Technically, they can only do it for state court, since federal law applies to federal courts, but it’s a huge step in the right direction.
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Yay!
That looks like a good step. I foresee issues though. They need some sort of penalty for bringing nuisance suits using this law. Specifically penalties against lawyers who bring a lot of them. Otherwise you’ll get some jackal like the one in NY who found a paraplegic and started suing every business he could find that had any accessibility issues at all. Whether or not the guy had even been there. Held up a bunch of them for 5K-15K in greenmail.
Given the abuses that QI has allowed, I think it’s ok to potentially overcorrect and then fix any issues as they come up rather than be too tentative and allow things to go unpunished. I think the other reform that is desperately needed is to have police brutality settlements come out of the police’s pension fund with an automatic proportional reduction of benefits.
There are so many legal, contractual, and perverse incentive issues with this concept its stunning. You’re smarter than this MH.
I personally think public pensions should be illegal anyway. Current taxpayers shouldn’t be able to pass the cost of current public services on to future taxpayers.
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I’d outlaw the public unions, but same result for same logic
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Public unions are weird — I prefer if they were more restricted, but freedom to associate is real and I think it’s ok they exist. But they clearly shouldn’t be able to donate to public officials that they are negotiating against come contract them.
Exactly, you put off paying us more in salary, we vote for you and you increase our pension benefit. And look at that we have a deal and omg the pensions are underfunded how did that happen.
If they had stricter pension funding requirements I’d be ok with public pensions.
But I gotta think that reducing pension benefits for all police officers, not just the ones responsible for the brutality has gotta be afoul of a ton of rules, laws, etc.
I’d be fine with making pensions more revokable for officers who are found guilty of crimes they commit on the job.
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- I’m sure it’s against current rules, but rules can be changed.
- Start risking other cops retirements, and watch how fast the culture of cops covering for cops goes away.
Yep, regarding DB plans.
I’m fine with 401k for public employees. That helps them plan for retirement while keeping the cost in the current budget.
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This.
What MH proposes is likely illegal, but it would fix the problem of police brutality pretty quickly, because suddenly every officer would care a LOT about what the other guy is doing.
Yeah. Except what happens when somebody screws up and they know its a multimillion $ hit to the pension fund.
Dead perps tell no tales.
That becomes just as much of an incentive. Plus why should a good cop who is already retired be punished for a current cops actions? Why should anyone put their life on the line when their retirement plan can go up in smoke over someone else’s actions that easily?
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Yeah, I’m not sure why the prospect of Innocent Cop losing his pension if Guilty Cop screws up removes his incentive to cover for Guilty Cop.
I would think he’d have an even greater incentive to cover for Guilty Cop, wouldn’t he?
But he might stop the other guy from becoming guilty in the first place. Far better to prevent police brutality than to prosecute it after the fact.
Better to prevent police brutality, sure. But I think this creates a stronger incentive than already exists for uninvolved cops to argue (and convince themselves) that every violent act was justified.
And to be clear, you were responding to MH’s claim that cops would stop covering for each other.
I think it would make that issue worse, not better.