Latest news with #4thAmendment
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
9th Circuit deals blow to qualified immunity, revives lawsuit against LAPD officer
A federal appeals court has reversed a ruling that shielded a Los Angeles police officer from liability in a fatal shooting, a decision that experts say could have broad implications for future cases in which law enforcement officials attempt to claim protection from civil lawsuits under the doctrine known as qualified immunity. The ruling Monday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was the latest twist in a lawsuit against LAPD officer Toni McBride over an on-duty shooting that occurred in April 2020. McBride, who was granted medical retirement from the police department late last year, killed Daniel Hernandez after he was in a car accident in South L.A. The shooting occurred as Hernandez, 38, walked toward McBride and her police partner while holding a box cutter, ignoring commands to drop the blade. Video footage showed McBride fire three two-bullet volleys over six seconds. The final two shots were fired while Hernandez was rolling on the ground, which attorneys for the Hernandez family argued in a lawsuit was a violation of his 4th Amendment rights. Read more: Reversal clears LAPD officer faulted for firing two extra bullets in fatal 2020 shooting The shooting was ultimately found to be "in policy" under the police department's standards. Last March, a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit ruled that even though a jury could have reasonably found McBride used excessive force, she could not be sued in federal court due to qualified immunity, a controversial legal principle that protects officers from liability over some on-duty actions. The Hernandez family challenged the decision, leading to the reversal Monday on a 6-5 vote by the larger en banc panel of the appellate court. The judges cited a 2017 case in Orange County as precedent, writing that 'continuing to shoot a suspect who appears to be incapacitated and no longer poses an immediate threat violates the Fourth Amendment.' The case will now go to trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Narine Mkrtchyan, a lawyer for Hernandez's 18-year-old daughter, Melanie Hernandez, said the decision meant "justice has been served." "Not just for this family but also for the future of shooting cases,' Mkrtchyan said. 'Officers cannot keep shooting when someone is down on the ground, period.' McBride's father, Jamie McBride, is one of nine directors of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers. He said Monday afternoon that his daughter did not have a statement on the latest development. 'In the end, when it goes to the Supreme Court or state court, I think that common sense will prevail and I think they'll agree that she acted in self-defense and she was totally justified in the force that she used," the elder McBride said. "She made the community safer by taking care of the threat that was coming at her. A spokesperson for the LAPD did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday afternoon. While the shooting case has slowly made its way through the courts, a separate case centered on McBride's social media activity has also generated controversy. With more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, McBride built an audience by sharing pro-gun videos and content and highlighting her position and experience as an LAPD officer. McBride alleged in a civil lawsuit that her free speech rights were violated and she was subjected to gender discrimination when she was retaliated against for her social media postings. Read more: LAPD officer who moonlights as gun influencer loses lawsuit over social media accounts McBride's online success made her into a 'gun influencer' who earned money for sponsored social media posts that showed her shooting firearms at training ranges and competitions, Aneta Freeman, an assistant L.A. city attorney, alleged last year during the civil trial over her online activity. McBride received free items, Freeman said, including a ballistic vest, ammo and hair extensions. She sought $100,000 damages, claiming that she suffered 'emotional distress' as a result of the workplace dispute over her social media. McBride dropped the gender discrimination claims, and in April 2024, she lost her free speech lawsuit when a jury ruled that she had not been treated unfairly. McBride's attorney, Greg Smith, said Tuesday that while she lost on the free speech claim, she preserved her right to refile a retaliation action alleging that she was discriminated against because of her gender. Whether she will refile remains to be seen. 'That's completely up in the air right now; there's no lawsuit right now,' Smith said. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Five years after George Floyd's death, calls to reform qualified immunity mostly fall silent
WASHINGTON — The death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in May 2020 gave momentum to a cross-ideological effort to reform the legal defense known as "qualified immunity," which can protect cops even when they have violated the Constitution. Bills were introduced in Congress calling to abolish the defense. Multiple cases piled up at the Supreme Court urging the justices to intervene. Much ink was spilled. And then, nothing happened. With the fifth anniversary of Floyd's death approaching this weekend, Congress still has not passed any legislation seeking to even reform, let alone abolish, qualified immunity. The Supreme Court has rejected dozens of cases asking it to do the same. What minor changes have occurred, via court rulings or state legislative actions, have had little practical impact on a nationwide basis. For Karen Blum, a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and a long-term critic of qualified immunity, the situation is nothing short of depressing. "After George Floyd, it was the first time I was actually optimistic and very positive that something would be done, no matter how little," she said. "But nothing, I mean nothing, has happened." The doctrine, first adopted by the Supreme Court in 1967, gives government officials the benefit of the doubt when they violate the Constitution. When a plaintiff files a federal civil rights claim, the defendant — including police officers facing excessive force claims under the Constitution's 4th Amendment — can get off the hook by arguing that it was not "clearly established" at the time of the alleged violation that its actions were unconstitutional. If qualified immunity is granted, the lawsuit is dismissed and the plaintiffs never get a chance to either negotiate a settlement or go to trial. In 2020, a Reuters investigation found that judges were increasingly granting qualified immunity at the direction of the Supreme Court. The law enforcement community strongly defends the concept, saying it is needed to give officers acting in good faith the confidence to make split-second decisions, often in extremely dangerous circumstances. The Fraternal Order of Police, a national group representing law enforcement officers, did not respond to requests for comment. Floyd's killing by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, triggered an immediate national debate over police violence, especially against Black men. But there had already been a quiet cross-ideological effort before then to reform qualified immunity, backed by such strange bedfellows as the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute. They had filed briefs at the Supreme Court hoping to persuade the justices to take a new look at the doctrine and consider amending it — or maybe ditching it altogether. For a few weeks in the summer of 2020, as racial justice protests raged, both the Supreme Court and Congress considered whether to take action. The court quickly sidestepped the issue, declining in June 2020 to hear a series of cases asking for reconsideration of qualified immunity. Ten days later, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, including a number of police reform measures on qualified immunity and other issues. But it ran into headwinds in the Republican-controlled Senate and lost momentum. "Republican intransigence was the real explanation there, and I don't see any reason to think that has changed for the better," said Clark Neily, a lawyer at the Cato Institute. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., who was a co-sponsor of the George Floyd legislation, said that there were plans to reintroduce it during the current Congress but that he has "no confidence" it would get any traction with Republicans controlling both chambers. "We will get to a time in this country where we will pass that legislation," he said. In the meantime, courts have continued to grant cops and other government officials qualified immunity in cases involving shocking claims: Police officers assisting a paramedic in Fresno, California, held a man in a prone position until he died, even after he told them he could not breathe. Police officers in Pineville, North Carolina, fired multiple shots at a man who was complying with their orders to drop a firearm. Prison officers at a facility in Columbia, South Carolina, failed to intervene when two men murdered four of their fellow inmates. However, there have been small signs of incremental change. Some judges have criticized the way qualified immunity has been applied, joining a handful who had done the same before 2020. That approach has seeped into some recent rulings, those following the case law say. Chris Balch, a lawyer in Georgia who represents police departments in such cases, said the thumb on the scale in favor of officers "has lessened in the last five years," meaning defense lawyers need to be ready to go to trial. He cited a January 2024 ruling by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that denied qualified immunity to a jail intake officer after a Black inmate who had disclosed he stabbed a white man for racially motivated reasons then murdered his white cellmate. There was also a glimmer of hope for reform advocates at the Supreme Court, which in November 2020 ruled in favor of a Texas prison inmate who had been held in filthy conditions. The justices overturned a lower court that said qualified immunity protected prison officials. After reform efforts failed in Congress, there was briefly a concerted effort to enact state-level legislation that would create an alternative way to sue officers under those states' laws, making qualified immunity unavailable as a defense. Although a handful of states enacted such laws, the campaign met with considerable resistance elsewhere. More recently, President Donald Trump's re-election has in some ways sent the pendulum swinging in the other direction in the national political arena. When Trump signed a pro-law enforcement executive order last month, he stressed the importance of ensuring officers are not held legally accountable for their actions. The order says the Trump administration will take action to 'provide legal resources and indemnification to law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities' and calls on officials to 'strengthen and expand legal protections' for officers. Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said Trump's policing plan shows he is "fulfilling his campaign promise to Make America Safe Again." The administration is committed to reversing "failed policies" backed by Democrats, he added. With that political environment in mind, Blum, the qualified immunity critic, remains pessimistic there will be any major change any time soon. "Qualified immunity is here to stay," she said. This article was originally published on
NBC News
20-05-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Five years after George Floyd's death, calls to reform qualified immunity mostly fall silent
WASHINGTON — The death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in May 2020 gave momentum to a cross-ideological effort to reform the legal defense known as "qualified immunity," which can protect cops even when they have violated the Constitution. Bills were introduced in Congress calling to abolish the defense. Multiple cases piled up at the Supreme Court urging the justices to intervene. Much ink was spilled. And then, nothing happened. With the fifth anniversary of Floyd's death approaching this weekend, Congress still has not passed any legislation seeking to even reform, let alone abolish, qualified immunity. The Supreme Court has rejected dozens of cases asking it to do the same. What minor changes have occurred, via court rulings or state legislative actions, have had little practical impact on a nationwide basis. For Karen Blum, a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and a long-term critic of qualified immunity, the situation is nothing short of depressing. "After George Floyd, it was the first time I was actually optimistic and very positive that something would be done, no matter how little," she said. "But nothing, I mean nothing, has happened." The doctrine, first adopted by the Supreme Court in 1967, gives government officials the benefit of the doubt when they violate the Constitution. When a plaintiff files a federal civil rights claim, the defendant — including police officers facing excessive force claims under the Constitution's 4th Amendment — can get off the hook by arguing that it was not "clearly established" at the time of the alleged violation that its actions were unconstitutional. If qualified immunity is granted, the lawsuit is dismissed and the plaintiffs never get a chance to either negotiate a settlement or go to trial. In 2020, a Reuters investigation found that judges were increasingly granting qualified immunity at the direction of the Supreme Court. The law enforcement community strongly defends the concept, saying it is needed to give officers acting in good faith the confidence to make split-second decisions, often in extremely dangerous circumstances. The Fraternal Order of Police, a national group representing law enforcement officers, did not respond to requests for comment. Egregious cases Floyd's killing by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, triggered an immediate national debate over police violence, especially against Black men. But there had already been a quiet cross-ideological effort before then to reform qualified immunity, backed by such strange bedfellows as the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute. They had filed briefs at the Supreme Court hoping to persuade the justices to take a new look at the doctrine and consider amending it — or maybe ditching it altogether. For a few weeks in the summer of 2020, as racial justice protests raged, both the Supreme Court and Congress considered whether to take action. The court quickly sidestepped the issue, declining in June 2020 to hear a series of cases asking for reconsideration of qualified immunity. Ten days later, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, including a number of police reform measures on qualified immunity and other issues. But it ran into headwinds in the Republican-controlled Senate and lost momentum. "Republican intransigence was the real explanation there, and I don't see any reason to think that has changed for the better," said Clark Neily, a lawyer at the Cato Institute. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., who was a co-sponsor of the George Floyd legislation, said that there were plans to reintroduce it during the current Congress but that he has "no confidence" it would get any traction with Republicans controlling both chambers. "We will get to a time in this country where we will pass that legislation," he said. In the meantime, courts have continued to grant cops and other government officials qualified immunity in cases involving shocking claims: Police officers assisting a paramedic in Fresno, California, held a man in a prone position until he died, even after he told them he could not breathe. Police officers in Pineville, North Carolina, fired multiple shots at a man who was complying with their orders to drop a firearm. Prison officers at a facility in Columbia, South Carolina, failed to intervene when two men murdered four of their fellow inmates. However, there have been small signs of incremental change. Some judges have criticized the way qualified immunity has been applied, joining a handful who had done the same before 2020. That approach has seeped into some recent rulings, those following the case law say. Chris Balch, a lawyer in Georgia who represents police departments in such cases, said the thumb on the scale in favor of officers "has lessened in the last five years," meaning defense lawyers need to be ready to go to trial. He cited a January 2024 ruling by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that denied qualified immunity to a jail intake officer after a Black inmate who had disclosed he stabbed a white man for racially motivated reasons then murdered his white cellmate. There was also a glimmer of hope for reform advocates at the Supreme Court, which in November 2020 ruled in favor of a Texas prison inmate who had been held in filthy conditions. The justices overturned a lower court that said qualified immunity protected prison officials. After reform efforts failed in Congress, there was briefly a concerted effort to enact state-level legislation that would create an alternative way to sue officers under those states' laws, making qualified immunity unavailable as a defense. Although a handful of states enacted such laws, the campaign met with considerable resistance elsewhere. More recently, President Donald Trump's re-election has in some ways sent the pendulum swinging in the other direction in the national political arena. When Trump signed a pro-law enforcement executive order last month, he stressed the importance of ensuring officers are not held legally accountable for their actions. The order says the Trump administration will take action to 'provide legal resources and indemnification to law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities' and calls on officials to 'strengthen and expand legal protections' for officers. Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said Trump's policing plan shows he is "fulfilling his campaign promise to Make America Safe Again." The administration is committed to reversing "failed policies" backed by Democrats, he added. With that political environment in mind, Blum, the qualified immunity critic, remains pessimistic there will be any major change any time soon. "Qualified immunity is here to stay," she said.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Yahoo
Game Wardens Can Surveil Private Land with Trail Cams. But That's Now Being Challenged in Pennsylvania's Supreme Court
A lawsuit filed by two Pennsylvania hunting clubs against the state's Game Commission has now reached the State Supreme Court. The court heard oral arguments Wednesday about the case, which revolves around 4th Amendment rights and whether game wardens should be allowed to search posted private lands without a warrant or probable cause. In most U.S. states, game wardens have this power under the Open Field Doctrine. This long-standing legal principle permits state and federal law enforcement to monitor and surveil private lands without a warrant or probable cause, and says that these activities do not constitute unlawful searches and seizures under the 4th Amendment. It applies to all private lands except occupied homes and buildings and the 'curtilage,' meaning the property immediately surrounding those buildings. Read Next: Can Game Wardens Hang Trail Cameras on Your Private Property? The lawsuit that was heard in the State Supreme Court Wednesday challenges that idea. It seeks to overturn three Pennsylvania statutes, as well as a precedent-setting 2007 court case that reinforced the state's adherence to the Open Field Doctrine. Joshua Windham, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, is representing the plaintiffs, the Punxsutawney and Pitch Pine Hunting Clubs. Together, the two clubs own thousands of acres in Clearfield County, where members hunt deer, bear, and other game. Although that acreage is posted with 'No Trespassing' signs, the two hunting clubs claim that between 2013 and 2021, officers with the Pennsylvania Game Commission routinely ignored those signs and bypassed locked gates in order to enter the properties and surveil the hunters without warrants. Windham tells Outdoor Life that, to his clients' knowledge, PGC officers entered private lands owned by the two clubs on at least 22 occasions over that period of time. He says that in addition to sneaking around and checking club members for compliance with state wildlife laws, those officers hung trail cameras so they could spy on the clubs remotely. Although some citations were issued to hunters, Windham says none of them amounted to more than a minor violation. As an example, Windham says there was one occasion where a club member had parked his truck on the property and walked down a trail, not realizing that a PGC officer was watching him. The game warden followed the man roughly 100 yards down the trail, and then confronted him to ask for his hunting license. 'The hunter said, 'It's in my truck.' And the officer said, 'Well, you have to have it on your person, so here's a ticket,'' Windham says. 'These were mostly technical violations. It's not like we're talking about prolific poachers, or people who were intentionally violating game laws.' Because of incidents like this one, Windham explains, club members say they've felt harassed and intruded upon by PGC. They say it's hard for them to enjoy hunting on their own land when they feel like they're being constantly monitored. Windham also argues that it's dangerous, since a key tenet of hunter safety is knowing your target and surroundings, and that is hard to do when officers are wandering around in the woods. 'We feel like we're invaded,' Punxsutawney Hunting Club board president Frank Stockdale said in a news conference before the State Supreme Court hearing Wednesday. 'We see game wardens on bicycles [and] in their trucks on our private property, which is completely gated and has no trespassing signs around the property. We feel like we've been harassed.' Windham makes it clear that their lawsuit is not anti-law-enforcement. He says the plaintiffs realize that PGC officers have a difficult job protecting the state's fish and wildlife resources, and they recognize that policing private lands is necessary. Roughly 84 percent of Pennsylvania's land is privately owned, so it would be nearly impossible for game wardens to investigate potential poaching or wildlife crimes without accessing those private lands. 'We're just saying that game wardens should operate under the same standards that police [and other law enforcement] do in every other context where a person could commit a crime on private property — and that's by establishing probable cause and getting a warrant from a judge.' This would be a major shift for PGC, and Windham says the only way the plaintiffs can win their case is if the Supreme Court overturns a 2007 case, Commonwealth v. Russo, in which a hunter was prosecuted for killing a black bear over bait on his own land. Russo, the hunter, filed to suppress the evidence collected during the warrantless search that led to the citation, and he claimed in the case that he should have 'a reasonable expectation of privacy' from game wardens on his posted private property. The court ruled against the hunter, which reinforced Pennsylvania's adherence to the Open Field Doctrine. Windham says they have a decent chance at overturning the case, especially in light of a 2024 court decision in Tennessee, which found that warrantless searches on private land are unconstitutional. Read Next: Tennessee Judges Rein in Game Wardens, Declaring Warrantless Searches on Private Land Unconstitutional Windham was an attorney in that case, too, and he says it included similar circumstances —— game wardens entering private lands to install trail cameras and spy on hunters. The judge in that case called the practice 'a disturbing assertion of power on behalf of the government,' and he even drew comparisons to the tyrannies colonial Americans were subjected to under British rule. 'It's kind of shocking how broad this Open Field Doctrine is … we found in a study that about 96 percent of all private land in the country falls under this doctrine. That's about 1.2 billion acres,' Windham says. 'So, we're talking about this rule of law that exposes basically all private land in the country to limitless surveillance. And that's a pretty shocking thing to say out loud. It's a pretty shocking thing to think about.'
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Contributor: How a $200 check can put you on a government watch list
More than 1 million Californians and Texans are about to face a new level of financial surveillance from the federal government. Although cash transactions over $10,000 have long been reported under current law, now many transactions of as little as $200 will have to be reported in 30 ZIP Codes along the border with Mexico. Financial surveillance in the United States has needed reform, but this policy marks little more than another intrusion into the lives of Americans. The new policy was officially announced by the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to 'further combat the illicit activities and money laundering of Mexico-based cartels and other criminal actors along the southwest border of the United States.' Starting in April and continuing at least into September, people in San Diego and Imperial counties in California and in Cameron, El Paso, Hidalgo, Maverick and Webb counties in Texas can expect additional scrutiny when using businesses that provide services such as check cashing, money orders, currency exchanges and money transfers. Read more: Contributor: Trump's tariff strategy is worse than a gamble. It's a surefire loser Every day, people visit businesses like Western Union and Ria Money Transfer to cash paychecks, send remittances to family or even just exchange unused pesos after a trip to Mexico. Yet people in the designated areas now will be reported to the federal government if they need to send or collect as little as $200 at these businesses. And as if the $200 mark were not low enough, surveillance also may apply to lesser transactions. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network noted in its official order that it 'encourages the voluntary filing of SARs [suspicious activity reports] where appropriate' to flag attempts 'to evade the $200 … threshold.' (It is a crime to knowingly avoid the reporting threshold by breaking up payments or spending less.) In other words, people could be reported to the government for transactions at $190, $150 or even less. Americans tell pollsters their financial privacy should be protected, in keeping with the 4th Amendment. But under the new order, simple, everyday transactions could put Californians and Texans on a government watch list. Read more: Column: What will Trump's tariffs 'liberate' us from? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent considers such an invasion of privacy 'part of a whole-of-government approach to combatting the threat' of cartel activity and drug trafficking. 'Treasury remains focused,' he said in the announcement, 'on leveraging all our available tools and authorities to better identify and counter these criminal activities.' In Bessent's defense, organized crime is not easy to stop. However, it's far more likely that it's everyone else who will be hit by this policy the most. The reality is that mass financial surveillance is far from effective at fighting crime. In 2023, United States financial businesses and institutions spent $59 billion on compliance costs to help combat money laundering and other crimes. They filed more than 27 million reports — 20.8 million were about currency transactions that met the $10,000 threshold. Yet despite the billions of dollars spent and the millions of reports filed, the Internal Revenue Service only started 372 investigations into criminal cases that year because of one of those reports. Read more: Contributor: We do need some tariffs, applied strategically and predictably Expanding this inefficient system is unlikely to have a significant impact on crime, but it is likely to push people further to the financial fringe. Giving businesses a 30-day notice that they need to start reporting customers could mean many of them may either stop serving the designated ZIP Codes or close entirely. For customers — who often have lower incomes — this can mean losing access to what few options were available. Some businesses may be able to eat the cost given that the policy is set to end on Sept. 9. Still, the Treasury could repeatedly renew the surveillance order for additional 180-day periods if it so chooses. So the road ahead is very much uncertain. What is certain, however, is that the Treasury's new policy will undermine financial privacy in a time when more and more Americans are calling to strengthen it. Americans were upset when the Biden administration tried to make banks report on accounts with just $600 in activity a year, and people were upset when the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement collected records on millions of transactions in California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico. People should be upset now that the Trump administration wants reports on $200 in activity. It's time for Congress to establish a proper right to financial privacy that is in line with the 4th Amendment protections many Americans already think they have. Nicholas Anthony is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
