Yeah. These sort of cases should have judgements so large that the city/county/state makes new rules that stop this sort of bullshit. Just compensation for lost earnings and trauma isn't the point here.
And yes, taxpayers end up paying that bill. But taxpayers also elected the dumbass mayor/governor/whatever who hired the dumbass cops, so ... it's dumbasses all the way down.
Or how about if they are the officer responsible that leads to a suit that results in a payout, they lose their job, pension, and any other benefits. Not just a slap on the wrist, and a paid vacation.
While your idea would be a deturant, it would not solve anything at all.
Police should carry insurance to maintain their status. If they get sued, it comes out of the insurance and not the tax payer.
Most cops don't make much. Insurance covers that gap. Their premium goes up if they lose a lawsuit attached to their name. Eventually, it cost too much to retain bad cops. That way they can't reshuffle bad cops to new locations.
Should just do away with qualified immunity and require them to have indemnity insurance.
Once they fuck up and become uninsurable the system heals itself with zero oversight.
No insurance, no badge. Simple.
They approved “qualified immunity”, but government has twisted it into immunity for everything! “Qualified” was supposed to mean that they were working under the departments direction and following the law and policies of the department. The police and courts have turned that into “no one told them they could not do that specific thing that any normal person would consider illegal or wrong!”
They each should have their own Insurance. End Qualify Immunity. If they can't get Insurance, they can't be a cop!!! That would stop these tyrants getting away with all this crap, or fleeing to another police department.
Would the average person trade $25k to spend a month in jail while foregoing home, friends, family, children, and privacy? None of those are tied to her income.
And all the incurred costs from overdrafts at the bank, late fees on bills, possible eviction and no deposit return, potentially paying back friends and family for childcare.
Then there's the first, last, and deposit you gotta have for the new apartment. But with no job, your credit score taking a hit from the missed payments, and an eviction on record, no one wants to rent to you.
I spent almost a month in jail on charges that were ultimately dropped. It ended up costing me a couple thousand for the lawyer and everything else I already listed. So probably close to $5-6k gone. Just for being in the wrong place, with the wrong people, at the wrong time. I learned a lot of lessons from that experience, but the one that sticks out is: It's expensive to be poor
And yet we use prison rape as joke fodder. The US has more people in prison than the entire world's population of prisoners combined. Adult men have a 53% lifetime chance of being arrested. The US Justice Department estimates that 9% of the male population will spend time in prison at some point in there lives. That number is fucking 28% if you're black, which is insane. That's more than 1 in 4.
Don't think punitive damages should be limited to only your personal most recent salary. That means lower income people are fine to screw over because it costs less. Should at least be an average upper income, not a per person basis.
The main point though in how much it is is that its an amount that discourages the behavior in the future not just whether she deserves her specific reward. If 25k wasn't enough to convince the city/police to never repeat the action they did wrong again, it wasn't high enough.
I thought they got $25k. That's like a year's worth of min wage income. Double min wage for Gainesville, GA. Which is actually helpful, but yeah who knows how much the lawyer took home. Gainesville is tough livin' i guess.
The person I replied to said "lost wages". She was held for one month. She settled for 25k. So I said if it took her two months to find a job after released, that would be 8.3k a month, for the month she was detained and the next two months.
Don't stress yourself out that some people give up on understanding basic math. I understood what you meant and have just felt bad seeing you have to reexplain it because people dropped out in 5th grade :(
Id give up a job at waffle house to spend a month somewhere for 25k. Its not great but Id do it. Legit seems kinda fair in this case, minus missing her kids party.
Fair for the one month stay/one month missed work. But the absolute incompetence of the cops and everyone else involved in keeping her in jail for a month over absolutely nothing should be worth at least 4x that in punitive damages.
Editing to say that the punitive damages should come out of the cops salary/retirement, and NOT from the taxpayers.
Well the month came from a missed court date. She was out on either SOR or bonded out, I can't remember the details but then did a no show on the next court date. Now one could argue she should of never been in the situation to begin with, and I agree, but she should of went to court
I looked this up and it said she couldn't afford to bond out, which was the reason she spent a month in jail. It said she even attempted to go through drug court program to get out of jail.
Probably be able to get your job at waffle house back too...it is just waffle house and if they knew the circumstances...yea..the worst part is more the court fees then potentially being targetd by police because you're "that person who ratted us out".
Sometimes it’s less the chickenshit attorney and more that the client has bills to pay and can’t wait years to go to trial before seeing money (most courts are so backed up and litigation is such a long process anyway that generally a few years is the earliest you can realistically go to trial, sometimes it’s more than a few years if the attorneys really drag it out). Most people can’t afford to wait years, even if the payout is 10x or more
Yep, that's the way it works. But how many months of Waffle House wages and tips is 12.5K for someone with bills to pay. Sometimes you have to just take the offer and run.
Honest question though. Apart from whatever emotional damage she may have suffered for missing her kids birthday, she lost her job and was unlawfully imprisoned for a month, exposing her to whatever actual lowlives also happened to be in that jail. Which can have life-altering consequences for the entire family. How the fuck does this correlate with such a lowball payout when comparably minor (physical) injuries basically start at 6 figures already?
Probably because cops have all sorts of legal protections that us "little people" don't have. There's a decent chance that she would have gotten nothing if she went to trial, regardless of the merits of her case
Well that is the problem, people think suing is everything now. You see it all over social media, something happens and everyone screams "SUE!". But how often do you hear about people actually suing and winning? There is a reason.
She spent a month in jail, missed her kids birthday, and lost a job at waffle house... what is that worth? You say $25k is too little but it's not far off if it is. You'll never convince people that what she went through would be worth much more.
I mean was the job your mom lost well paying? If so that can boost the payout. Also, you say it was provable that sexism was involved, that may have been a more open shut case. It’s possible there are some factors in this case we don’t know about. Or maybe your mom simply had a better lawyer. I feel like 25k is too little but that may not be what the law/standard procedure says or what would come out if this went to trial.
Yeah but it’s not just 2 weeks of lost labor, it’s however long she spent looking for a job after getting out as well (which was probably hindered until her time in jail was removed from her record, if it even was)
Not to mention that even though it ends in aquittal, the arrest and initial charge can still show up in a background check. Unless you pay to get it expunged, which if you're already poor, is not going to happen for most.
Having spent 6 hours in jail on time and then working at a few prisons, there's no amount of money you could pay me to be incarcerated for one minute. I think freedom is more important than money.
Yeah, but her lawyer probably ended up with 30%, then taxes, and filing fees are probably another 1500 depending on how many motions were filed. Honestly, I would put it at $80k after attorney takes and taxes would be fair for time served- for a full time wafflehouse employee with a child. Like think or all the other shit she had to pay for in the meantime- and if she's a single parent what about her kid!?
The police does not give a damn, what repercussions was there for them? Its not their pay thats taking a cut, the money is coming from the taxpayers. At best they might be slightly inconvenienced by having to attend the trials, but thats the extent
I wouldn't miss my kids birthday for that though. Or go without seeing my kid for a month absolutely fucking not. There's no $ amount that makes that ok.
Thought that too but to be honest it depends on the money and the jail.
For a live changing amount like millions in the double digits I could imagine 1 month in low security jail with humane conditions, like in Sweden or something ...
LMAO, are Americans so desperate that you look up to spending time in a fucking JAIL cell for an entire monthf for a measly 6 months payment. It's either that or you have absolutely no idea how mentally tough 30 days in a shitty American jail is like.
"Ashley Gabrielle Huff was indeed pulled over in an intoxicated state but the officer did not smell alcohol. A glass pipe was in plain view which lead police to suspect she was using drugs. The pipe was PC for an arrest so they searched her purse finding a blackened spoon with residual material on it. The materiel was tested and found to test positive for meth.
Now most of the experts here do not realize then next step is to see a judge who ruled that there was PC for the arrest, assigned her a public defender and released OR with a court date and pre-trial release conditions. She blew off the court date and refused to comply with release conditions and was thus arrested again and given a cash bond which she did not pay.
The lab tests which take time came back that the spoon had food on it and was only contaminated with meth. Either she used a spoon normally employed by her to cook method to eat - or she had ingested meth prior to eating from the spoon.
The officer was not at fault as he followed all process and did detect meth, The woman is a meth user.
The woman stayed in jail because she did not comply with release terms. That is on her.
The charges need not have been dropped as the spoon did have meth associated with it - but policy is to not prosecute in cases of user contamination."
25k is insane. I was awarded more than that for a dog bite. It wasn’t a minor bite by any metric, but I’d still pick it over a month of wrongful imprisonment
The authorities did not directly pay her lawyer fees as part of her criminal case dismissal. In fact, she initially did not have to pay for a private criminal defense attorney because she was assigned a public defender to handle the drug charges.
this is a reminder that public defenders are probably not your best choice when faced with this level of charge, no matter how innocent you actually are.
Month in jail, lost wage, lost job, psychological distress, no contact with child, probably a lot of shitty consequences after being absent for that time. Should have been more, I'm not saying milions but that seems pretty low to me.
According to reports tracking the aftermath of the incident, her civil lawsuit was eventually settled for $25,000.
A good counter-point for all those folks who think suing the cops when they do something wrong ends up meaning a ton of money.
Most of the time, the people don't walk away with any money, whatever does come in a settlement will often go to the lawyers who worked on contingency.
Heck, she may have ended up owing money when considering taxes.
I guess 30 days of Waffle House wages plus pain and suffering, still think 30k would have been better. 1k a day just seems a little more appropriate here.
One thousand dollars per day in jail for a wrongful arrest does seem low. I feel like the trauma a person goes through over something like that lasts a lifetime even with therapy. It should have been 10x that amount.
"Ashley Gabrielle Huff was indeed pulled over in an intoxicated state but the officer did not smell alcohol. A glass pipe was in plain view which lead police to suspect she was using drugs. The pipe was PC for an arrest so they searched her purse finding a blackened spoon with residual material on it. The materiel was tested and found to test positive for meth.
Now most of the experts here do not realize then next step is to see a judge who ruled that there was PC for the arrest, assigned her a public defender and released OR with a court date and pre-trial release conditions. She blew off the court date and refused to comply with release conditions and was thus arrested again and given a cash bond which she did not pay.
The lab tests which take time came back that the spoon had food on it and was only contaminated with meth. Either she used a spoon normally employed by her to cook method to eat - or she had ingested meth prior to eating from the spoon.
The officer was not at fault as he followed all process and did detect meth, The woman is a meth user.
The woman stayed in jail because she did not comply with release terms. That is on her.
The charges need not have been dropped as the spoon did have meth associated with it - but policy is to not prosecute in cases of user contamination."
You don’t sue cops. You sue yourself for your own money back.
Please say understand so the general public stops thinking cops give a shit. They don’t care and laugh becuase you pay for their lawsuits and pensions anyways
The cops raided my house and destroyed all my belongings thinking it was a different person’s house. Tried to go through their insurance, instantly denied. Tried to sue and found out that the government needs to “consent” for you to sue them and can deny for any reason.
Can we sue individual cops as people? Not the officer, but the person. I wouldn't sue the police, or the government, or the union. I want to sue "John Cop", the man who is responsible.
Yea you can sue an individual cop but it's very hard because they have qualified immunity. But if your lawyer can prove the cop violated a constitutional right AND that right was clearly established (meaning its reasonable to assume the cop would have known they were violating your constitutional rights) at the time of the incident then yes you can sue them.
Correct me if im wrong, but ive come to the realization that everytime someone (rightfully) sues the justice system for their gross negligence, its literally all of us paying for it. Like, tax payer money funds the cops, right? So by that logic, every time these abused people sue its all of us paying for the mistakes of the justice system!
Please tell me im wrong i wana wake up from this nightmare.
this happens all the time to poor people - they plea out just to get out, because otherwise they can't pay bail and will be stuck in county for years awaiting trial. there was a late night segment on it - a guy was arrested for kitty litter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE5o4JoyMkE
"Ashley Gabrielle Huff was indeed pulled over in an intoxicated state but the officer did not smell alcohol. A glass pipe was in plain view which lead police to suspect she was using drugs. The pipe was PC for an arrest so they searched her purse finding a blackened spoon with residual material on it. The materiel was tested and found to test positive for meth.
Now most of the experts here do not realize then next step is to see a judge who ruled that there was PC for the arrest, assigned her a public defender and released OR with a court date and pre-trial release conditions. She blew off the court date and refused to comply with release conditions and was thus arrested again and given a cash bond which she did not pay.
The lab tests which take time came back that the spoon had food on it and was only contaminated with meth. Either she used a spoon normally employed by her to cook method to eat - or she had ingested meth prior to eating from the spoon.
The officer was not at fault as he followed all process and did detect meth, The woman is a meth user.
The woman stayed in jail because she did not comply with release terms. That is on her.
The charges need not have been dropped as the spoon did have meth associated with it - but policy is to not prosecute in cases of user contamination."
8.3k
u/Dreboomboom 12d ago
Hope she sued the fuck out of them.