Broward Co. to vacate convictions for buying crack made by Sheriff's Office
cbs12.com
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I don’t disagree but the events in question took place and were discovered over 30 years ago. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/01/04/Appeals-court-Sherif...
For those still impacted thats a problem. Not the same level of shock though.
I think police should be held to a higher standard than the public: their training and their power (monopoly on violence) warrants that.
Something else: "provocation" is usually forbidden to law enforcement.
I think law enforcement needs provocation in order to catch certain bad behaviors. But certainly not for a victimless crime like dealing dope.
Where I think provocation is needed as a law enforcement tool: sexual harassment in the streets (like cat calling) and govt corruption.
Authorities aren't equal in the eyes of the law. They are held to a higher standard. Do I have to quote fucking Spiderman (Uncle Ben Parker)?: With great power comes great responsibility.
They should be charged with manufacturing schedule I drugs, selling schedule I drugs, AND conspiracy to defraud the {federal government,state of Florida,people of Florida,police}, and a bunch of other crimes. I would go so far as to say that such acts are those of treason. They acted in a way to undermine the trust of the American people, to undermine the justice system, to undermine the government that they are representing. It is unquestionable that they have caused a betrayal of trust.
I think this is a problem that we let slide due to apathy. But that's why I'm so pissed about this kind of stuff. It's because treason can build slowly, and even be explained away with "best intentions." But it is this slow slide that sows distrust to the institutions we have. It gives legitimate reason to be distrustful of these systems. And without going after bad actors or without holding them to a higher standard, this too undermines the entire system. I don't think you have to be draconian, but I do mean that if you get charged for selling drugs (as one charge of possibly many) you should be receive higher punishment than any non-authority person in a similar setting.
> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
I still haven't come up with one.
- being invaded by another country - food safety - being robbed - being paid by my employer
Many more. They are not completely solved but vastly improved. Try places like Sudan or Somalia and see how life is without a functioning government.
- Maintenance of roadways and bridges - Governments don't create wear and tear, vehicles and weather do.
- Food safety standards - Governments aren't harvesting lettuce with e. coli or selling diseased meat.
- Public healthcare - Governments don't create disease, but they ensure access to healthcare (at least the good ones do).
- Building codes - Governments rarely build houses themselves, but they do enact requirements for acceptable building materials, wiring standards, safe insulations, and so on.
- Environmental regulation - It's not entirely accurate to say that governments create zero pollution, but it's an insignificant factor compared to the industries for which they control regulations.
I'm sure some could try to argue each of these points with very narrow counter-examples, or try to stretch the meaning of "have a hand in creating" to be so wide as to encompass everything. Governments are a major part of society, after all. But on the whole, these are solutions created in response to problems in society that emerged naturally, without government oversight, programs, or committees behind them.
Reagan’s “nine most terrifying words in the English language” works just as well when you replace “government” with “corporate” or “church” or “mob” or even “next door”.
And the whole Governor Whitmer kidnap plot.
Putting aside the insanity of a police department manufacturing crack cocaine, I’m specifically curious how they ran the books for something like this. There’s the crack money collection, the laundering of cash, expensing raw materials (i.e., powder cocaine).
State v. Williams https://law.justia.com/cases/florida/supreme-court/1993/7950...
TL;DR is "In other words, the police agencies cannot themselves do an illegal act, albeit their intended goal may be legal and desirable"
You can certainly believe that it's bad for the law to allow civil asset forfeiture; but that has nothing to do with the court's statement here. Furthermore, it's rather absurd to say that the law should never treat police officers or other government agents differently in any way, which you seem to be implying by referring to this as categorically "unfortunate". Police officers need to arrest and jail people, for example, which are (with some exceptions) powers not granted to ordinary citizens. If agents of the government had no powers beyond those of ordinary citizens, then in what sense would we even have a government?
That second carve out making them immune to both civil and criminal penalties (talk about immunity!) is especially generous.
But as noted, in the eyes of the legislature there has to be or it would literally be impossible for them to do their jobs. And hey, it wasn’t that long ago you had literal machine gun shootouts [https://www.firearmsnews.com/editorial/mac-10-submachine-gun...]. “The two assassins returned to the van and liberally sprayed the parking lot and surrounding shops with gunfire apparently just for meanness.”
Also [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_drug_war]
No cop is going anywhere near that insanity without near blanket immunity.
You have to go pretty above and beyond to have the courts slap you down like this in that kind of environment. Like manufacturing your own crack, apparently.
Well, after three years of it. And then when the court says "No, don't do that any more, and erase the records of the people that were arrested and/or convicted by that" you can sit on that for three decades saying "Eh, maybe we will, maybe we won't, depends on how we feel" before it gets pushed at all.
My main point was to note that the ruling only makes this particular act illegal for police officers. I'm not saying the police should have no authority beyond that of citizens.
The "unfortunate" part of civil asset forfeiture is that it is almost always abused for the benefit of the police at the expense of otherwise law-abiding citizens. You are correct that it has nothing to do with the court's statement, and that's ties into my first point.
You repeat your error in your reply: “the ruling only makes this particular act illegal for police officers”. That makes no sense. It literally says that police cannot do illegal acts and that this is why they could not convict people based on making crack. How could it even be otherwise? You really think the court is saying police could vandalize a store or murder someone to bust others involved in the crime, since those illegal acts weren’t specified in the ruling?
It seems like you missed the part where eurleif said the TLDR is a verbatim quote from the ruling.
In your second sentence you made an inapt comparison to civil forfeiture. What makes civil forfeiture outrageous is precisely its legality. The whole point of the ruling is that police must confine themselves to legal behavior. So civil forfeiture is as relevant to this ruling as walking, cooking, or breathing. Legal and permissible by police.
It’s also wrong of you to accuse eurleif of fabrication. I can’t see a single thing they fabricated. They very carefully and precisely explained why your entire comment was wrong. You should thank them!
Currently, police and the courts with formal legislative backing give themselves permission to rob people, despite this being very clearly unconstitutional.
That’s not how something becomes legal.
Civil forfeiture is part of the legal codes in various states and has been left intact in its present state by the courts.
Making crack is just something some police did. No law was ever passed saying they could do it.
This ruling isn’t saying the laws on the books are good, or universally constitutional. It isn’t saying police will always stay within the constitution by following laws. It is simply saying that they are definitely not allowed to go outside the law. That’s the baseline standard of behavior the ruling established.
people give themselves permission to commit illegal actions all the time! That's what being a criminal is all about.
Of course this is only true in the deontic sense of 'cannot'. They're not permitted to commit illegal acts, but they're demonstrably capable of it.
No, federal law makes it illegal generally, without any exception for police officers.
This 1993 ruling that forms the context for the recent action noted that independent illegality, found also that that illegality as an underpinning of reverse-sting operations violated due process of law and that, as a consequences, convictions based on it were invalid and should be vacated.
But this “ruling” isn’t a ruling, didn’t declare anything illegal, its an administrative action by the State Attorney for Broward County applying the 1993 ruling after a routine audit found that many convictions remained on the books despite the 1993 ruling.
Well by logical conclusion, they can't commit all illegal acts, but they can commit some, if those acts aren't considered illegal when police officers do them.