It always amazes me how much effort people will put into making sure they can't get in trouble for doing something wrong instead of just doing it right in the first place.
I wish that could work but you know they will spin it so that his "insubordination" is why he was fired not that he lied but because he told the truth.
No, they can't. The case was "dismissed", and therefore never happened. That's why you never get the first case to put the gov't on "notice" that they are breaking the law.
*During a bench trial or with jurors and when being sworn-in, say...I cannot swear to the oath to tell the truth, because I've been ordered to be deceptive by omitting facts or lying about the facts of my results, and that would be a crime that can put me in jail.* *That would be the fastest mistrial ever.*
And he'd still lose his job. And his supervisors would still claim qualified immunity because his termination would still be considered a discretionary function.
The reason the case was tossed out was because he tried to sue on 1st amendment grounds which would be unique . He could have sued on other grounds but chose to sue claiming a 1st amendment violation rather than another cause of action
“This court can’t rule on this because it hasn’t ruled on this before”…. Uhhh…. What? Then why even have a court system to begin with? I wish I could use that at my job. “Sorry boss I can’t help this customer because I have never helped this customer before!”
Reminds me of that one case where no stores wanted to give a hobo a cup of water so he died of dehydration and the stores were like: "I can't be sued cuz he didn't pay me to care as I watched him dry to dead!"
@@cougarhunter33 No they don't. QI doesn't apply in criminal defenses. The tricky part is getting the prosecutor to press charges and getting to charges to stick. It's a lot harder to convict a criminal case than win a civil case.
@@taoliu3949 it doesn't matter whether they have immunity or not under the law. This is a multimillion dollar income to the state of Arizona. The state is not going to prosecute their own people that help this income to take place. DUI processing in Arizona has become a scam based cash cow. The legal limit for DUI in 0.08 but even if you do not reach that level they process you for driving while impaired based on the judgement of the arresting officer. You can blow a 0.02 and still be found guilty.
@@Tempus0 I'd donate to a fund to create and broadcast that PSA, and if I were a billionaire, it would be a Super Bowl advertisement. ua-cam.com/video/yR2lgxy-htU/v-deo.html It is, what it is!
@@GeorgeVCohea-dw7ou : The people in charge of advertising for the Superbowl would never let the/those advertisement(s?) see the figurative "light of day"!
So does this mean any defendant could point to this case as a reason to question anything any govt employee says as truthful?... seems to cast doubt on all govt employee testimony.
As a retired scientist with a deep background in analytical chemistry, that man is correct. Give them the entire batch run. A laboratory artifact will affect some results and when I was a hazardous waste manager I challenged many spurious results that failed a logic test (e.g. there is no source of that compound in the process area). Only once was the spurious result confirmed (out of ~40). That result allowed us to find the source and remove it to protect worker safety.
Why doesn't he sue to get his job back using Qualified Immunity? He can claim as a government employee there wasn't case law establishing that it was wrong for him to testify truthfully under oath, therefore he cannot be fired.
@@Craig6844 No, actually, we don't. congress could end QI with a statute. That's all it would take. QI is not a constitutional provision, so it does not require a constitutional solution. A legislative one would do.
Craig6844 a Constitutional Congress would be formed with the same jackasses that run things now. Why would they change the system, except to make it worse? We The People need to stand up. And take the system back. It's time for the Democratic Republican Party to be gone.
someone needs to figure out how to get judges on the wrong side of a professional immunity case and see how they like it when they are told there is nothing that can be done about it
The key (I suspect, IANAL) is to catch them operating outside of their judicial capacity. A judge wears 3 hats; judicial capacity, administrative capacity, and private capacity. Judicial=there is some matter in front of him that he must decide, one way or another. A judge has absolute immunity for these decisions because whichever way he decides, the other party won't like it. Administrative=no controversy, i.e., he likes the temperature in the court room to be at 90 degrees, or how much the clerks are paid (9th circuit appellate judge Kosinski got in trouble and resigned over sexual harassment of a court employee - didn't get sued, but he saw the writing on the wall) anything that the judge decides that doesn't have two opposing parties in front of him. The determination of probable cause is an administrative function - only one party in front of the judge/magistrate. Administrative is also called ministerial. Private=the rest of us deplorables, self explanatory (I hope).
Steve is misrepresenting what happened. The person sued in federal court on the grounds it was a violation of his first amendment. That’s what made it unique . He could have sued on other grounds like wrongful termination, harassment etc. He tried to it a first admendment case, that why it got tossed out
@@crjcrj8443 It's the government suppressing his first Admendment rights. The constitution is clear that no judge or officer of the law is allowed to suppress anothers rights. I see this as a potentially clever case that could result in QI going infront of the supreme court.
@@Veritas-invenitur Nope. Not even close. 1st admendment while at work has been ruled on. You have the right to say it but you don’t have the right to be employed. A police officer who uses the “ n” word while at work can’t claim 1st amendment protection . Off duty, yes. And the employer can require testimony be limited to the case in hand. For example, means and methods can be classified or invasion of another’s privacy . If it’s not directly related to the actual case , they can keep that person from speaking about it unless directly ordered by the judge. An undercover or a spy is asked how something is done, he might be instructed not to answer and tell the judge means and methods because telling how it’s done will jeopardize others or that method being used again such as a code or the method of which an undercover fakes taking a drug or how listening device ( with a warrant) is placed. . Then the judge rules on it. They can instruct the person not to volunteer such info and let the judge decide. The 1st amendment is not the means of redress in a case like this. It’s covered under other statues but the plaintiff chose not to use those means.
So the court is saying you must commit perjury if ordered by you supervisor. Since they effectively said that if you do not commit perjury when order to you can be punished. Of course if caught the person on that stand will be the one charged.
@@paultruesdale7680 : It's actually much more pervasive, and insidious than that. Among humans, power is attractive to the corrupt, and the corruptible. Suspect ALL who seek it!
sounds like criminal felony charges for his supervisors are in order, then it might change the "qualified immunity" in that they committed a crime. This should go to the supreme court, Institute for Justice please step up.
It’s a private club, and “We the people” ain’t in it. We live in a functional oligarchy, and it’s time the people reclaimed their right to self-determination. End Qualified Immunity NOW, and then start rounding up all of the corrupt officials who have acted against the citizens on dereliction of duty charges.
We the Government have investigated ourselves and have found no wrong doing....and even if we did we the government are immune from being held responsible for any wrong doing.
this guy should have taken the stand and told the judge while he is being sworn in that his testimony is being threatened. Then refused to be sworn in.
@@crjcrj8443 you haven't dealt with a system like this, have you? I guarantee that those "other grounds" were a lot worse than the 1st Amendment violation, and we're squelched.
@@danieljones317 I actually have had some experience in this matter. Those other grounds have precedent. Both at the state and federal levels. Why did he choose to go for a 1st admendment claim rather than the other methods? Because a 1st amendment violation pays out more where the other grounds have an estimated track record of “ relief “ or compensation at lower payout. But it is a lot easier to win
I would say basically this ruling makes Trial By Jury and Reasonable Doubt almost guaranteed... Qualified Gov witness testifies... Defence lawyer cites this case then specifically asks ARE YOU LYING UNDER COLOR OF LAW... Witness says NO... Defence Lawyer then says... But Qualified Immunity under Color of Law allows you to lie as much as you want on the stand... and that sound you hear is the legal system imploding in the background......
@@TotensBurntCorpse No, no ,no. Qualified immunity does not protect the person from criminal charges or being sued under other statues. He tried to make a first amendment claim rather than a whistleblower blower claim. Why? Because the whistleblower claim doesn’t pay out as much.
I had a judge in a case where I was being sued tell me that if I testified about one of the FACTS of the case, he would send me to jail. I asked my lawyer what should I do, he told me 'What the judge said unless you want to go to jail'. This was a KEY fact of the case.
I would have done something... but not being able to state a specific key fact... it seems that they had already made their opinion and it wasn't in your favour
@@bindingcurve if it was a provable fact, I think it would be admissible. if it was not admissible (i.e. something they were just told by another), that is something else.
@@bindingcurve It was admissible. The judge even knew it to be true. But I wasn't allowed to mention it. OR ELSE. Judge was heavily biased. They got 3 days to make their case and were allowed to bring in surprise 'experts' without prior notice. We got half a day, and he interrupted constantly.
So, what I'm hearing is that defense attorneys in Arizona can now rebut the State's expert witnesses as untrustworthy as the State has previously ordered them to lie under oath.
He should offer his service to every DUI defense lawyer in the state and make twice what he did make. That will be the only way to teach them a lesson now.
Why settle for DUI lawyers? Anyone up against a government witness could use this guy’s testimony to show that you cannot trust their testimony, because they know that their livelihoods are at risk if they tell an inconvenient truth.
It's not just disgusting it's incredibly dangerous. The thought that somebody could be lied or could be fired and find for failing to purchase themselves is corruption on top of corruption.
I heard about this guy in 2016 when someone I know had a DUI case. He was the guy who would go to DUI seminars and not testify the way the state wanted him too. Amazing to hear about this here.
Sadly most people don't have this choice. People have kids to feed, rent or mortgages to pay, etc. If they lose their job in this way, they might end up having to leave their field and start over, meaning they can longer support their family or the lifestyle they had in the past. When most people have to choose between family or someone they'll probably never meet outside the courtroom..
As soon as we post yours and your families with a pedophile tag line and a request to the public for someone to express to you their disapproval in some fashion... smh... childmind... swatted anyone recently?
We the people need to rise up regardless of political affiliation and stop our governments from gaining and/or keeping this tyrannical type of power. Government should be as liable in our court systems as anyone else.
@@rrrhhh8167 They are absolutely fearful, that's why they try to shut down even peaceful demonstrations. They know if the people were to gather into a large movement akin to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement that they couldn't stand up to it. That is why more than 8 million Americans are on a list of "threats" to be taken first if anything goes down.
@@obsidianmoon13 bullpuckey! :) 1) Government is not adept at collecting taxes. Proof: the ones with real money don't pay. 2)Name a freedom taken. No one ever has in 40 years of my asking. 3)Killing people. This is ridiculous. How? Capital punishment- it's slow, expensive, and 10% are innocent of the charge. War? It took a 1000 bullets to kill a man in WW1, it has gone down hill from there. Tom Clancy (I read his early books, the good ones) has become fantastically wealthy with this gov't. I doubt he said it.
On top of this usually they weren't written because it's COMMON SENSE! I know, I know it's non existent these days. So if I'm ever called to testify in that court and told to lie, I will after I tell the court my job is on the line, that the COURT has committed a laundry list of offenses from extortion to murder, jamming them up for years while they are investigated. Yes I would end up in jail but national attention on a court that wants it's examiner's to commit purgury on the stand to gain convictions is worth the time.
Sometimes Lady Justice weeps. Here we see what my dad, a lawyer, told me playing out. "You don't go to court for justice; you go for a decision. It is hoped that with a solid prosecution and zealous defense justice may emerge. Hoped."
Steve, as a fellow attorney from a different jurisdiction, I absolutely love your videos. I often find it hard to disagree with your well reasoned and informed analysis. You are a credit to our often unfairly (and sometimes fairly) maligned profession. (Edit: typo)
@@johnnyliminal8032 Strange indeed. Just my much younger self waxing poetic irony. I was interested in both law and chemistry, but ultimately decided to study law as a graduate. Ironically, chemistry laws are inviolable, whereas criminal and civil laws are imperfect and do not always result in what we call "justice." Growing up in Soviet Union, I was inspired by a relative to pursue law. He was a criminal defence attorney working against a corrupt system of laws that were often merely for show. Nevetheless, he believed in the rule of law and the need to fight for the rights of the accused, even if the system was rigged against him. Even in U.S. we have a concept called "jury nullification" where we essentially ask the jury to disregard the law to reach a more just outcome. Hence my moniker.
@@LawlessChemistry Higher the immunity, more disregard of the law. Even if some laws aren't perfect, the weakness of all laws are that are applied by humans...
I found your channel late last week. I can't seem to get enough of this now. I knew the justice system was bs but still my mind is blown on how corrupt it is.
So, going forward, any defense attorney can ask the question "are your statements made today free from influence of your superiors? " followed up by "do you have qualified immunity if you lie at these proceedings?"
How can someone who clearly committted a felony be immune when the laws of the state bar those people from doing what they did? Sounds like his lawyers may have presented the case incorrectly.
@Danny Ripper : I disagree. All it would take is for the judge to "protect his own ass"! "QI", after all, also "applies" to him/her, and ALL of his/her colleagues!
Good luck getting a judge to allow that evidence. I think it would even be a justified decision, to claim that it's irrelevant to a particular case in a court of law, even though it's incredibly relevant from a broader social perspective. Even if you can reasonably estimate that X% of cases were affected, that doesn't tell you which ones to re-try. Unless you can find substantial evidence that a particular case was affected, you can't change the outcome.
How the District Court in Arizona concluded Qualified Immunity in this case is beyond me. And this just makes me dislike Common Law Societies even more.
@@johnnyclark7830 The allegation is that a forensic expert has been ordered to lie under oath in that state. I don't know of anywhere else where that is the case.
Arizona is the place where it's still _good_ enough that you hear about it. This is standard operating procedure everywhere else. This happens hundreds of times a day. It's SOP in Federal courts. You notice the casual way in which the concept in presented by the judge? "What? You didn't know this is how we do things?"
This reminds me of something that (with other negative things like ticketed for things we didn't do) turned us both firmly distrustful of law enforcement several years ago. We'd been having problems in this area, at least a couple of times a year... and the police came but did nothing (no report, no paperwork, NOTHING - for vandalism and more). It got worse, and finally we had racist hate graffiti spray painted on the road in front of our mailbox and driveway. We called it in (trying to obey the law and get help for a longstanding problem), and first a public service 'officer' showed up, and promised us that it would be written up. Then a police person showed up, and she said that "Because we have no record of this happening here, we can't do anything about it now" and "It was just a kid's prank". Then the Public Service guy said that he'd told us that it would be written up. She went ballistic at him, and yelled at him. Then it got written up (very reluctantly) and documented with photographs, FINALLY. (After that, the race-based problems significantly decreased.) I found out that is a common practice - not documenting problems, and then refusing to document them "because we have no record of X happening here before!". It's one of the ways they make life harder for poor people and minorities, and "stinks" a lot like the injustice done to the person discussed in this video. Eliminating qualified immunity AND making the police do their job in spite of the poverty or race (or religion or...) of the person who was victim of a crime should also be included.
I think we have a name for that.... it's something like "Kangaroo Court". How could any panel of Judges honestly respect their decision made by agreeing to that illogic? The question is just who do they think that they are? It's time to appeal....
@@MrIgorkap I'm pretty sure that the reason SCOTUS quoted when they created QI was to protect govt employees from nuisance lawsuits. It's one of those Kinda-but-not-really problems that people with authority come up with when they need a plausible sounding reason to increase their personal authority/protection/powers. Of course in keeping with US Judicial tradition SCOTUS made sure to keep the ruling as vague and broad as possible to effect the maximum number of issues......wait, something is wrong about that last statement
@@MrIgorkap SCOTUS are very reluctant to change their own rulings. It took SCOTUS 58 years before they finally abandoned Plessy v Ferguson and ruled that racial discrimination was unconstitutional.
Over the decades I have seen a lot of First Amendment cases get adjudicated. The criteria for being a First Amendment case has always been the government suppressing speech, not if the specifics had happened before.
In England and Wales, a police officer does not enjoy immunity if his actions are not in the execution of his duties. Stealing money would not be in the execution of his duties and at that point he would lose his immunity and would be open to a raft of charges. The scientists supervisors would be had up for misconduct in public office and again if qualified immunity existed in a similar form over here, at the point of misconduct, they would lose their immunity... but I am fairly certain only emergency services have qualified immunity here.
Every Arizona lawyer should now be referencing this case to cast doubt on ALL police lab results. If the testimonies can - and ARE fabricated, the lab results are useless. I wonder just how many innocent people are in jail because of state mandated false testimonies and lab results?
The "prior court case" jargon was recently discussed by SCOTUS, in that the assumption asserted by QI backers was never the intent of the original QI rulings
How could the Court *POSSIBLY* rule that there's no case law?! Has no one in that circuit *EVER* been convicted of suborning perjury? Point to any one of those cases...
But none of those cases are specifically about the government itself suborning perjury and, if it believes anything, the government believes that "it's different when we do it".
That's not how QI works. There has to be a case with almost identical facts in the caselaw. It can't just be Joe Schmoe being told to commit perjury by his McDonald's manager, it has to be a cop being ordered to commit perjury by his superior officer, and it has to have happened before like 1982 iirc.
@@tissuepaper9962 Officer Bloggs, you lied in Jonestown court . . . Objection: There's case law against lying in Smithville Court, but NOT Jonestown Court.
@@MrGeldhart you jest, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some shit like that in Texas or Arizona. "No cop ever perjured himself in Jonestown court before QI existed, so I was never on notice that I wasn't allowed to lie under oath in Jonestown."
It has to be so identical that even if there was a case law that says a cop can't kill a man, if there isn't a case saying he can't kill a child he can get away with doing so. And if there's a case about that just change his weapon. I mean, case in point, there were police officers that shot a reporter on live television just last year and destroyed one of her eyes and the officer got away with it because it never happened before. We live in a country where police are expected to be so stupid that they are incapable of comprehending that removing someone's eye is wrong! And in areas where cops were held accountable for shooting, what did the police do? They drove through a crowd of people running them over and did not face any consequences because it never happened before. It's so stupidly specific that if something was ruled on all that have to do is change their uniform or play some loud music or do anything novel. Just ridiculous how this is set up.
When is this craziness going to end? Don't they know that this undermines our society? No wonder people often say "It's only illegal if you get caught!"
OH NO!! there are plenty of places worse than Arizona and Texas!!! I guess you have never been in the deep south or any of the states like Ohio or Virginia??? yeah....they make Texas and New Mexico look like true amateurs
They are all bad just not as exposed as Arizona and Texas. Very few fallow the law or moral compass because they don’t have to they’re protected by one another only when public outcry gets so loud that some elected official or higher up gets heat does any kind of punishment happen like two days off with pay sometimes even without pay.
As someone who lives in a Northeast Blue state, you are incorrect. My state is every bit as bad, likely worse. The Red States are just open enough that this comes to the surface. In my state, this would have been tossed out of court based on standing, or some other BS.
Isn’t telling the truth under oath part of his job description, and, if so, aren’t his superiors aware of this since they created the position and hired him on and went over the complete job description with him?
His job is to go to court and present a number. He isn't hired to offer an opinion on the quality of the number. If he feels that the procedure to produce the number is not good enough to swear to, he should resign. But he can't go in and present a number and say that it might be wrong. That is outside of his job.
This really put in to focus something about QI that I never thought about. Since you need caselaw to show precedent no new crimes that have been added by a legislature since 1982 can get through QI. Things like cyberbullying/ harassment wouldn't have caselaw on them for example.
I'm pretty sure the protections only go to gov officials. So yes, they can't be held accountable for cyber bullying. We the people don't qualify for immunity. Proof and a a prime example of the fact that there is a different set of rules for us.
Never having been in court, I'm curious: Can you just ask a witness if they're lying? What would happen if you did that? Just point-blank "Are you lying?" A total freakout by the prosecution? A warning from the Judge? What if the witness just blurted out "Yeah, I have to, or else I'll be fired!" If the jury has any integrity at all, they'll recall him doing that no matter what the judge tells them to disregard.
How very ... american. And I'm guessing that if he had buckled under pressure and perjured himself by changing his evidence after the fact, any and all consequences of that would be "his fault"?
I could have sworn that a recent SCOTUS decision told the lower courts that it didn't have to be a similar case, if the right was so clearly established that no one could not know they were violating it.
This is why I've been unemployable since the 1990s. You want a job, of any kind, anywhere; you better be piece of shit. Lies are just the beginning of the evil you must do to be employed.
Over the last few years, I have gone from supporting QI, to it’s a good thing but needs modification, to it should be revoked in its entirety, to this is freaking absurd and it’s an existential, imminent threat to liberty.
It seems like with Qualified Immunity they should be able to say "Yes this is a clear violation of your rights, however it was not previously clearly established, we are now going to say that it is clearly established that this is a violation of rights." I know it is not perfect but it gets around the "Catch 22" loophole that has existed and basically amounts to the first one is free which is what I feel was meant when the Qualified Immunity Doctrine was established.
Steve, question for you. I understand that QI protects the individual government employee from liability. But does it also protect the agency? In other words, can the plaintiff still get relief for wrongful discharge or suspension from the employer?
Hey Steve, check this qualified immunity case out, the news titles: ATF agent accuses Columbus police officers of excessive force. Written in "the Columbus Dispatch". I wonder if the rules are different if it's one of their own.
Could you provide a link, or a date for this article? When an outside law enforcement group is willing to publicly criticize a police force, it's usually going to be pretty bad.
Email him the direct link or a copy of the article directly. There is a pretty reasonable chance that he will check it out, but it is unlikely that he will go out of his way to search for it. ua-cam.com/video/yR2lgxy-htU/v-deo.html I've supplied him with articles from time to time, and he has covered a double digit percentage of those. There was one super interesting story that I sent him about civil asset forfeiture of a rental car, and whilst it wasn't a detailed enough story for a video at that time, he very quickly replied to say it was interesting. You never know.
@@davebeach2343 no, UA-cam deletes comments with links. But uf you put in the titel which i gave you above and the source into Google you'll find it immediately.
So... if I'm called to testify... and the question comes up. Can't I simple say that my employer (name here) has ordered me to say the following, instead of what I think I should say?.
Oh he is the outlier in that he's one of the few who's both honest and corageous. Now that this cat is out of the bag, how are they going to keep a straight face while arguing their "experts" have any sort of authority in telling what happened?
Robert A. Heinlein said that in a sufficiently advanced society 'Civil Servant' is semantically equal to 'Civil Master'. We seem to be in a sufficiently advanced society.
@@stephenharper6638 Absolutely. When you know that he considered Lazerous Long to be a self insert character, Time Enough For Love gets really creepy. But that dosent make his political and social points wrong.
It looks like you could have all the evidence in the world that points toward their guilt, but because it’s “never been ruled on before”, the court won’t do anything about it. It’s still great advice, especially if you work for a non governmental entity. With QI, you may as well use that evidence as toilet paper!
@@downhomesunset That's not necessarily true because in many states, not all but many, the District Attorney in each county is an elected official. In the minority of states which they aren't elected they are typically appointed by a state's attorney general, whom is also typically an elected position. If the evidence kept is clear and concise enough, it can make for some pretty powerful local news reporting and this type of thing can definitely lead to some county prosecutors thinking twice about whether or not they can reach a compromise with an employee. In some counties that are heavily partisan it may not make a big difference unless there is a challenger from within the same party as in many counties these positions can and do get re-elected unopposed. In smaller rural or mostly suburban counties where people might be more engaged in local politics any evidence that a prosecutor is pushing their witnesses to lie under oath could do wonders to turn public opinion against them. Not saying it would matter everywhere, but there are plenty of places in which a local news report on something like this could go a long way.
Every new case I hear about QI, you could file under the synopsis "Government employees engage in blatant felonious behavior and walk away with no consequences, civil or criminal." Over and over and over again. At what point do you think this qualifies as "a long train of abuses and usurpations"? I've heard that folks in this country aren't fans of that.
In the case of the stealing officers, they knew that they couldn't steal because if someone steals from a store, police know stealing is against the law and they come and arrest that person.
[8:15] "Well, qualified immunity was invented not that long ago." Incorrect. Qualified immunity has been around since the 17th century at least. It grew out of sovereign immunity; the crown extended its own immunity to cover its officials. This is why Justice Thomas harps about modern QI not being anything like what official immunity was like at the time Congress passed Sec. 1983 back in 1866. That should clue one in that a form of QI existed even long ago. What changed in 1982 with the case of Harlow v. Fitzgerald was that the Supreme Court swapped out the common law's subjective intent standard for an objective intent standard. Why? Because the whole point of legal immunity is to stay out of court and avoid the costs of defending a lawsuit, right? But if there's a subjective intent standard, that provides a toehold for plaintiffs to raise factual disputes that have to go to trial in order to be resolved, which undermines the whole point of the immunity the common law provides. Hence the swap. The real problem isn't invention, but tinkering, in that the Court later went too far with tacking on the clearly-established prong in Anderson v. Creighton instead of a more relaxed rule of reasonableness, and also in Pearson v. Callahan walked back its requirement that courts must first determine whether a constitutional right was violated before determining whether it was clearly established. Without the requirement to first determine if a constitutional right is violated, courts can simply keep dismissing cases as not clearly established without ever clearly establishing the right, and the violations of those rights can thus continue without end, even though the constitutional violation is obvious.
QI would be fine if it required an established or uncontradicted claim that the defendant reasonably believed his actions to be genuinely lawful. Note that a belief that the actions were insufficiently unlawful as to justify sanction should not suffice, and that "there's never a right way to do the wrong thing". If, e.g. it can be shown that cops sought to make someone believe they have no choice but to confess to a crime, such action should be recognized as a willful violation of the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights, even if all of the cops' actions could have been reasonable if driven by other motivations.
The ONLY reason for qualified immunity is how criminal law enforcement truly is. You do not need protection from breaking the law unless you do it all of the time.
I had this happen to me when I worked in IT for a local Council. All I did when asked a question was say "I have been instructed by my Manager to say........."
Defense attorneys should hire him to testify in all their cases about how the state ordered him to lie
Great idea... Oh boy expert witness make a fortune..
Best career move he could ever make.
Great way of destroying the credibility of any government testimony.
That would be an amazing new career for this person.
He would have a life ending accident very quickly.....no possible doubt.
It always amazes me how much effort people will put into making sure they can't get in trouble for doing something wrong instead of just doing it right in the first place.
On the other side, that's exactly what you have to do when you're a good guy fighting an evil empire...
With all the lawyers around, making sure they can't get in trouble is standard procedure, not a cause for amazement.
Exactly!
Man is never wrong!
Now every defence lawyer will point out that you cannot trust ANY government witness, because of this case.
I wish that could work but you know they will spin it so that his "insubordination" is why he was fired not that he lied but because he told the truth.
No, they can't. The case was "dismissed", and therefore never happened. That's why you never get the first case to put the gov't on "notice" that they are breaking the law.
Great idea. This court case should be in the standard opening arguments from any lawyer in cases that involve government witnesses.
@@NotProFishing I would just call him as a defense witness.
That was my first thought too
*During a bench trial or with jurors and when being sworn-in, say...I cannot swear to the oath to tell the truth, because I've been ordered to be deceptive by omitting facts or lying about the facts of my results, and that would be a crime that can put me in jail.*
*That would be the fastest mistrial ever.*
And he'd still lose his job. And his supervisors would still claim qualified immunity because his termination would still be considered a discretionary function.
The reason the case was tossed out was because he tried to sue on 1st amendment grounds which would be unique . He could have sued on other grounds but chose to sue claiming a 1st amendment violation rather than another cause of action
Nah, just start every sentence with "I have been ordered by my boss, who can legally fire me for telling the truth in court, to tell you:"
“This court can’t rule on this because it hasn’t ruled on this before”…. Uhhh…. What? Then why even have a court system to begin with? I wish I could use that at my job. “Sorry boss I can’t help this customer because I have never helped this customer before!”
kind of like 10 years experience on a program that has only existed for 5 years for a job opening.
What would happen if lower courts just started ignoring qualified immunity? Could the appeals courts even handle all the volume of cases?
The courts only exist these days to shove people into the for-profit prison system so they can pack Starbucks for $1 an hour.
Reminds me of that one case where no stores wanted to give a hobo a cup of water so he died of dehydration and the stores were like: "I can't be sued cuz he didn't pay me to care as I watched him dry to dead!"
Time for that court system to have it's crooked judges swept out of office...
The officials should be charged with suborning perjury and witness intimidation.
They have immunity from that too.
@@cougarhunter33 No they don't. QI doesn't apply in criminal defenses. The tricky part is getting the prosecutor to press charges and getting to charges to stick. It's a lot harder to convict a criminal case than win a civil case.
@@taoliu3949 it doesn't matter whether they have immunity or not under the law. This is a multimillion dollar income to the state of Arizona. The state is not going to prosecute their own people that help this income to take place. DUI processing in Arizona has become a scam based cash cow. The legal limit for DUI in 0.08 but even if you do not reach that level they process you for driving while impaired based on the judgement of the arresting officer. You can blow a 0.02 and still be found guilty.
@@jchavins Reread my comment.
So, did Arizona just invalidate the testimony of state employees in all future cases?
Yes.
Absolutely. Someone should run some ad campaigns to get the information out. Important that the people (and potential jurors) are informed about this.
Sounds like justice remains extra judicial
@@Tempus0
I'd donate to a fund to create and broadcast that PSA, and if I were a billionaire, it would be a Super Bowl advertisement. ua-cam.com/video/yR2lgxy-htU/v-deo.html It is, what it is!
@@GeorgeVCohea-dw7ou :
The people in charge of advertising for the Superbowl would never let the/those advertisement(s?) see the figurative "light of day"!
So does this mean any defendant could point to this case as a reason to question anything any govt employee says as truthful?... seems to cast doubt on all govt employee testimony.
The Idiocracy time-line is progressing much faster than predicted.
That's a funny movie. Idiocracy
@@jottow680 I thot I was watching the news.
Electrolytes
@@jottow680 It was, at the time I saw it, the scariest movie I'd ever seen. Now it's utterly horrifying.
@@matthewellisor5835 It's what plants crave!
As a retired scientist with a deep background in analytical chemistry, that man is correct. Give them the entire batch run. A laboratory artifact will affect some results and when I was a hazardous waste manager I challenged many spurious results that failed a logic test (e.g. there is no source of that compound in the process area). Only once was the spurious result confirmed (out of ~40). That result allowed us to find the source and remove it to protect worker safety.
Could a defence lawyer use this to discredit the testimony of every government witness?
I expect you will see this used in every case going forward to discredit government witness. Did your boss ask you to lie like they did in case xxxx?
Probably, but do you think a judge who allows qualified immunity would allow that.
@@jeremyreese54 once the jury has heard the statement it will be in their minds regardless of the judge's ruling.
One could always hope.
If you are on a jury you need to assume a government witness is a professional liar.
imo qualified immunity should be legally renamed to what it really is: Qualified Corruption.
Why doesn't he sue to get his job back using Qualified Immunity? He can claim as a government employee there wasn't case law establishing that it was wrong for him to testify truthfully under oath, therefore he cannot be fired.
Qualified Immunity is a defense, not an affirmative cause of action.
QI needs to be purged. We need a constutional convention to fix this and other government overstep.
@@Craig6844 No, actually, we don't. congress could end QI with a statute. That's all it would take. QI is not a constitutional provision, so it does not require a constitutional solution. A legislative one would do.
Craig6844 a Constitutional Congress would be formed with the same jackasses that run things now. Why would they change the system, except to make it worse?
We The People need to stand up. And take the system back. It's time for the Democratic Republican Party to be gone.
@@Maiant theyre the democrat party, they arent democratic
someone needs to figure out how to get judges on the wrong side of a professional immunity case and see how they like it when they are told there is nothing that can be done about it
The key (I suspect, IANAL) is to catch them operating outside of their judicial capacity. A judge wears 3 hats; judicial capacity, administrative capacity, and private capacity. Judicial=there is some matter in front of him that he must decide, one way or another. A judge has absolute immunity for these decisions because whichever way he decides, the other party won't like it. Administrative=no controversy, i.e., he likes the temperature in the court room to be at 90 degrees, or how much the clerks are paid (9th circuit appellate judge Kosinski got in trouble and resigned over sexual harassment of a court employee - didn't get sued, but he saw the writing on the wall) anything that the judge decides that doesn't have two opposing parties in front of him. The determination of probable cause is an administrative function - only one party in front of the judge/magistrate. Administrative is also called ministerial. Private=the rest of us deplorables, self explanatory (I hope).
QUESTION : How is it that how Qualified Immunity came into being doesn't automatically disqualify Qualified Immunity? ANSWER : Qualified CORRUPTION !
Steve is misrepresenting what happened. The person sued in federal court on the grounds it was a violation of his first amendment. That’s what made it unique . He could have sued on other grounds like wrongful termination, harassment etc. He tried to it a first admendment case, that why it got tossed out
@@crjcrj8443 It's the government suppressing his first Admendment rights. The constitution is clear that no judge or officer of the law is allowed to suppress anothers rights. I see this as a potentially clever case that could result in QI going infront of the supreme court.
@@Veritas-invenitur
Nope. Not even close. 1st admendment while at work has been ruled on. You have the right to say it but you don’t have the right to be employed. A police officer who uses the “ n” word while at work can’t claim 1st amendment protection . Off duty, yes.
And the employer can require testimony be limited to the case in hand. For example, means and methods can be classified or invasion of another’s privacy . If it’s not directly related to the actual case , they can keep that person from speaking about it unless directly ordered by the judge.
An undercover or a spy is asked how something is done, he might be instructed not to answer and tell the judge means and methods because telling how it’s done will jeopardize others or that method being used again such as a code or the method of which an undercover fakes taking a drug or how listening device ( with a warrant) is placed. . Then the judge rules on it.
They can instruct the person not to volunteer such info and let the judge decide.
The 1st amendment is not the means of redress in a case like this. It’s covered under other statues but the plaintiff chose not to use those means.
Timothy Bible verse Right is wrong & wrong is right. Bad is good & good is bad
If the judicial system wasn't such a monetized industry, we wouldn't have these messy situations.
So the court is saying you must commit perjury if ordered by you supervisor. Since they effectively said that if you do not commit perjury when order to you can be punished. Of course if caught the person on that stand will be the one charged.
Even if they commit perjury and are caught qualified immunity will probably protect them. Unless you can find a case with exactly the same facts.
oh no, if u commiy purjury under ur supervisors orders, ull still get punished for it, but ur supervisors wont
@@paultruesdale7680 :
It's actually much more pervasive, and insidious than that.
Among humans, power is attractive to the corrupt, and the corruptible.
Suspect ALL who seek it!
It sounds like, at least in Arizona, the court effectively suborns perjury.
@@bkdmode :
Not just "effectively", but OFFICIALLY!
At least in that judge's court room.
Steve, I just don’t know how much more “crazy” I can fit in the trunk. I’m running out of room.
I did wonder why American cars were far larger than they ever needed to be.
Use a police car
sounds like criminal felony charges for his supervisors are in order, then it might change the "qualified immunity" in that they committed a crime. This should go to the supreme court, Institute for Justice please step up.
I wonder who would prosecute the supervisors?
@Quint Rankid :
It does seem as if the foxes are " 'guarding' the chicken coop"!
"Can't help but make you feel ashamed, to live in a land where justice is a game."
Bob Dylan, "Hurricane Carter"
What else did they hide? Pull up every case since that supervisor has been working.
It’s a private club, and “We the people” ain’t in it.
We live in a functional oligarchy, and it’s time the people reclaimed their right to self-determination. End Qualified Immunity NOW, and then start rounding up all of the corrupt officials who have acted against the citizens on dereliction of duty charges.
We the Government have investigated ourselves and have found no wrong doing....and even if we did we the government are immune from being held responsible for any wrong doing.
What a disgrace! Bunch of fools in those courts, and that's how history will view it.
Brought to you by lawmakers that are Democrats and Republicans.
No. Brought to you by appointed judges who are accountable to no one.
This is not codified in law, but came from the Supreme Court.
True Supreme Court made this but Congress could fix this.
No . It's the NWO elites
this guy should have taken the stand and told the judge while he is being sworn in that his testimony is being threatened. Then refused to be sworn in.
Sounds like Qualified Immunity needs to be eliminated throughout the entire State Actor spectrum, top to bottom.
Steve is misrepresenting what happened. The person attempted to sue on 1st amendment grounds rather than wrongful termination or other grounds.
@@crjcrj8443 you haven't dealt with a system like this, have you?
I guarantee that those "other grounds" were a lot worse than the 1st Amendment violation, and we're squelched.
@@danieljones317
I actually have had some experience in this matter. Those other grounds have precedent. Both at the state and federal levels. Why did he choose to go for a 1st admendment claim rather than the other methods? Because a 1st amendment violation pays out more where the other grounds have an estimated track record of “ relief “ or compensation at lower payout. But it is a lot easier to win
I would say basically this ruling makes Trial By Jury and Reasonable Doubt almost guaranteed... Qualified Gov witness testifies... Defence lawyer cites this case then specifically asks ARE YOU LYING UNDER COLOR OF LAW... Witness says NO... Defence Lawyer then says... But Qualified Immunity under Color of Law allows you to lie as much as you want on the stand... and that sound you hear is the legal system imploding in the background......
@@TotensBurntCorpse
No, no ,no. Qualified immunity does not protect the person from criminal charges or being sued under other statues. He tried to make a first amendment claim rather than a whistleblower blower claim. Why? Because the whistleblower claim doesn’t pay out as much.
A recent fan: I don't think I've seen you more passionate or demonstrative. Good show!
I had a judge in a case where I was being sued tell me that if I testified about one of the FACTS of the case, he would send me to jail. I asked my lawyer what should I do, he told me 'What the judge said unless you want to go to jail'.
This was a KEY fact of the case.
I would have done something... but not being able to state a specific key fact... it seems that they had already made their opinion and it wasn't in your favour
who is running those shit show;s ?
@@bindingcurve if it was a provable fact, I think it would be admissible. if it was not admissible (i.e. something they were just told by another), that is something else.
@@bindingcurve It was admissible. The judge even knew it to be true. But I wasn't allowed to mention it. OR ELSE. Judge was heavily biased. They got 3 days to make their case and were allowed to bring in surprise 'experts' without prior notice. We got half a day, and he interrupted constantly.
@@wolphin732 I didn't feel much like going to jail. So nothing I could do.
So, what I'm hearing is that defense attorneys in Arizona can now rebut the State's expert witnesses as untrustworthy as the State has previously ordered them to lie under oath.
He should offer his service to every DUI defense lawyer in the state and make twice what he did make. That will be the only way to teach them a lesson now.
Why settle for DUI lawyers? Anyone up against a government witness could use this guy’s testimony to show that you cannot trust their testimony, because they know that their livelihoods are at risk if they tell an inconvenient truth.
It's not just disgusting it's incredibly dangerous. The thought that somebody could be lied or could be fired and find for failing to purchase themselves is corruption on top of corruption.
I heard about this guy in 2016 when someone I know had a DUI case. He was the guy who would go to DUI seminars and not testify the way the state wanted him too. Amazing to hear about this here.
Sadly most people don't have this choice. People have kids to feed, rent or mortgages to pay, etc. If they lose their job in this way, they might end up having to leave their field and start over, meaning they can longer support their family or the lifestyle they had in the past. When most people have to choose between family or someone they'll probably never meet outside the courtroom..
And they wonder why people go postal at work.
Do we need to start publishing the names, addresses (physical and digital) for judges? Just a thought.
As soon as we post yours and your families with a pedophile tag line and a request to the public for someone to express to you their disapproval in some fashion... smh... childmind... swatted anyone recently?
We the people need to rise up regardless of political affiliation and stop our governments from gaining and/or keeping this tyrannical type of power. Government should be as liable in our court systems as anyone else.
*Cough The King Can Do No Wrong Cough*
If this is justice, I think we need a new definition in Webster's Dictionary.
Justice is a guillotine applied in a fast and correct way.
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence; it is force.
Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.”
~ George Washington
“What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.”
- Tom Clancy
They are NOT fearful, but I get the point.
@@rrrhhh8167 They are absolutely fearful, that's why they try to shut down even peaceful demonstrations. They know if the people were to gather into a large movement akin to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement that they couldn't stand up to it.
That is why more than 8 million Americans are on a list of "threats" to be taken first if anything goes down.
Not really George Washington.
@@obsidianmoon13 bullpuckey! :)
1) Government is not adept at collecting taxes. Proof: the ones with real money don't pay.
2)Name a freedom taken. No one ever has in 40 years of my asking.
3)Killing people. This is ridiculous. How? Capital punishment- it's slow, expensive, and 10% are innocent of the charge. War? It took a 1000 bullets to kill a man in WW1, it has gone down hill from there.
Tom Clancy (I read his early books, the good ones) has become fantastically wealthy with this gov't. I doubt he said it.
So in short the courts no longer care about justice with compassion in Arizona. So what do they believe in and why should they bind us at all?
On top of this usually they weren't written because it's COMMON SENSE! I know, I know it's non existent these days. So if I'm ever called to testify in that court and told to lie, I will after I tell the court my job is on the line, that the COURT has committed a laundry list of offenses from extortion to murder, jamming them up for years while they are investigated. Yes I would end up in jail but national attention on a court that wants it's examiner's to commit purgury on the stand to gain convictions is worth the time.
Sometimes Lady Justice weeps. Here we see what my dad, a lawyer, told me playing out.
"You don't go to court for justice; you go for a decision. It is hoped that with a solid prosecution and zealous defense justice may emerge. Hoped."
Exactly. Kudos to dad. Changing someone's' mind is rare. It takes an impartial 3rd party to whom each side gives deference.
Right and Wrong, as understood by any normal person, are foreign concepts in the courts.... and this is a fundamental flaw in the legal system.
Steve, as a fellow attorney from a different jurisdiction, I absolutely love your videos. I often find it hard to disagree with your well reasoned and informed analysis. You are a credit to our often unfairly (and sometimes fairly) maligned profession.
(Edit: typo)
Strange (or maybe not so strange) username for a lawyer. Hehe.
@@johnnyliminal8032 Strange indeed. Just my much younger self waxing poetic irony. I was interested in both law and chemistry, but ultimately decided to study law as a graduate. Ironically, chemistry laws are inviolable, whereas criminal and civil laws are imperfect and do not always result in what we call "justice." Growing up in Soviet Union, I was inspired by a relative to pursue law. He was a criminal defence attorney working against a corrupt system of laws that were often merely for show. Nevetheless, he believed in the rule of law and the need to fight for the rights of the accused, even if the system was rigged against him. Even in U.S. we have a concept called "jury nullification" where we essentially ask the jury to disregard the law to reach a more just outcome. Hence my moniker.
@@LawlessChemistry Interesting. Thank you.
@@LawlessChemistry Higher the immunity, more disregard of the law.
Even if some laws aren't perfect, the weakness of all laws are that are applied by humans...
I found your channel late last week. I can't seem to get enough of this now. I knew the justice system was bs but still my mind is blown on how corrupt it is.
Anyone who has been convicted of a DUI, from that court needs to have their cases reexamined.
Never going to happen. Not with the amount of money generated by DUIs real or fake ones.
So, going forward, any defense attorney can ask the question "are your statements made today free from influence of your superiors? " followed up by "do you have qualified immunity if you lie at these proceedings?"
I can see it becoming a standard question "at this testimony today, do you have qualified immunity?"
It’s bad enough that police are allowed to lie to suspects, but this is infuriating and absurd.
Worse is that the police can lie to you, but you cant lie to police.
the whole system is absurd
How can someone who clearly committted a felony be immune when the laws of the state bar those people from doing what they did? Sounds like his lawyers may have presented the case incorrectly.
I disagree. I think the judge got paid under the table.
@Danny Ripper :
I disagree.
All it would take is for the judge to "protect his own ass"!
"QI", after all, also "applies" to him/her, and ALL of his/her colleagues!
Good luck getting a judge to allow that evidence. I think it would even be a justified decision, to claim that it's irrelevant to a particular case in a court of law, even though it's incredibly relevant from a broader social perspective. Even if you can reasonably estimate that X% of cases were affected, that doesn't tell you which ones to re-try. Unless you can find substantial evidence that a particular case was affected, you can't change the outcome.
So much corruption within our justice system.
How the District Court in Arizona concluded Qualified Immunity in this case is beyond me.
And this just makes me dislike Common Law Societies even more.
Corruption of the court
The whole usa Congress is committing pergery
Medical internationally is committing pergery.
@@scottwood5098 The Federal Congress is committing perjury how?
Might as well live in California. No justice against crooked cops, judges or anyone holding a badge.
@@kellychristus2496 Just ignore @scott wood. It's apparent he's just another anti-vaxx, ant-mask conspiracy nutjob.
And there are "powerful" judges that accept that this is OK!
Once again how can we trust the judicial system in Arizona?
Or anywhere else?
Simple: You can't.
@@johnnyclark7830 The allegation is that a forensic expert has been ordered to lie under oath in that state. I don't know of anywhere else where that is the case.
Arizona is the place where it's still _good_ enough that you hear about it.
This is standard operating procedure everywhere else.
This happens hundreds of times a day.
It's SOP in Federal courts.
You notice the casual way in which the concept in presented by the judge?
"What? You didn't know this is how we do things?"
@@robertwaguespack9414 you are correct, you don't know.
This reminds me of something that (with other negative things like ticketed for things we didn't do) turned us both firmly distrustful of law enforcement several years ago.
We'd been having problems in this area, at least a couple of times a year... and the police came but did nothing (no report, no paperwork, NOTHING - for vandalism and more). It got worse, and finally we had racist hate graffiti spray painted on the road in front of our mailbox and driveway. We called it in (trying to obey the law and get help for a longstanding problem), and first a public service 'officer' showed up, and promised us that it would be written up. Then a police person showed up, and she said that "Because we have no record of this happening here, we can't do anything about it now" and "It was just a kid's prank". Then the Public Service guy said that he'd told us that it would be written up.
She went ballistic at him, and yelled at him. Then it got written up (very reluctantly) and documented with photographs, FINALLY. (After that, the race-based problems significantly decreased.)
I found out that is a common practice - not documenting problems, and then refusing to document them "because we have no record of X happening here before!". It's one of the ways they make life harder for poor people and minorities, and "stinks" a lot like the injustice done to the person discussed in this video. Eliminating qualified immunity AND making the police do their job in spite of the poverty or race (or religion or...) of the person who was victim of a crime should also be included.
I think we have a name for that.... it's something like "Kangaroo Court".
How could any panel of Judges honestly respect their decision made by agreeing to that illogic?
The question is just who do they think that they are?
It's time to appeal....
To who the supreme court who created this BS in the first place?
@@MrIgorkap I'm pretty sure that the reason SCOTUS quoted when they created QI was to protect govt employees from nuisance lawsuits. It's one of those Kinda-but-not-really problems that people with authority come up with when they need a plausible sounding reason to increase their personal authority/protection/powers. Of course in keeping with US Judicial tradition SCOTUS made sure to keep the ruling as vague and broad as possible to effect the maximum number of issues......wait, something is wrong about that last statement
@Raven Grey:
Your statement is not "off target".
@@ravengrey6874 but they had a very long time to update this decision and yet they haven't. There have been cases with this question of QI already.
@@MrIgorkap SCOTUS are very reluctant to change their own rulings. It took SCOTUS 58 years before they finally abandoned Plessy v Ferguson and ruled that racial discrimination was unconstitutional.
I wonder what would have happened if he had informed the judge about what his bosses were demanding
Maybe a class action lawsuit against the lab for all tests done there could work.
They should just be prosecuted for the felony of attempting to influence the testimony of a witness
Over the decades I have seen a lot of First Amendment cases get adjudicated. The criteria for being a First Amendment case has always been the government suppressing speech, not if the specifics had happened before.
That's different than one some weasel hiding behind QI. Most 1A cases do not involve QI...
In England and Wales, a police officer does not enjoy immunity if his actions are not in the execution of his duties. Stealing money would not be in the execution of his duties and at that point he would lose his immunity and would be open to a raft of charges. The scientists supervisors would be had up for misconduct in public office and again if qualified immunity existed in a similar form over here, at the point of misconduct, they would lose their immunity... but I am fairly certain only emergency services have qualified immunity here.
Wonder if this could go to U.S. Supreme Court?
The supreme court created the entire mess of qualified immunity so this is their fault.
Every Arizona lawyer should now be referencing this case to cast doubt on ALL police lab results. If the testimonies can - and ARE fabricated, the lab results are useless.
I wonder just how many innocent people are in jail because of state mandated false testimonies and lab results?
The "prior court case" jargon was recently discussed by SCOTUS, in that the assumption asserted by QI backers was never the intent of the original QI rulings
Could you reference this?
@chris cheehan :
I agree with "Melanie 16040".
Documentation please.
Every day we learn how our wonderful government has our best interests in mind. As long as it doesn't cost them.
How could the Court *POSSIBLY* rule that there's no case law?! Has no one in that circuit *EVER* been convicted of suborning perjury? Point to any one of those cases...
But none of those cases are specifically about the government itself suborning perjury and, if it believes anything, the government believes that "it's different when we do it".
That's not how QI works. There has to be a case with almost identical facts in the caselaw. It can't just be Joe Schmoe being told to commit perjury by his McDonald's manager, it has to be a cop being ordered to commit perjury by his superior officer, and it has to have happened before like 1982 iirc.
@@tissuepaper9962 Officer Bloggs, you lied in Jonestown court . . .
Objection: There's case law against lying in Smithville Court, but NOT Jonestown Court.
@@MrGeldhart you jest, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some shit like that in Texas or Arizona.
"No cop ever perjured himself in Jonestown court before QI existed, so I was never on notice that I wasn't allowed to lie under oath in Jonestown."
It has to be so identical that even if there was a case law that says a cop can't kill a man, if there isn't a case saying he can't kill a child he can get away with doing so. And if there's a case about that just change his weapon. I mean, case in point, there were police officers that shot a reporter on live television just last year and destroyed one of her eyes and the officer got away with it because it never happened before. We live in a country where police are expected to be so stupid that they are incapable of comprehending that removing someone's eye is wrong! And in areas where cops were held accountable for shooting, what did the police do? They drove through a crowd of people running them over and did not face any consequences because it never happened before. It's so stupidly specific that if something was ruled on all that have to do is change their uniform or play some loud music or do anything novel. Just ridiculous how this is set up.
When is this craziness going to end? Don't they know that this undermines our society? No wonder people often say "It's only illegal if you get caught!"
Yes.
They know this undermines our society.
That's why they do it.
Wake up.
This is a problem nationwide but Arizona and Texas seem to be by far the worst when it comes to police transparency/ accountability.
OH NO!! there are plenty of places worse than Arizona and Texas!!! I guess you have never been in the deep south or any of the states like Ohio or Virginia??? yeah....they make Texas and New Mexico look like true amateurs
They are all bad just not as exposed as Arizona and Texas. Very few fallow the law or moral compass because they don’t have to they’re protected by one another only when public outcry gets so loud that some elected official or higher up gets heat does any kind of punishment happen like two days off with pay sometimes even without pay.
As someone who lives in a Northeast Blue state, you are incorrect. My state is every bit as bad, likely worse. The Red States are just open enough that this comes to the surface. In my state, this would have been tossed out of court based on standing, or some other BS.
You don't hear about it much out of Floriduh because they'll kill your family to shut you up. It's so common the cops here brag about it.
What a shock the deep Jim Crow south would be the worst of the worst.
I would publish the names of all in a tell all article in the news. I am all about no more qualified immunity for these people.
Isn’t telling the truth under oath part of his job description, and, if so, aren’t his superiors aware of this since they created the position and hired him on and went over the complete job description with him?
Ha
His job is to go to court and present a number. He isn't hired to offer an opinion on the quality of the number. If he feels that the procedure to produce the number is not good enough to swear to, he should resign. But he can't go in and present a number and say that it might be wrong. That is outside of his job.
Lol, it's not just part of his job description, it's required by law. Perjury is a criminal offense.
@@taoliu3949 The argument the prosecutors are putting forward is that they were not cognizant of the requirement for truthfulness.
For the common man.... Ignorance is no exception. Unless your a cop
This really put in to focus something about QI that I never thought about. Since you need caselaw to show precedent no new crimes that have been added by a legislature since 1982 can get through QI. Things like cyberbullying/ harassment wouldn't have caselaw on them for example.
I think it's spelled precedent.
😉👍
I'm pretty sure the protections only go to gov officials.
So yes, they can't be held accountable for cyber bullying.
We the people don't qualify for immunity.
Proof and a a prime example of the fact that there is a different set of rules for us.
@@jupitercyclops6521 Time to hold them accountable too!
@@tyree9055 good catch
Never having been in court, I'm curious:
Can you just ask a witness if they're lying? What would happen if you did that? Just point-blank "Are you lying?" A total freakout by the prosecution? A warning from the Judge? What if the witness just blurted out "Yeah, I have to, or else I'll be fired!" If the jury has any integrity at all, they'll recall him doing that no matter what the judge tells them to disregard.
It looks like another federal Kafkesque situation involving a ham sandwich dilemma
a month old ham sandwich with a firecracker in it...
Defense attorneys can now ask expert witnesses for the prosecution if they've been coerced into testifying with false or partially false testimony.
How very ... american.
And I'm guessing that if he had buckled under pressure and perjured himself by changing his evidence after the fact, any and all consequences of that would be "his fault"?
I could have sworn that a recent SCOTUS decision told the lower courts that it didn't have to be a similar case, if the right was so clearly established that no one could not know they were violating it.
Lie or be fired.. I thought this was going to be a story about folks in sales.
He kind of was in sales. He was assigned to selling the "perfection of lab results".
This is why I've been unemployable since the 1990s.
You want a job, of any kind, anywhere; you better be piece of shit.
Lies are just the beginning of the evil you must do to be employed.
The throwaway phrase "according to him" may be the most significant point in this whole thing.
Over the last few years, I have gone from supporting QI, to it’s a good thing but needs modification, to it should be revoked in its entirety, to this is freaking absurd and it’s an existential, imminent threat to liberty.
It seems like with Qualified Immunity they should be able to say "Yes this is a clear violation of your rights, however it was not previously clearly established, we are now going to say that it is clearly established that this is a violation of rights." I know it is not perfect but it gets around the "Catch 22" loophole that has existed and basically amounts to the first one is free which is what I feel was meant when the Qualified Immunity Doctrine was established.
Steve, question for you. I understand that QI protects the individual government employee from liability. But does it also protect the agency? In other words, can the plaintiff still get relief for wrongful discharge or suspension from the employer?
“Qualified immunity” is a special protection for government workers that the Supreme Court created in 1982 as an act of judicial policymaking.
Hey Steve, check this qualified immunity case out, the news titles: ATF agent accuses Columbus police officers of excessive force. Written in "the Columbus Dispatch". I wonder if the rules are different if it's one of their own.
Could you provide a link, or a date for this article? When an outside law enforcement group is willing to publicly criticize a police force, it's usually going to be pretty bad.
Email him the direct link or a copy of the article directly. There is a pretty reasonable chance that he will check it out, but it is unlikely that he will go out of his way to search for it. ua-cam.com/video/yR2lgxy-htU/v-deo.html I've supplied him with articles from time to time, and he has covered a double digit percentage of those. There was one super interesting story that I sent him about civil asset forfeiture of a rental car, and whilst it wasn't a detailed enough story for a video at that time, he very quickly replied to say it was interesting. You never know.
Is this the one where the cops used a taser on the ATF agent?
@@rcpilot179 yes
@@davebeach2343 no, UA-cam deletes comments with links. But uf you put in the titel which i gave you above and the source into Google you'll find it immediately.
So... if I'm called to testify... and the question comes up. Can't I simple say that my employer (name here) has ordered me to say the following, instead of what I think I should say?.
Ben practicing his Planking, On top of Mic 2 Steve's RHS in front of Tucker
Oh he is the outlier in that he's one of the few who's both honest and corageous. Now that this cat is out of the bag, how are they going to keep a straight face while arguing their "experts" have any sort of authority in telling what happened?
Robert A. Heinlein said that in a sufficiently advanced society 'Civil Servant' is semantically equal to 'Civil Master'.
We seem to be in a sufficiently advanced society.
His early books were fun but .... come on, he went nuts.
@@stephenharper6638 Absolutely. When you know that he considered Lazerous Long to be a self insert character, Time Enough For Love gets really creepy. But that dosent make his political and social points wrong.
Steve ,,,, wait wait . That means the court can no longer take a Truthful statement from Any Officer or Gov employee
Every item like this makes me feel more like I’m Almost ce and this is Wonderland.
I had to testify in court and when asked where do I know the defendant from, I said jail and the whole court was "you can't say that".
Record everything said, keep emails, collect documented proof, and file reports on the subject!
It looks like you could have all the evidence in the world that points toward their guilt, but because it’s “never been ruled on before”, the court won’t do anything about it. It’s still great advice, especially if you work for a non governmental entity. With QI, you may as well use that evidence as toilet paper!
@@downhomesunset That's not necessarily true because in many states, not all but many, the District Attorney in each county is an elected official. In the minority of states which they aren't elected they are typically appointed by a state's attorney general, whom is also typically an elected position. If the evidence kept is clear and concise enough, it can make for some pretty powerful local news reporting and this type of thing can definitely lead to some county prosecutors thinking twice about whether or not they can reach a compromise with an employee. In some counties that are heavily partisan it may not make a big difference unless there is a challenger from within the same party as in many counties these positions can and do get re-elected unopposed. In smaller rural or mostly suburban counties where people might be more engaged in local politics any evidence that a prosecutor is pushing their witnesses to lie under oath could do wonders to turn public opinion against them. Not saying it would matter everywhere, but there are plenty of places in which a local news report on something like this could go a long way.
Perhaps they should no longer require government expert witnesses to testify under oath...
Every new case I hear about QI, you could file under the synopsis "Government employees engage in blatant felonious behavior and walk away with no consequences, civil or criminal."
Over and over and over again.
At what point do you think this qualifies as "a long train of abuses and usurpations"? I've heard that folks in this country aren't fans of that.
I really hope you can find a better title for this video to catch everyone's attention. This needs millions and millions of views.
Petty tyrants.
In the case of the stealing officers, they knew that they couldn't steal because if someone steals from a store, police know stealing is against the law and they come and arrest that person.
[8:15] "Well, qualified immunity was invented not that long ago." Incorrect. Qualified immunity has been around since the 17th century at least. It grew out of sovereign immunity; the crown extended its own immunity to cover its officials. This is why Justice Thomas harps about modern QI not being anything like what official immunity was like at the time Congress passed Sec. 1983 back in 1866. That should clue one in that a form of QI existed even long ago.
What changed in 1982 with the case of Harlow v. Fitzgerald was that the Supreme Court swapped out the common law's subjective intent standard for an objective intent standard. Why? Because the whole point of legal immunity is to stay out of court and avoid the costs of defending a lawsuit, right? But if there's a subjective intent standard, that provides a toehold for plaintiffs to raise factual disputes that have to go to trial in order to be resolved, which undermines the whole point of the immunity the common law provides. Hence the swap.
The real problem isn't invention, but tinkering, in that the Court later went too far with tacking on the clearly-established prong in Anderson v. Creighton instead of a more relaxed rule of reasonableness, and also in Pearson v. Callahan walked back its requirement that courts must first determine whether a constitutional right was violated before determining whether it was clearly established. Without the requirement to first determine if a constitutional right is violated, courts can simply keep dismissing cases as not clearly established without ever clearly establishing the right, and the violations of those rights can thus continue without end, even though the constitutional violation is obvious.
QI would be fine if it required an established or uncontradicted claim that the defendant reasonably believed his actions to be genuinely lawful. Note that a belief that the actions were insufficiently unlawful as to justify sanction should not suffice, and that "there's never a right way to do the wrong thing". If, e.g. it can be shown that cops sought to make someone believe they have no choice but to confess to a crime, such action should be recognized as a willful violation of the defendant's Fifth Amendment rights, even if all of the cops' actions could have been reasonable if driven by other motivations.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying. How do we get “the first one” concerning case law?
Ben mistook Steve's title to lie or not so just gonna lie on top of mic above Red Viper
The ONLY reason for qualified immunity is how criminal law enforcement truly is. You do not need protection from breaking the law unless you do it all of the time.
I was told to lie by my boss about what I did and didnt do. I got fired for saying no.
I had this happen to me when I worked in IT for a local Council. All I did when asked a question was say "I have been instructed by my Manager to say........."