http://www.policelink.com/news/articles/109319-officer-ordered-to-pay-15k-to-gang-member?utm_source=nlet&utm_content=pl_r1_20090625_words

HERE they’re fighting the dress code of a private club in Kansas City because they say it discriminates against minorities whose rights, as we know, supersede the rights of property owners.

I appreciate what they do in some cases, but some of their fundamental precepts are irreconcilable with libertarian principles.

They actively oppose it (see their response to Heller. Further, while citizens have a right and duty to resist patently unlawful actions by criminals (including government personnel), the ACLU seems to care nothing for that right. If government agents can commit with impunity arbitrary crimes against the citizenry, what rights of citizens remain meaningful?

I’ll admit that the ACLU does occasionally do something good, but they ignore some of the most severe threats to individual liberties. Given some of the marginal cases they pursue, their claim that they have insufficient resources to deal with far more important issues rings hollow.

I realize you can sue under sect 1983. It a high standard and expensive (Federal Court and all that), and runs up against qualified immunity, the funds of the FOP and the blue code of silence. Not so with surgical malpractice.

I think that the market place makes my case for me.

If you want to sue to cops, you probably need the ACLU or probono action from a big name law firm. Not a high chance of success. If you want to sue for medical malpractice, you will find lawyers lining up to take your case.

Isn’t it about time to come up with a drinking game for swat-induced “isolated incidences”?

Why do you hate my liver?

““In six years as the supervisor of the tactical section, I have led approximately 600 raids,” Sgt. Darin Magee, whose job was to lead the SWAT team to the correct apartment, said in a statement. “This is the first such error that I have made and I hope this will be considered when the situation is judged.””

600 raids in 6 years is 100 raids per year. That’s roughly 2 SWAT team raids per week (taking out two weeks for vacation). Does that strike anyone else as a little much? Isn’t it time to mobilize the National Guard, declare martial law and confine citizens to their homes?

Sheri and Aunt Sue, you should do the same thing, sue each and every individual who was in on the planning and/or carrying out of the raid in which your loved one was killed. I believe that there is no charge for an initial consultation (about a lawsuit) with most attorneys, and the attorney’s fee and costs come out of the award, so ask for enough more than what you want to cover the attorney’s costs and fees (and make sure you get a hungry attorney).

Guys, you CAN sue the cops. 42 USC 1983. People don’t do it. They are scared, they are ignorant of their rights, or for whatever reason, they just don’t. The option to discipline the cops and make them pay personally is out there. I can’t stand it when people just say “but we can’t do anything”

You CAN do something. If a cop steps out of line, sue them, sue them, and keep suing them.

Thank you for the Sean Hannity, dumbed-down caricature of the ACLU.

The ACLU takes the cases it feels will have maximum impact. On issues of criminal justice, the people whose rights have been violated are in fact often criminals. That doesn’t mean the state was right to violate their rights, and shouldn’t be held accountable when it does. It’s important that the ACLU choose cases that have the greatest potential to change the law, regardless of the savoriness of the people they’re representing.

I don’t agree with the ACLU on everything. For example, I think they’re on the wrong side of hate crimes laws and various education issues. I wish they’d spend less time and money on petty church/state issues and more on drug war and criminal justice issues (not because I disagree with them, but because I think it’s a waste of resources). I wish they cared about the Second Amendment.

But the idea that they never represent “law-abiding people,” or that they “systematically protect only bad people” is pretty ignorant.

Look up Tulia or Hearne, Texas. The ACLU’s John Holdridge (who heads up their death penalty project) was almost single-handedly responsible for getting Dr. Michael West suspended from several professional organizations. The ACLU was sounding the alarm about innocent people on death row well before DNA testing came along to prove them right. And many in the organization quite literally risked their lives during the civil rights movement.

“The ACLU works against good people’s civil liberties” is flat wrong. They do far more good than harm.

If your nephew was innocent, unless he opposed Christianity, the ACCLLU (Anti-Christian Criminal Lovers’ Leftists’ Union) won’t be interested. They’re only interested in protecting bad people.

Their argument is that if the government can protect bad people, it will also be able to attack good people. That is true. If the government were unjustly attacking only bad people, it would be right and proper for the ACLU to protect such people from unjust attack. On the other hand, by systematically protecting only bad people, the ACLU works against good people’s civil liberties. Given a choice between going after real criminals and facing the wrath of the ACLU, or going after law-abiding people without risking such wrath, which do you think the police are going to prefer?

#26 SJE

Of course, if we could sue cops like we can sue surgeons, there would be less mistakes.

Yep. I don’t think the average guy on the street (even the most cynical) has even the beginning of an inkling about what police, prosecutors and judges are capable of and how little is done to rein them in or make them pay for their crimes.

Blatant misconduct and utter incompetence are the norm. Being caught is the exception, and being punished is almost unheard of. Some of the cases we hear about here point to the systemic problem in some localities, but generally, the cases are scattered around the country and, as a result, officials can hide behind the “isolated incident” defense.

But, the magnitude of evil and wholesale mass destruction of innocent lives that the justice system is willing and able to bring down on unsuspecting citizens is nowhere more clearly exemplified than it is in the child abuse cases of the 80s and early 90s. In Bakersfield where the hysteria got it’s start, they destroyed entire families, hiding highly exculpatory evidence, coaching children to condemn their parents, lying, and tricking them into testifying to things that never happened. Children were conned into sending their parents to prison for terms measuring in the hundreds of years. As is always the case, the conviction happens a lot faster than the exoneration and it took decades before some people got their convictions thrown out. In the end, thirty four convictions were overturned and two more died in prison.

But you know what? Despite investigations that clearly identified wrong-doing on the part of the prosecutors, cops, and child protective services, not a single charge was ever filed against those that perpetrated that state-orchestrated crusade of wanton cruelty to ordinary citizens. Many of them still retained their jobs, including the district attorney who still holds the office to this day.

Government will always do what it can get away with and the threshold at which citizen sheep start to question or condemn abuse of power by the justice system is so high that these narcissistic hyper-ambitious freaks of nature essentially operate with almost absolute impunity (and it’s not like they have a conscience to get in their way).

Thanks for the reply and information. Sometimes when you’re so close to something, especially something life changing, you don’t see the whole picture.

It would have been nice if someone from the ACLU would have actually spoken to me or my family and clarified their position. Instead, we were turned away with a wave of the hand.

The things on this site enrage me and there’s no where to turn.

Thanks again for your time Radley.

As you know, I’ve written about Clayton’s case, and am of course sympathetic.

But in defense of the ACLU, they do have limited resources, and tend to take on cases where they believe (1) there’s a good chance of winning, and (2) a court victory will have some symbolic or precedence value. Their goal is to change policy, so they don’t take cases that don’t have that potential, even if it’s a case where someone was clearly wronged.

The other thing is that what cases they take on are usually determined by the individual state chapters. So the issues the ACLU in Ohio considers high priority might be very different than what the ACLU in Maryland considers important.

And I have seen the ACLU represent white and middle class people in plenty of drug-related cases.

That said, I do understand your frustration, and none of this is to say that the ACLU was correct in declining to take Clayton’s case. What happen to him was obviously an outrage.

I’m just saying there’s a lot of variance in the organization from state to state, and like any non-profit, they have to chose their cases carefully to get the most value out of the resources they have available.

#26 SJE

#23 Dave: point taken. Of course, if we could sue cops like we can sue surgeons, there would be less mistakes. Offering movie passes doesnt pass the laugh test, and a surgeon’s lawyer would never put forward such a ridiculous offer. A few thousand, at least.

Hmmm… Apparently I was confusing two different raids in my posts. I actually was thinking about the Indianapolis raid on the two older folks when I made comments #15 and #23.

I blame it on work which is such an annoying distraction when I’m busy trying to bang out angry condemnations of government.

Anyway, sorry if my remarks don’t seem to exactly fit the context of this thread.