Prosecutors and police should simply not have qualified immunity. ANY type of immunity is going to be expanded and abused over time. If more police and prosecutors faced real legal jeopardy for violating the rights of people the problem would solve itself. Until then there is really zero consequences for stealing from a person pulled over on the side of the road, withholding evidence, fabricating witnesses, overcharging, or just outright murdering people.
I think this is a travesty of justice. But this case also reinforces some lessons I've internalized:<p>1. Never give a law enforcement officer verbal (or certainly written!) consent to search your person or your property. Make them get a warrant. If they threaten something like "We can take you to jail or we can clear this up right here if you give us consent to search" then let them take you to jail.<p>2. Never volunteer information to law enforcement or answer their questions (beyond what's required by law, e.g. identifying yourself in some jurisdictions) unless your lawyer is present.<p>3. Never have marijuana in your car if you're driving across a border from a state where it's legal to a state where it isn't. State troopers sit at those borders and look for any excuse to pull you over because it's an easy win for them.<p>4. Be careful in eastern Oregon because while it's not densely populated, it's still very Red. They have to follow state law w.r.t. marijuana but that doesn't mean they won't try to find creative ways to screw you over. The most surprising thing to me about this case is that most of the malfeasance was on the Oregon side rather than the Idaho side.
If you want to see removal of QI from your State's largest violent and corrupt gang, contact your state congress critters. CO banned QI.<p><a href="https://www.kxlf.com/news/national/an-inside-look-at-colorados-year-old-qualified-immunity-ban" rel="nofollow">https://www.kxlf.com/news/national/an-inside-look-at-colorad...</a>
There is a classic Dave Chapelle bit where his friend gets pulled over for driving recklessly. After being confronted he says to the cop, "I'm sorry officer, I didn't know I couldn't do that." The officer, to Dave's shock, replies, "Well now you know! Get outta here!". Then Dave's friend turns to him and says, "That was good, wasn't it? Because I <i>did</i> know I couldn't do that!"<p>This is how QI works.
>A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-to-1 that Grant County District Attorney Jim Carpenter’s actions amounted to “a troubling example of the intrusion on Fourth Amendment rights” against illegal searches.<p>>But all three judges upheld a lower court’s decision to grant Carpenter qualified immunity and dismiss the woman’s lawsuit.<p>This is confusing, if there was no warrant, and they violated her 4th amendment rights… how do they get QI?
I think it’s terrible that these unscrupulous officers are hiding behind QI when they knew what they were doing was both wrong and unconstitutional…not to mention mean. Their mothers taught them better than this.<p>I also think we should find a way to reform the function of QI as a protection for civil servants.<p>But.<p>This is why moral leadership matters in government, at every level. The government’s agents will always possess enough power to hurt or embarrass or kill its citizens and the truth is that no amount of fear of prosecution will fully take that away. The particular law enforcement office in this case has a massive cultural problem if it would tolerate this kind of thing in the first place. If the officers involved knew their superiors would discipline the hell out of them for engaging in this kind of behavior, it wouldn’t happen nearly as much.<p>But the reform there isn’t just to fix the law, it’s to fix the process of selecting and incentivizing law enforcement leadership, too. Sheriffs and prosecutors should be expected to run on a zero tolerance policy for this kind of evil and be hauled in front of city council to testify every time it happens. It’s embarrassing for a community and we should all expect better of the people we trust with our public safety.<p>I understand that there are recruiting challenges with LEO’s and it can be tenuous for a mayor to get too confrontational with the sheriff. Maybe we need an independent oversight board or something. But we can re-incentivize good behavior, and then expect our leaders to exhibit it.
> Under qualified immunity, government officials can be held accountable for violating someone’s rights only if a court has previously ruled that it was “clearly established” those precise actions were unconstitutional.<p>Who made this rule?! So a court would have to rule on each and every possible abuse of the law by a government official??
Time for a civil lawsuit. I thought sharing nude pictures against the person's will against the law. I hope she gets a nice big settlement from the people involved.
> Under qualified immunity, government officials can be held accountable for violating someone’s rights only if a court has previously ruled that it was “clearly established” those precise actions were unconstitutional.<p>Every public official swears an oath to uphold the US constitution. At that moment it is clearly established that you are bound by the restrictions on exercise of power as enumerated in the constitution.
It's good that the Sheriff had already lost re-election five years ago, hopefully this played a part and the current sheriff has learned a lesson. Also, you can't do exactly this again within the 9th Circuit without being sued?<p>That's the best case I've got for the horrific invasion of privacy that this woman and her boyfriend suffered.
They'll murder you in cold blood, and get away with it. They'll move to another county and get a raise.<p>They'll steal your possessions and drain your bank account, and get away with it.<p>They'll share your nude photos and get away with it.<p>Thin blue line or whatever though.
So, I assume that means a reasonable person would not have known there was anything wrong with that.<p>On that note, theoretically, could <i>all</i> eligible residents of a town be deputized and would they all be covered by QI?
Watch for statements from police unions across the country denouncing this type of behavior. The newspaper reporter could reach out to local police unions for comment.
This another "Wat?" story I expect to see videos on TCRL[0], WeThePeopleUniversity[1], Steve Lehto[2], and maybe even LegalEagle[3].<p>0. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer/videos" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer/videos</a><p>1. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/WeThePeopleUniversity/videos" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/c/WeThePeopleUniversity/videos</a><p>2. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@stevelehto/videos" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/@stevelehto/videos</a><p>3. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/LegalEagle/videos" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/c/LegalEagle/videos</a>
The State of Oregon's web site notes:<p>> Oregon DAs are elected in every county and are required to stand for election every four years, thereby maintaining accountability to the public they serve.<p>While the moral satisfaction of this DA being smacked down by a judge might be greater, far less misconduct would occur if the voters could be bothered to throw the perp's out.<p>But somehow, the even the <i>concept</i> of the voters being capable of that...just seems to have vanished from the American mindset. And when the voters can't be bothered - well, you may have a Democracy, at least on paper. But it won't stay one.
QI as a whole needs to go away. It doesn’t matter if someone is committing a crime or violating someone else’s rights as part of a job. Whether you are a policeman or judge or congressman, it is still a crime.
A case with similar circumstances from a neighboring state where the officer was indicted by DOJ:<p><a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-nv/pr/former-reno-police-officer-indicted-civil-rights-violations" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/usao-nv/pr/former-reno-police-office...</a>
> Yet Palmer testified in his deposition that Carpenter twice offered him a copy of the thumb drive and told him, “There were things on the cell phone that, ‘once you see them, you can’t unsee them,’” according to the ruling.<p>Wouldn't that be copyright infringement?
there are a lot of problems with this
first is that it is questionable if a democracy
can exist in any form, with QI,or the form given to prosecutors
and then there is the prosecution that continued till sentencing for the former and then,
President elect, but now President, under the banner of "no one is above the law"
making any kind of reconciliation impossible
>Olson signed a form, giving Idaho police consent to search her cellphone. They extracted and copied the contents of her phone for review.<p>Bloody idiot.
QI is absolutely a farce, but it should be noted that the woman <i>"signed a form, giving Idaho police consent to search her cellphone"</i> - though the article gives no indication on how much coercion was involved.<p>Related but this should be required viewing by any citizen of the United States:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmtIizXdh88" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmtIizXdh88</a>
Not to victim-blame, here... Obviously the DA and sheriff are scumbags. But, in this day and age, the privacy battle is either lost or mostly lost. As a general rule, it's probably not a good idea to keep private stuff on your phone anymore. Or, worse, in the cloud. Keep them somewhere that they at least need a warrant and/or your consent to search (and even that really isn't good enough anymore, thanks to all the abuse going on).<p>We <i>should</i> be able to rely on the law to keep the contents of our phones private but so far we can't. Don't put nudes on your phone (or just don't have nudes laying around at all!)
Searched this guy a bit and found him also being a piece of shit in 2001: <a href="https://www.bluemountaineagle.com/news/judicial-candidate-backgrounds-carpenter-reprimanded-by-the-bar-for-dishonesty-after-2001-incident/article_fa8b8f4a-d5c9-11ea-9b38-0719fb56fadf.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.bluemountaineagle.com/news/judicial-candidate-ba...</a><p>“I clearly made a mistake in 2001,” Carpenter told the Eagle. “I took immediate measures to correct that behavior and make it right with the victim. Since then I have been diligent with the courts, other attorneys, and the public in building a relationship of trust and veracity.”<p>Yeah. He learned nothing. These kinds of people learn nothing because we only give them slap on the wrist "punishments". We tell them they were naughty...and nothing else happens to them. He continued his career without any real impact from that 2001 event, just as he will after this event.<p>Is it any surprise at all that they don't behave better, when it's clear they will never actually face a consequence?