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2nd Circuit to cop: someone observing all the laws is not "probable cause" for a search
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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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I hope this guy's settlement includes a six-figure payout, as well as firing and banning the cop and sergeant from any future career in law enforcement.
Hey, let me dream.
We need a federal law that blatantly illegal actions over some threshold of good faith by a law enforcement officer is an automatic federal crime. Unsubstantiated search against someone doing nothing anyone could consider suspicious? A year in federal prison.
It can't be just any unlawful search. For example, when they there's an actual crime in progress and they think there's exigency but the court rules otherwise, they shouldn't get in trouble for that. If the court rules there wasn't probable cause, but it's understandable where the cop is coming from, maybe that's a learning experience.
But aggressively approaching someone for doing literally nothing, then doing an obviously illegal search? Federal crime.
That's pretty much what Deprivation of Rights under Color of Law is. It's a very broad law that has a punishment up to and including the death penalty. As with most things today, the problem is not the law, it's a lack of will to enforce it.