Bad Boys II

[Dill]

(06-26-2020, 08:49 AM)GMDino Wrote: Qualified immunity is one of the biggest hurdles to police reform and I'm sad to say I didn't really know a lot about it until recently.

Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith writes in his opinion that Taylor's case meets the threshold for an Eighth Amendment violation. He cites two court precedents—[i]McCord v. Maggio (1991) and Gates v. Cook (1994)—that affirm a prisoner is not to be subjected to egregiously unsanitary living conditions. Gates, the judge writes, further supports Taylor's claims that the guards acted with deliberate indifference, which Smith notes is "no small hurdle."
[/i]


But in a poignant demonstration of how qualified immunity works in practice, Smith then transitions to explaining why the guards deserve protection from civil liability: "The law wasn't clearly established. Taylor stayed in his extremely dirty cells for only six days," Smith writes. "Though the law was clear that prisoners couldn't be housed in cells teeming with human waste for months on end, we hadn't previously held that a time period so short violated the Constitution. That dooms Taylor's claim."



Put more plainly, the guards cannot be held liable, but not because their alleged conduct didn't infringe on Taylor's right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. It did—current case law confirms as much. Taylor cannot sue the guards for violating his constitutional rights—which the Court agrees happened—because the length of time Taylor spent in those filthy conditions has not been carved out with razor-like precision in previous case law.

People will say--if you don't like living in feces, don't commit a crime.