Attending conspiracy-theory conferences torpedos your chances at higher office? Damn.

I really enjoyed the “we didn’t land on the moon” and “Ronald Reagan is a reptilian” conferences I attended.

This reads like the key-stone cappers of SWAT terrorists rather than the actions law enforcement professionals.

I wonder what tactics the Soviet NKVD or East German Stasi used?

* “Gel Inserts [sic] for shoes are now permitted”
* “Cakes, pies, bread, donuts, turkeys, etc. are all permitted.”

So it’s perfectly acceptable to bring a whole turkey in your carry-on. However, the post goes on to remind us that gravy, cranberry sauce, potato salad, and spinach dip are all still verboten (along with peanut butter, cheese spreads, and other foods), and must be left in checked baggage or surrendered to the TSA at the checkpoint.

Read the whole thing at http://blog.tsa.gov/2012/11/tsa-2012-holiday-travel-tips-news.html

A bigger issue, I think, is that there is a very strong presumption that officers of the state will act in good faith, and when they act wrongly it is because of poor judgment rather than improper motive. This view probably stemmed from the fact that in the absence of immunity, officers of the state had sufficient incentives to refrain from bad-faith actions that actions brought against officers who were acting in good faith would have outnumbered those brought against those acting in bad faith. Unfortunately, laws which declare that state officers shall be presumed to act in good faith have the perverse effect of making it less likely that the officers will actually do so.

There are sound reasons for giving officers of the state immunity against frivolous actions when they are acting in good faith (a prosecutor who was constantly having to defend against such actions brought by everyone he’d convicted would have little time to do anything else). What is difficult is providing a means by which officers of the state could be given immunity against legal action except in cases where someone can demonstrate a basis for believing that they were not acting in good faith, without the officers having to spend any time or money defending against such claims before they are established, nor suffering any legal harm or prejudice from failure to do so.

Although that is true, part of the purpose of having a concrete written Constitution in the first place was to remove the reliance upon highly-fungible “case law”. Further, a judge’s job is to uphold laws defined by others. If a situation arises which the authors of a law didn’t consider, a judge may have to guess what at the author’s intent; the judge’s guess should be considered binding case law *only as long as the intent of the authors (or their successors) remains unclear. If the authors (or successors) don’t like the judge’s interpretation, it would be entirely proper for them to write new rules which make their intent clear.

Recent example: SCOTUS overturned Congress’es mandatory minimum sentences as denying full judicial independent as conceived in the Const

But the drug war really isn’t about getting drugs off the street, it’s about enlarging the dicks of every drug warrior. Everything else is just part of the show.

The prosecutor’s absolute immunity is limited to stuff she does in her lawyer role.

Lawyer role: If she tries breaks the law by getting the neccessary permission, in discovery, to search the defendant’s shed based on less than legally sufficient grounds then the defendant’s lawyer will catch that (before the prosecutor gets the permission).

Lawyer role: If she breaks the law by flagrantly mis-citing or mis-quoting a precedential case in a legal brief to the judge then the defendant’s lawyer will catch that.

Not lawyer role: If she goes to the jailhouse and beats on the defendant with a bag of oranges until the defendant confesses on video in order to make the (off-camera) beating stop, then she is not acting in her lawyer role. No absolute immununity.

Not lawyer role: If she goes and searches the defendant’s shed without court permission then she is not acting in her lawyer role. No absolute immunity.

Not lawyer role: If she goes to search defendant’s shed without getting the necessary permission from the court first (meaning that she trespassed).

The thing is: stuff that lawyers do, in their role as lawyers, is generally watched by the opposing lawyer, in approximately real time. If something bad happens then it is up to the opposing lawyer to timely object, or be the one responsible when an illegal thing happens. I am not going to say that this legal distinction is perfect, but it does make some baseline sense. If the rule was that anything a prosecutor did was absolutely immune then that would indeed not make sense — but, and thi is my main point here on this thd — that is not the rule.

And, has anyone ever looked at the long-term toxicity of the poisons released into a HOME by the discharge of such a grenade?

According to Wikipedia, flashbang grenades typically use a charge of magnesium or aluminum shavings along with either ammonium perchlorate or potassium perchlorate as an oxidizer. None of those things are particularly toxic, especially in the amount that would be left over after the grenade goes off. It’s also a fairly common pyrotechnic mixture, so it’s properties are fairly well known.

That aside, the rest of your post is spot on.

And, deployment of flashbang grenades in any situation except for an armed, barricaded felon should be considered assault with intent to commit murder. The grenades are grievously dangerous to those on the receiving end.

And, has anyone ever looked at the long-term toxicity of the poisons released into a HOME by the discharge of such a grenade?

Also, I’m too lazy to read the actual opinion-what was the separation of powers argument? Sounds facile in this context. It seems the point of 1983 that too much executive branch discretion with no recourse is problematic. What was his argument in civil suit? Violation of due process or something? How the fuck do you contort separation of powers to dismiss that?

And:
“Police then shot a “flash-bang” grenade directly at the woman, setting her afire…”

Both those acts are attempted murder and would result in ferocious prosecution if committed by a mere mundane.

That’s a really juicy double standard.

What country is this again?

I think that one of the reasons justifying absolute immunity in theory is that absolute immunity applies to stuff that gets done to a person generally after she has a lawyer representing her.

I don’t see how having a lawyer would help the defendant if the prosecutor decides to break the law to “win”. This justification makes no sense in practice or theory.

His partner did let the cat out of the bag though – in arguing that the drug war doesn’t cause crime in Mexico or Columbia he basically said, “those Mexican/Columbian people are all criminals to begin with, and they’ll be criminals with legalization”. Strangely, nobody called him on his jarringly racist assertions. On the other hand, he did seem to be the most effective person in arguing that drugs don’t cause crime (with the implication that they should therefore be legal left unsaid).

I think that one of the reasons justifying absolute immunity in theory is that absolute immunity applies to stuff that gets done to a person generally after she has a lawyer representing her. Of course, this rationale falls apart when they hide stuff from the defendant’s lawyer. In situations other than the prosecuting atty hiding exculpatory stuff, absolute immunity does make some fair amount of sense. And, my own opinion is that when the prosecutor hides evidence then she has slipped back into an investigatory role (albeit an anti-investigatory role) and should be downgraded to qi on that basis. This is definitely not what the law says at this point in time, but it makes too much sense for the law not to go that way eventually.

“Burgers say whaaaat?!?”(tm)

I don’t trust anyone with a perpetual smile on their face. If I were to ever sit across from Asa Huntchinson I would probably not be able to resist the temptation to smack that look right into tomorrow.