frivolous (or clearly the same as their old argument).
My basic reasoning is: the more the law is enforced by letter, the more it can be sidestepped (broken in spirit). The more it’s enforced by spirit, the more susceptible it is to corruption, and corruption in the law is more dangerous than corruption in other institutions. If the law is only enforced in obvious cases, both issues are reduced: the letter is too unambiguous to sidestep, corrupting the spirit would be too obvious. Meanwhile, other institutions with softer enforcement can counter non-obvious infractions, either by making them obvious to the law, or using ambiguity to their advantage. The law (by itself) doesn’t prevent crime, so at least some of these other institutions are necessary anyways.
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