That may protect them personally, but not the city and the department itself from being sued.

Nope.

https://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/criminally-yours-indicting-a...

You can be arrested, indicted, and held in jail on pretrial, and there is literally no recourse. There are many other ways jail can happen without due process. Where I live:

* Civil contempt. Absolutely immunity. No due process. Record is about 16 years. Having a bad day? Judge can toss you in jail.

* "Dangerous." Half a year. No due process. He-said she-said.

* "Insane." Psychiatric hold. Three days. Due process on paper, not in practice. Police in my town can and do use this if they don't like you.

Absolutely no recourse. You come out with a gap in income, employment, and, if you missed rent/mortgage, no home. Landlords will simply throw your stuff away too.

You're also basically damned if things do move forward, since from jail, you have no access to evidence, to internet (for legal research), and no reasonable way to recruit a lawyer (and, for most people, pay for one).

Can happen to anyone. Less common if you're rich and can afford a good lawyer, but far from uncommon.

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Jtsummers 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know what you're responding to, but I don't think it's my comment.

Qualified immunity protects individuals, not departments, from liability.

The particular thread (in this thread) that I was responding to:

>> I hope she wrings at least several million dollars out of the government.

> With all the lovely qualified immunity doctrine? That's wishful thinking.

I was responding to the claim that qualified immunity protected the government, it does not.

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kelnos 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The GP seems to be suggesting that there's no recourse at all, usually. You might bring suit against a police department or LE agency, but you'll fail to find any relief there. True that qualified immunity only protects individuals, but there's a raft of other things that makes it hard to get a judgement against a police department, too.

I think there's probably one major exception: civil rights violation investigations. But even then, the people doing the investigating seem to be biased toward the LEOs.

The GP's linked article doesn't seem to even talk about this, so not sure why that's there.

	▲	dolebirchwood 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> You might bring suit against a police department or LE agency, but you'll fail to find any relief there. I don't know if I'd go so far to say she won't find any relief, but it probably still could be a pretty tough Monell claim against the department (although it's hard to tell from the sparse details in the article): "[A] local government may not be sued under [42 U.S.C.] § 1983 for an injury inflicted solely by its employees or agents. Instead, it is when execution of a government's policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the government, as an entity, is responsible under § 1983." [1] I could see a problem if there was a policy/custom of relying on AI facial recognition alone without any other corroborating evidence (would be a really stupid practice, but I'm sure stupider things have become part of a police department's systemic practices). Or if there was a failure to sufficiently train detectives about the erroneous tendencies of this technology. Maybe the needlessly prolonged detention without bail could be an issue if there was a lack of adequate protocols to expedite in a reasonable amount of time. Either way, still seems hard to say this a slam dunk case for her, unfortunately. But also seems too risky for the city of Fargo to not settle, at least nominally. [1] Monell v. Department of Soc. Svcs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/436/658/

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mothballed 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>* "Insane." Psychiatric hold. Three days. Due process on paper, not in practice. Police in my town can and do use this if they don't like you.

A friend of mine was committed longer than 3 days without council or the ability to represent themselves in the hearing. Apparently the whole process of being committed is ex parte in practice in some states.

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abduhl 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is a bit hyperbolic and the exaggerations really undermine what I think is your broader point (that there is rarely recourse when you're held for short to moderate amounts of time). It is hard for me to believe that someone was held for 16 years on civil contempt without due process or that someone was held for half a year without due process after being deemed dangerous. The reason that is hard for me to believe is that the due process is implicit in the action you describe. Civil contempt is from a judge which implies that you're already in court - that's due process. Someone being labeled "dangerous" implies that a finding was made by a neutral party - that's due process.

Just because you disagree with the outcome doesn't mean that due process wasn't given.

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mothballed 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah it's "due process." In civil contempt the judge is a witness and prosecutor in the very "process" they're judging. That's the most perverted form of due process imaginable.

A judge should have to recuse themselves if they are acting as witness to the supposed infraction.

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abduhl 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Civil contempt isn't some roving criminal charge that jumps out of the jury box randomly. It's meant to make somebody comply with a court order. Anybody in civil contempt holds the keys to the jailhouse door in their own hands, all they have to do is comply.

This statement should make you uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable because it is a pure expression of the power of the state. But it's still due process.

	▲	FpUser 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In Criminal Contempt max duration of imprisonment is limited. In civil it is not until somebody decides that one never complies. You may call it due process. I call it for what it is - A torture and fucking crime against humanity. Judge that holds person for years for being stubborn deserves nothing more than walk the plank