A SCOTUS Opening

[GMDino]

Honestly the way this immunity is decided on fascinates me.

If there isn't a very specific example of the incident then the officer gets immunity...but it seems it very hard to get a new example of the immunity because there isn't already an example of it.

Still the article stretches a bit with a "constitutional right to breath" I think despite being accurate in it's coverage of the story and Barrett's part in it.

Unqualified Impunity: Amy Coney Barrett once ruled that a cop wasn't responsible for a Black teenager's death because breathing isn't a constitutional right https://t.co/9vB8r2sKJP pic.twitter.com/0UJAE0kqln

— The Root (@TheRoot) October 21, 2020

 

Quote:When a coroner arrived on the scene, he saw no visible signs of trauma but when he saw the handcuffs still on Day, he immediately knew what had happened. The autopsy report verified it. Eighteen-year-old Terrell Day’s official cause of death was listed as “Sudden Cardiac Death.” But it wasn’t just a heart attack.


“Listed as a contributing cause,” writes the Indianapolis Star’s Crystal Hill, “was Day’s hands being cuffed behind his back.”

In May 2019, a federal District Court agreed that Terrell Day’s mother, Shanika Day, had the right to sue Franklin Wooten, ruling that “reasonable officers would know they were violating an established right by leaving Day’s hands cuffed behind his back after he complained of difficulty breathing.”



But then Wooten appealed and Amy stepped up.



The most conservative judge on the most conservative court.

Amy Coney Barrett is a right-wing radical.



Looking at Barrett’s judicial record, Five Thirty-Eight didn’t just categorize her as a right-leaning justice on one of America’s most conservative courts. They concluded that “Barrett is one of the more conservative judges on the circuit — and maybe even the most conservative.”



And considering the other judges, that’s quite a statement.



When Franklin Wooten appealed to Barrett’s court, the Supreme Court nominee was flanked by two Reagan appointees who are still the greatest examples for packing the court with unqualified, conservative judges:

• Daniel Anthony Manion: Like Barrett, Manion is a Notre Dame alumnus who is notorious for his inability to write, spell or quote the Constitution. Manion was a supporter of the radical, right-wing John Birch Society which, among other things, alleged Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist who wanted to institute a “Soviet Negro Republic.” At the time of Manion’s nomination, he received one of the lowest American Bar Association judgeship rankings in history.
• Frank H. Easterbrook: His ABA ranking was even worse than Manion’s because some members said was outright “unqualified.” The Chicago Council of Lawyers called him an “arrogant and intolerant” judge who “disregards the facts or the law.”
  
  
  

But according to the data, Barrett is more of a right-wing radical than either of these mediocre white men. And it’s not just abortion rights. Barrett has displayed the most far-right ideology in the areas of civil rights, criminal rights and discrimination suits. So when Wooten appealed to the Seventh Circuit, Coney and her unqualified justices reached an astonishing conclusion:

Terrell Day didn’t have the right to breathe.



The court accepted every fact of the case but determined that Wooten shouldn’t even stand trial. They essentially ruled that Wooten was immune from the consequences of his actions because “the only right [Day] can assert would be the right of an out-of-breath arrestee to not have his hands cuffed behind his back after he complains of difficulty breathing.” However, the judges woefully admitted that they could “find no Seventh Circuit precedent clearly establishing such a right.”

They wrote that down on paper.



One of Shanika Day’s attorneys called it a “radical departure” from prior cases while co-counsel Faith Alvarez said the ruling put the burden of proof “on the person who’s dying. It’s no longer on the police to be trained.”

Much more at the link and it's a sad, difficult story.


Plus there are link to some of her other more interesting decisions.