I would think that the problem is in part that officers are not held accountable for the more minor violations where a person is arrested for what is not a reasonable charge. ie, the activity wasn't illegal, but the officer thought it was and the arrest is thus deemed valid because the officer acted in good faith. The problem is that even when it's an arrest of someone for filming the officer or something else, it's still often deemed as "in good faith". At what point is such an arrest not in good faith?
It could probably be articulated that part of the problem is that the qualified immunity for officers is too broad? But then the courts themselves still seem to be confused on the subject where this sort of thing comes up. I'm more familiar with gun cases as an example but they're by no means isolated to that specific vein. We have numerous instances where it's clearly articulated that stopping someone for MERELY having a firearm is not grounds for the stop, but then we have judges who then agree for a time that it is (the GCO v MARTA case) and a more recent case over towards Savannah. A recent bill got the more standard constitutional point codified in law and police leaders were up in arms that they could not do their jobs if someone with a gun could to be stopped for committing a crime. Which was a complete misreading of the basic limitation and apparent that they either prefer hyperbole for their legal arguments or are ignorant of basic 4th amendment/Terry related rulings on what does and does not satisfy RAS/PC requirements for a stop.
Again, this isn't JUST related to guns. Its' 1st, 2nd, 14th amendment issues plus others issues not related to any specific right, but just 4th and 5th amendment problems.
It could probably be articulated that part of the problem is that the qualified immunity for officers is too broad? But then the courts themselves still seem to be confused on the subject where this sort of thing comes up. I'm more familiar with gun cases as an example but they're by no means isolated to that specific vein. We have numerous instances where it's clearly articulated that stopping someone for MERELY having a firearm is not grounds for the stop, but then we have judges who then agree for a time that it is (the GCO v MARTA case) and a more recent case over towards Savannah. A recent bill got the more standard constitutional point codified in law and police leaders were up in arms that they could not do their jobs if someone with a gun could to be stopped for committing a crime. Which was a complete misreading of the basic limitation and apparent that they either prefer hyperbole for their legal arguments or are ignorant of basic 4th amendment/Terry related rulings on what does and does not satisfy RAS/PC requirements for a stop.
Again, this isn't JUST related to guns. Its' 1st, 2nd, 14th amendment issues plus others issues not related to any specific right, but just 4th and 5th amendment problems.
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