minnesota – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Appeals Court Says Cop Whose Cop Dog Bit Another Cop Is Entitled To Qualified Immunity

from the welcome-to-the-resistance,-officer-dogbit dept

Huh. Here’s something you definitely don’t see every day. But before we get to the ruling, let’s do a brief exploration of the ultra-weird legal landscape that has made it clear cop dogs and cops should be held to way different standards than regular dogs and regular people. And it’s the regular dogs and regular people who are always at a disadvantage.

First off, defending yourself from an attack by a police dog is almost always treated as a criminal offense. In some places, the charge brought is “assaulting an officer,” even though the attack targeted a four-legged “officer” rather than a two-legged, actual-human-being officer.

On the other side of the coin, your dog doesn’t even need to attack a police officer for an officer to decide your dog needs to be killed. Citizens who kill other people’s dogs will definitely face criminal charges. And people attacked by dogs while intruding in other people’s yards will likely be told they can’t possibly swear out a complaint against the dog’s owner.

All bets are off with cop dogs. They’re “officers” under the law and the general opinion of most courts is “suck it up” when you’ve been mauled by a K-9 unit. Rarely, if ever, will courts suggest excessive force claims stemming from police dog attacks are capable of piercing the qualified immunity veil.

In this case, though, the double-standard stops working because both parties are law enforcement officers. In a move that must have endeared him to law enforcement officers all over Minnesota, Champlain police officer Daniel Irish sued Hennepin County Deputy Keith McNamara after McNamara’s dog bit him while they engaged in an on-foot pursuit of a criminal suspect. (h/t Short Circuit)

Here’s how this whole thing went down, as recounted by the Eighth Circuit Appeals Court in its decision [PDF]:

[O]ver the wail of police sirens, Deputy McNamara repeatedly commanded Thor, who could not see the suspect, to “get him!” as they raced down the cemetery path. Officer Irish then turned into the cemetery ahead of them and joined the pursuit. Thor bounded forward, outpacing Deputy McNamara and running behind Officer Irish’s squad car. It was approximately 35 seconds after Thor got over the fence when Deputy McNamara heard screaming. His body cam picked up an agonized “Keith [McNamara]! Keith!” Too far away to restrain Thor, Deputy McNamara repeatedly shouted, “Thor, come! Thor! Thor, out!”

Officer Irish’s body cam also captured the chaos. Shortly after he requested the suspect’s description, he arrived in the cemetery, spotted the suspect just across a ravine, opened his squad car door, and yelled, “Get on the fucking ground!” Thor immediately attacked him. Officer Irish fought to control him but continued to give the suspect orders. Between breaths, Officer Irish told Thor to “get him!”—to no avail. He gasped, “Keith! Keith! I didn’t know he was out.” Deputy McNamara finally caught up and restrained and refocused Thor. Bloody but unbowed, Officer Irish gave a K9 warning. The suspect started to inch away, so the officers released Thor, who eventually vaulted through the ravine and apprehended him.

Officer Irish sued Deputy McNamara, alleging (yes, you’re reading this correctly) a Fourth Amendment violation. Precedent says a K-9 attack/bite/hold is a seizure under the law and that suspects (who are the ones usually on the receiving end of police dog attacks) must be given “[adequate] warning and an opportunity to surrender” before the dog is released.

Obviously, Officer Irish was never given adequate warning or a chance to surrender. And for good reason. He wasn’t the intended target of the dog’s aggression. Somehow, despite all the supposed training the dogs receive (and all the expertise their handlers claim to have), Thor decided the person he was supposed to attack was a fellow officer. So much for the Thin Blue Line, etc. etc.

Given these facts, it’s pretty difficult to read this as a Fourth Amendment violation. Everyone (on two or four legs) was a law enforcement officer. While Officer Irish may have been “seized,” he wasn’t “seized” in the sense that his freedom was being purposefully curtailed by the actions of a government employee. This argument makes about as much sense as someone claiming their Fourth Amendment rights were violated when their neighbor’s dog attacked them. The playing field is completely level here, which means this was unfortunate, but not unconstitutional.

Unbelievably, the lower court said qualified immunity did not apply here. That clear error has been reversed by the Eighth Circuit, which points out there not only needs to be an imbalance of power, but the clear intent to limit someone else’s freedom via government dog attack. (All emphasis in the original.)

[A] seizure occurs when an officer, “by means of physical force or show of authority, terminates or restrains [an individual’s] freedom of movement through means intentionally applied.” Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 254 (2007). The Supreme Court has explained that the “intent that counts under the Fourth Amendment is the ‘intent that has been conveyed to the person confronted.’” (quoting Chesternut, 486 U.S. at 575 n.7) (holding that all occupants in a car are seized during a traffic stop). So long as the officer’s conduct is “willful,” a “seizure occurs even when an unintended person or thing is the object of the detention.” Brower, 489 U.S. at 596, 599 (emphasis added) (citation omitted) (holding that a seizure occurred where a fleeing suspect crashed into a roadblock).

Officer Irish argued the correct standard is “unintended person,” rather than “through means intentionally applied.” The Appeals Court disagrees. This was an accident, not an intentional attack. And that means something, especially when it’s two law enforcement officers involved, rather than a police officer and someone who just happened to be in the area where a police dog was unleashed.

These are two different things, even though Officer Irish clearly believes otherwise. The Eighth Circuit points out exactly where the lower court went wrong when it denied immunity to the deputy whose dog ended up attacking a fellow officer.

Officer Irish protests that the unintended-target cases are immaterial because excessive force cases involving K9s are unique. See, e.g., Hope v. Taylor (M.D. Fla. Feb. 23, 2021) (taking a “different tack” from unintended-target cases and holding that a seizure occurred where an officer deployed a K9 that bit a bystander, not the intended suspects). He says that by releasing Thor with the intent that he bite the first person he found, Deputy McNamara had all the intent needed to effect a seizure. Though we have never recognized a constitutional distinction between force-by-K9 and force-by-bullet, the district court did. It relied on Szabla v. City of Brooklyn Park, where we found “a submissible case of excessive force” after an officer’s K9 was tracking a suspect but ended up biting an innocent bystander. From Szabla, the district court inferred an “[i]mplicit” holding that when an officer intentionally deploys a K9 to find and bite a suspect and the K9 bites an innocent bystander, that bite is “a seizure under clearly established law.”

We do not read so much into Szabla. It never addressed whether the officer subjectively or objectively intended to seize the plaintiff. And it fits best in the mistaken-identity line of cases. The officer in Szabla told his K9 to find and apprehend an unknown suspect, “ordered [the apprehended plaintiff] to show his hands,” and then detained and refused to release him until the officers determined that he was not the suspect they were after. In other words, the officer arguably subjectively intended to seize the plaintiff whom he mistakenly believed was the suspect […] (stating that an “implicit holding in Szabla” is “that a seizure occurs when a [K9] seizes an individual [whom] police did not know to be present, at least when police initially believe that the individual is the suspect” (emphasis added)).

This case, on the other hand, fits best in the unintended-target line of cases. Less than a minute before the bite, Deputy McNamara commanded Thor to “get him!”—the fleeing suspect; during the bite, he repeatedly ordered Thor to disengage from Officer Irish and quickly restrained him; and after the bite, he refocused Thor toward the suspect. […] So Szabla could not have put Deputy McNamara on notice that Thor’s bite was a seizure.

Even without this precedent, the resolution should have been clear. If you’re a law enforcement officer who works with other officers and their K9s, you should assume the risk that the dog is going to screw up now and then. Non-cops aren’t expected to assume this risk because they’re not law enforcement professionals with all the (alleged) “training and expertise” that comes with. When a regular person is caught by a dog, it’s a seizure and the Fourth Amendment applies because the dog is an extension of the government’s power. When a cop dog bites another cop, that’s just an incident that should mean nothing more than resetting the “DAYS SINCE LAST WORKPLACE ACCIDENT” counter to zero. It’s definitely not the basis for a civil rights lawsuit.

All Officer Irish is going to get from this spectacular failure is a bunch of antipathy from other law enforcement officers. No one’s going to want to provide backup to an officer who has demonstrated he’s willing to sue over unfortunate (and extremely uncommon) workplace mishaps. He may as well have blown his money suing the Champlain PD for providing an unsafe work environment. It was always a non-starter, but somehow the lower court gave him just enough hope to allow him to embarrass himself at the appellate level.

Filed Under: 8th circuit, daniel irish, k-9 unit, keith mcnamara, minnesota, police violence, qualified immunity

Minnesota Law Says Cops Can’t Ask Drivers Why They’ve Been Pulled Over, But Ensures Cops Can Totally Do That Very Thing All The Time

from the going-to-have-to-be-a-bit-more-upfront dept

Cops love a pretextual stop. A perceived traffic infraction is all that’s needed to cast out a fishing net in hopes of landing something bigger than a citation for an illegal lane change.

That’s why cops have historically led most traffic stops with a leading question: do you know why I’ve pulled you over? It’s a stupid question. The cop knows why. The driver can usually only speculate. But cops hope speculation might lead to bigger and better things, ranging from admissions of other moving violations to the presence of contraband in the car.

It also allows cops to buy a little time — something they need now that the Supreme Court has said they can no longer unreasonably extend traffic stops. By asking a few questions up front, a few minutes can be added to the clock, allowing officers to bring in a drug dog or just spend more time staring down the driver, any passengers, and clocking the interior of the car.

Realizing that pretextual stops were achieving little more than thousands of rights violations every year, the California legislature forwarded a bill to the governor. With the signing of that bill, California became the first state in the nation to require cops to tell people why they’ve been pulled over (putting the pretext front and center) rather than starting every traffic stop with a game of Twenty Questions.

Minnesota has now become the second state to do this. (But not really.) While there have been questions about the state’s law enforcement and its reliance on pretextual stops (one of which led to a very high-profile killing of driver by a Minneapolis cop), the bigger issue in the state is that it’s still on the defensive, thanks to Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of an unarmed black man — a killing that sparked anti-police violence demonstrations across the country.

The state’s police reform efforts have been hit and miss. And, sadly, that is the case here. This report by Mohamed Ibrahim for MinnPost leads with the good news:

According to the new language, a peace officer making a stop for a traffic violation can no longer ask the driver to identify the reason for the stop, but must instead tell the driver a reason “unless it would be unreasonable to do so under the totality of the circumstances.”

That seems like a positive step forward until you reach the quote at the end of the paragraph. At that point, officer discretion comes into play. And if a cop can imagine any reason under the “totality of the circumstances” to start playing guessing games rather than complying with the law, you can bet an officer will lead off with the forbidden question.

It gets worse immediately after that. Even if a cop can’t come up with a semi-plausible reason to hide the purpose of the stop from the driver, they’ll probably do it anyway because there are zero consequences for violating the new law.

An officer’s failure to do so, however, wouldn’t allow for dismissal of a charge, citation or evidence collected during the stop.

Given this, one wonders why the bill was passed, much less signed into law. The second half undoes the first half and leaves the status quo intact while accomplishing nothing more than blowing a few more tax dollars to achieve nothing at all.

And that’s why cops are going on record with statements supporting the law. The MinnPost report quotes Jeff Potts, former Bloomington PD officer and current executive director of cop union Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association. Potts pretends this is a win for the public when it’s really just a bunch of empty words masquerading as a police reform effort.

“You don’t want to start the conversation in a position where the violator has to make an admission of guilt or something like that, so it’s just a more positive way to have the interaction with the driver of the vehicle.”

Cool cool cool. Except that if an officer does want to “start the conversation” by trying to force an “admission of guilt” from a driver, they absolutely can without having to worry about charges being dropped or any evidence obtained from a warrantless search deriving from a violation of the spirit of the law (and even the letter of the law!) being tossed by a court.

The article says it’s comparable to the law passed in California. But California’s law didn’t allow cops to get away with violating the law by removing any consequence for doing so. It provided officers an option to withhold this information, which will certainly be abused. But it didn’t make it clear that officers who disobeyed the law would get away with it literally every time they chose to violate it.

I can’t even say this is better than doing nothing. Doing nothing would have cost less and achieved the same level of inertia. This is lawmakers pretending to care but ultimately showing they’re beholden to police union lobbyists and the very American outlook that says it’s always better to be tough on crime than protective of constituents’ rights.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, minnesota, police, pretextual stop, traffic stops

Chemtrail Legislation Is The New Normal In A Severely Abnormal America

from the Make-America-Stupid-Again dept

It’s enough to make you want to shoot yourself in the face in embarrassment. It’s enough to make you want to dress as a mime when visiting Europe because at least you won’t be mistaken for an American. It’s enough to make you wonder how the Land of the Free became the Land of the Besotted Idiots so quickly during the four years overseen by a lame duck president more famous for sexual harassment, failed lawsuits, and bankruptcies than actual governance.

And yet, here we are. We live in a post-truth America. To be sure, America’s relationship with the truth has always been a bit iffy, given a history that includes genocide and slavery. But we always thought we were continuously improving, however slightly, year-over-year. That all came to a halt in 2016, when the Electoral College decided Donald Trump was our new president.

Trump had already shown he was incapable of competently managing property located on prime NYC real estate. Post-election, he proved he was incapable of managing international relationships, pandemic protocols, and his own re-election campaign.

But Trump did achieve something: he rallied the masses to proclaim his election loss “stolen.” He stoked the fires of several conspiracy theories, aided and abetted by tech shitlords (Elon Musk) and social media gadflies (Joe Rogan, etc.) to subvert the normal (if boring) operation of government machinery. Trump acolytes and supplicants took control of local governments, crafting spittle-flecked legislation comprehensible only to those incapable of understanding anything normal and willing to back legislation that reads more like a rejected letter to the editor than anything a legislator should ever seriously consider submitting to their legislature.

Thanks to this turn of events — spearheaded by a president who promoted conspiracy theories, referred to COVID-19 as the “kung flu,” and otherwise ensured no one would take him seriously but the least serious of constituents — the country is now overrun by legislators who have abdicated their responsibility to the general public in favor of embracing the most embarrassing members of their voting base.

And that voting base is filled with people too cowardly to just say “It’s the Jews,” even when represented by legislators who say “It’s the Jews.” It’s pre-WWII Germany all over the place, with the people who blame any outsider (immigrants, Jews, Blacks, liberals) for any friction they encounter in their personal lives turning out in record numbers to elevate the most shameless of bigots to governmental positions.

To justify this elevation of hate, voters (and the legislators that cater to them) entertain large number of conspiracy theories, including those that have been debunked for longer than they’ve been alive.

Enter the new era of “chemtrail” legislation. This new wave appeases an extremely shitty voter base by doing two things: giving credence to chemtrail conspiracy theories and/or preventing anyone from engaging in projects that might result in the limitation of greenhouse gases or other side effects of climate change.

It’s win-win for these fuckheads. And that’s why we’re now seeing batshit insane legislation spreading from the states you expect to see it in (i.e., the “Red” states) to areas where normality has long been the accepted state of affairs.

Let’s turn it over to Kevin Underhill and his insanely amusing and informational blog, Lowering the Bar. Recounting the recent effort by the Tennessee legislature to enact an anti-chemtrail bill, Underhill notes that the legislature was far too cowardly to enact an extremely helpful amendment that would have made it clear exactly what was going on here.

Sadly, the House refused to adopt a second proposed amendment to the bill, this one proposed by Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D–Nashville). Amendment No. 2 looked an awful lot like Amendment No. 1 (which inserted the chemtrails stuff), but with a couple of tweaks.

And what was this addition to the proposed conspiracy theory-coddling bill? Well, it was an amendment that treated the proposed law with all the respect it deserved.

WHEREAS, it is documented, among those within the pseudoscience of cryptozoology, that there exists a large and hairy human-like creature that inhabits forests of North America, and

WHEREAS, this creature is commonly referred to as a yeti, Bigfoot, or Sasquatch…

This amendment was rejected, apparently because the self-serious people engaging in chemtrail conspiracy theories felt this undercut the seriousness of banning something that wasn’t happening, has never happened, and will never happen.

[O]nly 18 representatives voted for the Sasquatch Amendment, with 71 voting against.

But the problem is not confined to the areas where the voting base views itself as “conservative,” while approving of the government expanding its remit to cover anything subject to conspiracy theories, Jewish control, or involving non-whites existing in America.

As Underhill reports, even the great liberal playground that is the Minnesota legislature has been subjected to a conspiracy theory fueled bill by state legislators who appear to believe catering to the most ignorant voters is a long-term strategy worth pursuing.

Minnesota’s SF 4630 makes Tennessee’s bill look positively sane. That one would not only ban chemtrailing—or as the bill pseudoscientifically describes it, “stratospheric aerosol injection”—it is also super-worried about “excessive electromagnetic radiation” that the same conspirators are trying to harm brains and/or the environment with. And if you have been releasing “xenobiotic agents” in Minnesota, you could be in big trouble if this passes. What are xenobiotic agents? The bill defines “xenobiotic” as “foreign to the body or to an ecological system,” and I guarantee you that whoever drafted this thing has no idea what that might mean.

There are no safe spaces in America. As we’ve suspected all along, the people with the least common sense command the most power. While we’ve seen the occasional aberration over the years, four years of Trump has resulted in a legislative dynamic where being seriously stupid is not only acceptable, but might actually be the best way to ensure re-election. Canada has never looked so good, no matter what libertarians might opine about its free healthcare and general politeness.

The only things keeping America from becoming the new Third Reich are its square footage and its diversity. But let’s not fool ourselves. Legislators who’ve traded in their reputation for a remora-esque existence on the Trump Train deeply desire a country where bigotry is backed by government force. And while the current Israel-Palestine conflict makes it extremely difficult to go after Jews directly, the moment that pressure resides, these idiots will start dipping their conspiracy into the deep well of antisemitism that has always existed in this country, adding those “foreigners” to the long list of non-whites they believe are ruining what used to be a pretty great nation.

Filed Under: alternative facts, bigfoot, chemtrails, conspiracy theories, gop, minnesota, tennessee, xenobiotics

from the looks-a-whole-lot-like-olfactory-perjury-here,-folks dept

Marijuana has been legalized pretty much everywhere in the United States. Even the DEA seems somewhat willing to move this source of easy busts off its drug schedule. At this point, there are only four states that have yet to legalize (or decriminalize) marijuana possession.

So, how is it that cops still think the “odor of marijuana” allows them to search vehicles? At best, it means they’re tossing cars because they observed a misdemeanor offense. At worst, they’re tossing cars because someone possessed an entirely legal substance.

Sure, cops can still go after impaired drivers. But the odor of marijuana is rarely indicative of anything, especially when it’s pretty much legal pretty much everywhere.

This legalization has led to cops complaining about having to put down their now-useless drug dogs, who apparently aren’t even worth keeping around as pets. And, in recent years, it’s led to courts telling cops that the odor of marijuana — something that can’t be objectively verified by judges or corroborated by body cam/dash cam recordings — is no longer the probable cause they continue to insist it is.

The state of Minnesota recently legalized recreational marijuana use/possession. Though the state won’t be moving forward with recreational weed sales until 2025, medical marijuana has been legal since 2014. This legalization of marijuana — even on a limited scale — means the “odor of marijuana” is no more indicative of illegal activity than, say, the “odor of gasoline” when it comes to traffic stops. (h/t West Central Tribune)

The ruling [PDF] issued by the state’s top court (one that affirms the rulings handed down by the previous two courts handling this case) says what everyone but cops are thinking: the odor of a legal substance does not allow cops to engage in warrantless searches of vehicles.

A Litchfield (MN) police officer pulled over Adam Togerson because he believed a light bar mounted on the grill of Torgerson’s car was “too bright.” Already we’re wading deep into subjective waters. And, of course, it wasn’t the real reason for the stop. The real reason was to try to find some reason to search the car.

The officer stated that he smelled marijuana and asked Torgerson if there was any reason for the odor. Torgerson answered no, stated he did not have marijuana on him, and denied ever having marijuana in the vehicle.

The officer and Torgerson spoke briefly about the vehicle’s light bar before the officer returned to his squad car with Torgerson’s license and registration. While the officer verified Torgerson’s license and registration, a second officer arrived on the scene. The first officer explained to the second officer that he thought he smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle and that Torgerson denied possessing marijuana. The second officer approached the vehicle and spoke briefly with Torgerson and his wife before asking if there was marijuana in the vehicle, noting that he and his partner could both smell marijuana coming from inside the vehicle. The couple, again, denied possessing marijuana, but Torgerson admitted to smoking marijuana in the distant past. The second officer stated that the marijuana odor gave them probable cause to search the vehicle and directed everyone to exit the vehicle.

Despite both officers claiming they smelled marijuana (and swearing in court they smelled marijuana), no marijuana was found during the warrantless search.

The first officer searched the vehicle and found a film cannister, three pipes, and a small plastic bag in the center console. The plastic bag contained a powdery, white substance, and the film cannister contained a brown crystal-like substance. A field test of the brown crystal-like substance tested positive for methamphetamine. The officers arrested Torgerson for possession of a controlled substance after he admitted ownership of the contraband.

To be clear, meth (whether smoked or not) does not smell like marijuana. These officers simply claimed they smelled marijuana and claimed that was all the permission they needed (either from Torgerson or the US Constitution) to search the car.

Both cops testified (vaguely) they could smell weed when they approached the car that contained no weed. Neither officer was able to recall whether they noted any signs of impairment in Torgerson.

The trial court suppressed the evidence from the warrantless car search and dismissed the charges. The state appealed. The state appellate court took a look at the case and arrived at the same conclusion. The state appealed again.

Three strikes. You’re out.

It is undisputed that the only indication that evidence of a crime or contraband may be found in Torgerson’s vehicle was the odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle. The first officer testified that he “could smell a strong odor of burnt marijuana” emanating from the vehicle, that he could not smell the odor before approaching the vehicle, and that the odor’s strength ranked as a five on a scale of one to ten. The second officer testified that he “could immediately [smell] the odor of marijuana coming from inside the vehicle,” the odor “was strong enough that [he] immediately recognized it when [he] got to the window,” and that the odor “definitely wasn’t the faintest” marijuana odor he had ever smelled, but “it definitely wasn’t the strongest.” Neither officer articulated any other circumstance contributing to their probable cause analysis.

There was nothing in Torgerson’s actions to give suspicion that he was under the influence while driving, no drug paraphernalia or other evidence to indicate that the marijuana was being used in a manner, or was of such a quantity, so as to be criminally illegal, and no evidence showing that any use was not for legal medicinal purposes. In the absence of any other evidence as part of the totality of the circumstances analysis, the evidence of the medium-strength odor of marijuana, on its own, is insufficient to establish a fair probability that the search would yield evidence of criminally illegal drug-related contraband or conduct.

The evidence that was rejected two decisions ago is rejected yet again. And now it appears the only valid criminal act is these officers’ violations of Torgerson’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Where weed is legal, it’s ridiculous to assume the odor of a legal substance — without any other evidence of criminal activity — is probable cause. At some point, no cop will be able to use this convenient excuse to engage in constitutional violations. Let’s hope that point is sooner, rather than later.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, minnesota, probable cause, warrants

Minnesota Passes Helpful But Lobbyist Limited ‘Right To Repair’ Law

from the fix-your-own-shit dept

Thu, May 25th 2023 04:22pm - Karl Bode

Despite industry best efforts to prevent it, the “right to repair” movement shows no sign of slowing down.

This week, Minnesota was the latest state to pass a new right to repair law. State lawmakers added right to repair provisions to an omnibus bill (SF 2774) after obtaining bipartisan support across both chambers. The language requires electronics manufacturers to let independent repair shops and consumers buy the parts and tools necessary to repair their own tech.

It’s a direct response to years of efforts across numerous industries designed to make repair more difficult, whether that’s by making tools and manuals hard to come by, implementing obnoxious DRM, or buying up local repair shops in a bid to create a monopoly over repair.

As is often the case, Minnesota’s new rules come with some caveats. Most notably they don’t apply to several business segments where industry efforts to monopolize repair are the worst, such as game consoles, medical equipment, or motor vehicles. Still, they cover things like appliances, which should help reduce consumer costs and prevent environmental waste.

In a statement, right to repair advocates at PIRG still called the passage a notable win:

“This is the biggest Right to Repair win to date. Minnesotans know that when things break, you fix them. And when manufacturers refuse to let us access what we need for the repair, you fix the law to make them cooperate,” said Nathan Proctor, senior director for U.S. PIRG’s Right to Repair campaign. “Repairs cut waste and save consumers money. It’s common-sense, and it is becoming increasingly clear that manufacturers’ attempts to thwart repair will no longer be tolerated. Minnesota won’t be the last state to codify that.”

Lobbyists in the auto, gaming, and medical equipment industries managed to successfully narrow the scope of the bill throughout the legislative process. The auto industry in particular has been engaged in an all out lobbying campaign to falsely claim right to repair reforms aid sexual predators. Other companies, like Apple, have tried (again, falsely) to claim right to repair is a threat to security and privacy.

Still, Minnesota is only the second state to pass meaningful right to repair restrictions. The first was New York, which saw its right to repair restrictions watered down after passage thanks to last minute wheeling and dealing by NY Gov. Kathy Hochul. The movement shows no sign of slowing down, and the more obnoxious companies are on the issue, the greater the pressure to implement reform.

Minnesota’s new rules take effect starting July 1st, 2024, and cover technology sold on or after July 1st, 2021.

Filed Under: appliance repair, bipartisan, freedom to tinker, independent repair, minnesota, monopoly, right to repair

Cop Actually Admits He Was Wrong To Brutalize A Man Who Thought He Was Being Assaulted By Criminals

from the cop-with-a-conscience dept

I don’t often highlight the things that cops do right. That’s for several reasons. First, I don’t think it’s worth applauding officers for managing to do their jobs without violating anyone’s rights. Second, I don’t think it’s cute when cops pull over people to give them Thanksgiving turkeys or aid and abet marriage proposals. That’s just hideous. And third, cops generally don’t go above and beyond too often, so there’s a limited amount of content to work with.

But I am going to highlight this because it’s so far out of the ordinary as to be noteworthy. Here’s Deena Winter with the details for the Minnesota Reformer:

“I am sorry,” former Minneapolis police officer Justin Stetson said Wednesday in a Hennepin County courtroom.

Stetson’s apology was a remarkable turn in a case that began nearly three years ago with police and prosecutors describing Stetson’s victim — Jaleel Stallings — as a would-be cop killer.

Also striking: Stetson’s admission, in a letter of apology to Stallings, saying his actions reflect a “deeper, historical and institutional problem with the Minneapolis police and how some officers have responded poorly to the urban communities.”

“I have realized there is a lack of trust in police, especially on the part of nonwhites, and that this lack of trust is foundationally related to interactions that individuals, like yourself, have had with particular officers, like myself,” he wrote. “The violence visited upon you that night has been felt by all our citizens.”

This is indeed out of the ordinary. Not only did the officer admit he was wrong, he admitted the department he worked for — as well as cop culture in general — was part of the problem. It’s the latter admission that’s more astounding: that it’s an institutional problem, rather than just a few “bad apples.”

The former officer was one of several Minneapolis PD officers who assaulted Jaleel Stallings while roaming the street in an unmarked van, casually popping off non-lethal rounds at anyone they happened to see on the streets during protests that erupted in the city following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

They hit Jaleel K. Stallings, 29, a St. Paul truck driver, who says he didn’t know they were cops because they were inside an unmarked white cargo van with the police lights off. He thought they were real bullets. And, he says he was mindful of warnings earlier that day from no less than Gov. Tim Walz that white supremacists were roaming the city looking for trouble.

Stallings was not only brutalized by cops but charged with second-degree murder, first-degree assault, and second-degree riot. He fired off one round well over the top of the unmarked van. For that act of self-defense, he was beaten, even though he dropped his gun and laid facedown on the ground as soon as he realized they were police officers. For his innocent mistake, he was brutalized and jailed until a prosecutor — having viewed the officers’ body cams — dropped the charges that could have netted Stalling more than decade in prison.

The city of Minneapolis was not nearly as apologetic when it settled Stallings’ civil rights lawsuit for $1.5 million. The payout came coupled with the city’s refusal to admit guilt or take any responsibility for its officers’ actions on that night.

Now, as remarkable as former officer Stetson’s admission and apology are, there are several caveats that detract from its power.

The first is the settlement above, which has already absolved the city and the PD of any wrongdoing. It may be an implicit expression of guilt, but it’s not an explicit admission, which is what matters when it comes to holding the city and PD accountable in the future.

Then there’s the effect this admission has on the officer himself. His admission came with a plea deal on lesser charges, meaning that — no matter how sincere his statement might be — this rare admission of guilt was in the officer’s best interests.

The officer, who testified he beat Stallings so severely he wondered whether he had broken his own hand, pleaded to lesser charges to ensure he won’t face any jail time. That plea deal came coupled with some other stipulations, which also detract from the impact of his apology.

He must enroll in an anger management course; will never be allowed to be a Minnesota police officer again; cannot use firearms; and will serve 30 to 90 days of community service.

Being blocked from further law enforcement employment in Minnesota likely contributed to this admission of guilt. If he had an opportunity to return to the force, it’s unlikely Officer Stetson would have thrown himself and his employer under the proverbial bus while awaiting sentencing. Even if the court had not stipulated his ousting from state law enforcement work, his statement would have assured his inability to secure a law enforcement job.

Finally, there’s the point made by Stallings — the victim of this officer’s assault and the recipient of a $1.5 million settlement from the city:

Stallings noted he will have served more jail time than all the officers in the SWAT team combined.

That undercuts all of this. The only actually innocent person in this incident is the only person who spent any time in jail. There is no deterrent to officers like the belatedly regretful Stetson. And that means officers will continue to behave carelessly and casually violate rights because the odds of them actually being held personally accountable for their actions hovers near zero percent. It’s the policed that pay, not only in terms of the violence inflicted on them, but for the defense of those who engaged in this violence.

Thanks for the nice words, former Officer Stetson. But until we start hearing this more often and from officers not trying to dodge jail time, they’re almost as worthless as the pixels they’re printed on.

Filed Under: hennepin county, jaleel stallings, justin stetson, minneapolis, minneapolis pd, minnesota, self-defense

Killer Cop Derek Chauvin Still Costing Minneapolis, Minnesota Millions Of Dollars

from the perpetual-pain dept

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin isn’t done hurting city residents. He may be imprisoned but he’s still costing the city millions of dollars. And these cases aren’t related to the brutal act that saw him charged and convicted for murder.

Officer Chauvin did this to himself. He may have been aided and abetted by officers who decided Chauvin’s choking of a person to death by placing his knee on the putative arrestee’s neck for nearly 10 minutes did not create the sort of incident in which they should intervene. Those enablers are facing their own criminal sentences.

But the image of a white cop pressing a knee to a black man’s neck for an extended period of time — and for nearly three minutes after another officer told Chauvin he couldn’t detect a pulse — unleashed a summer of powerful protests and ushered in a movement to drastically alter the terms and conditions of being subjected to force deployment by cops.

Since then we’ve witnessed some positive developments and some disturbing embraces of the pre-Chauvin status quo. But while Chauvin may have been locked up for murdering George Floyd (suspected of nothing else than allegedly passing a fake $20 bill at a local shop), that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of continuing to make Minnesotans pay for his actions.

Two people who sued former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, seven other officers and the City of Minneapolis over excessive force, racial discrimination and misconduct will receive millions of dollars as part of a settlement agreed upon by the city Thursday morning.

During a closed session of a meeting Thursday, city councilors agreed to settle with John Pope and Zoya Code for a combined price of 8.875million.Popewillreceive8.875 million. Pope will receive 8.875million.Popewillreceive7.5 million, with Code set to end up with $1.375 million.

This looks like a cop with a criminal record. Maybe no criminal charges were ever sustained, but his employer had to know the (litigation) problems Officer Chauvin created. And yet, nothing was done until after he was caught on camera murdering a city resident.

Sure, it’s the city paying for this. But the city doesn’t generate its own income. It collects taxes. And money that actually might have helped city residents is instead being spent to settle lawsuits generated by a cop the city should have cut loose long before he racked himself up on a murder beef.

While the city has agreed to pay victims of Chauvin millions, it has been much more cagey about the documentation involved with the incidents that lead to a nearly $9 million payout.

A spokesperson says the City of Minneapolis hasn’t released the body camera footage for both incidents as of this time, saying it is private data under a state law. However, both Pope and Code may release the video as soon as Thursday due to them being subjects of the footage.

The people who will provide needed transparency are the people who were the victims of Chauvin’s unconstitutional acts. They’ve secured this footage during litigation and they’ve stated they’re willing to release it.

Meanwhile, the city has decided to side with cops by not releasing footage litigants have had for months, if not years. And for what? To protect one of its worst cops?

The city — the employer of the officer formerly known as “Officer Chauvin” — ignored these early warning signs, sent its own lawyers out to defend him, and have only paid up because a murder conviction isn’t the sort of thing you can easily shrug off, even when you’re in the business of stifling accountability.

The allegations are disturbing. One of the recipients of a settlement is John Pope, who was only 14 years old when Chauvin “rushed Pope,” struck him multiple times with a flashlight, and ended the “encounter” by pinning Pope to the ground with his knee on his neck.

All of this leads to the kind of questions no government, at any level, appears willing to answer honestly. This litigation arrived years before Chauvin was charged and convicted. Does it take murder charges to finally admit (at least monetarily) you’ve been employing a bad cop for years? Or did the city consider Chauvin to be a good cop until it became politically inconvenient to do so?

The city had prior warning. So did his cop shop employer. And yet, neither entity did anything until after Chauvin was convicted on murder charges. If that’s the line cops must cross before being written off, Minnesotans are in for a world of hurt — both as victims of police misconduct and as benefactors obliged to let the city buy forgiveness with their money.

Filed Under: derek chauvin, george floyd, minneapolis, minnesota

The 404 Awards: Honoring The Worst Of The Worst Tech Policy Ideas

from the 404-open-internet-not-found dept

Today is April 4th, or 04/04 no matter which direction you use for showing dates (and, look, while it’s ingrained in my head, I think we can all admit that the US version of month/day/year is kinda weird.).

But, error code 404 is (somewhat famously) the HTML code for “page not found.” In the early days you’d get a boringish page that looked like this:

But, then someone realized you could customize your 404 and you usually get a more stylistic (and occasionally amusing?) page denoting that you’ve gone to the wrong place, and the page you were asking for is not to be found.

Either way, the good folks at the Chamber of Progress, who have been doing an amazing job tracking all of the many, many, many (seriously, too many to count) state bills that attack the open internet, have now released the 404 Awards on 04/04 to recognize (I wouldn’t say celebrate…) some of the worst policy proposals to attack the open internet. It’s such a good idea that I’m kinda mad I never thought of it and did it right here on Techdirt.

Welcome to the First Annual Tech 404 Awards, a celebration of the worst of the worst tech policy ideas that 2023 has to offer. In a special nod to the Error Code 404 landing page – which tells users their link is broken or page doesn’t exist – our Tech 404 Awards recognize legislation that threatens to break the Internet and harm digital consumers.

Every year, some lawmakers introduce and debate thoughtful, well-intentioned legislation with the goal of making the Internet a better place. Others sit down with pen and paper and scratch out the first tech policy idea that makes for a good sound bite. It’s anyone’s guess as to which bill will pass.

I should note that some people get all up in arms about claims that something will “break the internet,” but when people make that claim they do not mean that these bills will completely kill the internet to the point that it no longer exists, but rather that they will significantly harm the fundamental principles and framework that make the internet what it is today – an open, accessible, and innovative platform for communication, commerce, and creativity.

The list of “winners” includes Utah’s new “protect the children” bills, Texas’ bill to force ISPs to block abortion websites, NY’s and Minnesota’s bills to add a tax to delivery services, Iowa’s bill that effectively opens up massive fines for social media companies if they do any moderation, and Ron DeSantis’s entire tech agenda, which wins the “Worst Constitutional Violations” award.

Congrats to all the winners, and sorry to all the losers… which is made up of basically everyone who relies on and uses the open internet.

Filed Under: 404 awards, bad bills, florida, iowa, minnesota, new york, utah

County Benchslapped For Illegally Detaining All Foreign-Born People For Pickup By ICE, Even If They’re American Citizens

from the don't-be-evil dept

This is some kind of ugly. When law enforcement starts talking about being “proactive,” it’s time to start worrying about your rights. Here’s what happened to Myriam Parada after a routine traffic stop.

Parada ended up in the Anoka County Jail after an officer discovered that she had been driving without a license. While going through the booking process, she had to disclose her country of birth, which was Mexico. Even after deeming her “[r]eady for [r]elease,” Anoka County continued to hold her while a deputy contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE.

That’s from the Eighth Circuit Appeals Court decision [PDF], which affirms Parada’s win in the lower court, over the inane and insane protestations of the county in Minnesota.

Instead of being free to go, Parada was subjected to an unofficial county policy — one that resulted in her being held at the jail for four hours before she was finally released. The policy can’t be found with the rest of the county policies because someone was smart enough to realize this unconstitutional bullshit probably shouldn’t be memoralized.

The delay was due to Anoka County’s “unwritten policy requiring its employees to contact ICE every time a foreign-born individual is detained, irrespective of whether the person is a U.S. citizen.” (Emphasis added). The way it works is simple: “If the individual [says] they were born abroad, the jail will send ICE a notification” and “attempt[] to wait to start release procedures . . . until [it] hear[s] back,” which “could take between 20 minutes and 6 hours.”

The Appeals Court says the lower court got this exactly right:

The district court’s conclusion was correct: Anoka County’s policy is a classic example of national-origin discrimination. On its face, it treats people differently depending on where they were born. […] Those born abroad must wait anywhere from 20 minutes to 6 hours longer while deputies consult ICE. For those born in the United States, by contrast, there is no call and release is immediate.

Anoka County suggested it was just trying to help out ICE by “giving ICE an opportunity” to investigate the legal status of arrestees without “burdening” ICE with “too many false positives.” The Appeals Court says the county’s interest may be “compelling,” but the judges follow that up with “we have our doubts about it.”

Even if this were a compelling law enforcement interest, it absolutely cannot be handled this way.

The bigger problem, however, is Anoka County’s scattershot approach to accomplishing its interest. By its own statistics, more than half of the foreign-born individuals it referred to ICE turned out to be American citizens. It is not hard to figure out why. For one thing, many who are born elsewhere will have already become American citizens. Consider a few examples. By the strict terms of the policy, it would apply to famous actors like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger—both long-time American citizens not to mention six former members of the United States Supreme Court.

The policy is also underinclusive: it will miss people who are American-born children of foreign diplomats or who have renounced their citizenship, like American-born Jews who have accepted sole citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return. The point is that Anoka County’s chosen means were not “specifically and narrowly framed to accomplish” its interest.

A better way to handle this would be literally anything else. Detainees could be asked about their citizenship status. Some sort of reasonable suspicion could be applied to the process for making ICE referrals. For a county that claims in court it did not want to “burden” ICE with too many “false positives,” it did exactly that more than half the time.

And the county can’t escape this lawsuit (one it has already lost) by asking for immunity. As the Appeals Court points out, the fact that the policy is “unwritten” means the county has already lost the statutory immunity argument.

On the surface, there seems to be little doubt that Anoka County’s unwritten policy was a planning-level decision. When individual employees later followed it, the challenge to their conduct became a challenge to the “policy itself,” meaning statutory immunity would normally apply.

But the normal rule takes a back seat when there is no evidence “to support [a] statutory[-]immunity claim.” Conlin, 605 N.W.2d at 402. As the Minnesota Supreme Court has put it, “[t]he burden is on the [County] to show it engaged in protected policy-making.” And here, Anoka County failed to produce any evidence about how it reached its decision, including whether it considered any “financial, political, economic, and social effects.” Under these circumstances, the consequences are clear: it is “not entitled to statutory immunity.”

The unconstitutional, unwritten policy is hopefully no longer not officially on the books. To put it more clearly, hopefully the staff at the Anoka County Jail is no longer illegally holding foreign-born arrestees solely for the purpose of allowing ICE to take a shot at them. The affirmed loss means the county owes Parada 30,000forthewrongfuldetainment.Butitalsowillbeburdeningresidentswithamuchbiggerbill:nearly30,000 for the wrongful detainment. But it also will be burdening residents with a much bigger bill: nearly 30,000forthewrongfuldetainment.Butitalsowillbeburdeningresidentswithamuchbiggerbill:nearly250,000 in legal fees headed to Parada’s representation. And that’s on top of whatever it blew on three attempts to get this ruling overturned. That’s a lot of money to spend on a policy so obviously discriminatory, even jail staff should have been aware of the potential downside.

Filed Under: 8th circuit, anoka county, citizens, detention, ice, minnesota

Supreme Court Asked To Deny Qualified Immunity To County Engineer Who Decided Entrapment Was The Best Use Of Taxpayer Money

from the pettiest-of-tyrants dept

We all know this country is capable of evils normally associated with authoritarian regimes — things like torture, illegal spying, the occasional exhortation to commit suicide, etc. But we expect the country we love to only violate our sense of justice for big things: War on Terror, War on Drugs, War on… Equal Rights, I guess.

But government agencies and employees are capable of extremely petty evils — the sort far more often associated with authoritarian regimes. Everyone just kind of accepts violent crushing of dissent, state-sponsored terrorism, and ethnic cleansing as being the things bad governments do. But we expect even the worst governments to do bad things in big ways, rather than do shitty things to individuals who don’t serve their larger schemes just because.

But that’s what we’re dealing with here. Even worse, this petty abuse of law-abiding citizens has already been given a free pass by an appeals court. Here’s what the Eighth Circuit Appeals Court ok’ed last November, as recounted by Stephen Montemayor for the Minnesota Star Tribune.

The state contracted Central Specialties in 2016 for road work on a state highway. According to the company’s attorneys, the agreement “roused new disagreements in an already contentious relationship between CSI (Central Specialties) and Large, centering on the number of roads that would be designed as haul roads and the company’s ability to use non-haul roads as a return route for its empty trucks.”

The company told Large one day in July 2017 that it planned to use a non-haul road to bring home empty semitrucks. The next morning, he persuaded Mahnomen County’s board of commissioners to change the highway’s weight restriction so that even the empty trucks would violate the weight limit. Central Specialties’ attorneys argue that Large violated the constitutional rights of its employees when he pulled over two trucks and detained them for more than three hours over the new weight limit established earlier that day. The local Sheriff’s Office and tribal police refused to intervene and a State Patrol citation for the trucks was dismissed a day later.

The “Large” mentioned above is Mahnomen County Engineer Jonathan Large. He disagreed with the capability of the roads to carry even the load of empty trucks. And, despite only having authority over a small stretch of the affected roads, Large changed the road limit roughly one hour before CSI’s trucks hit the road. Road signs were deployed. Whether or not they were placed before CSI’s empty trucks began rolling is still up for debate. And the company was never informed of the weight limit change by Large. Instead, Large contacted a Minnesota Dept. of Transportation project manager, who supposedly sent out an email roughly an hour after they had been informed of the change by Large.

Having set up CSI to fail, Large parked his county vehicle across the road, preventing CSI trucks from moving forward. He then called the local sheriff’s office. The local sheriff informed Large the department did not have officers to spare to help the county engineer pretend to be a cop. Large then called tribal police from White Earth. They arrived at the scene but decided they did not have jurisdiction. Finally, Large called the Minnesota state police — the only agency willing to oblige the engineer in his unilateral, unsupported-by-law, quasi-traffic stop. Troopers cited the first driver of an empty truck for violating the brand new, established-earlier-that-day weight limit. The troopers did not cite any other CSI drivers. In total, the drivers were detained for more than three hours by Large’s largely unilateral law enforcement effort.

The Eighth Circuit said this was fine [PDF]. Well, maybe it wasn’t fine, but (quite understandably) it could find no analogous precedent that would have put Mr. Large on notice that changing the law at short notice before pretending he was some sort of cop would result in clearly established rights violations. The court reasoned (I use that term carelessly) that Large only “stopped” the truck from proceeding. He did not prevent them from exiting the area by turning around and finding another route. But when a county car blocks a road, most drivers for contractors currently in the employ of the government would logically assume they were not free to leave… not if they didn’t want to be subjected to something worse than what they were already experiencing.

The Institute of Justice wants the Supreme Court to re-examine this issue. Should county employees be granted qualified immunity for behaving like law enforcement officers (even if they had no power to do so)? And should they be allowed to escape a lawsuit that was the direct result of a county employee securing a last-minute law change to use against drivers who had no way of knowing the roads they had previously been given permission access to use were now closed to them?

The situation the Institute of Justice wants the Supreme Court to take another look at is akin to a person pouring accelerant, gathering flammable materials, laying matches carelessly close to both, and then exiting the scene before the fire starts. That the fire didn’t start until other people arrived on the scene doesn’t mean the person who set the whole thing up is blameless. That other professionals took over and ensured the property was properly arsoned doesn’t absolve the instigator. That everyone involved was a government employee doesn’t make any of this more acceptable.

As the IJ’s report on the ongoing case notes, it has now been accompanied by a couple of law professors who — like the Institute for Justice itself — would prefer not to see qualified immunity expanded to cover something that really looks like vindictive entrapment performed by a county engineer who used his county-branded car to act like a cop until he could convince real cops to finish his dirty work for him.

But this is being tossed into the current Supreme Court, which appears to be very selective about what cases it will address. Lately, it seems far more interested in discussing opportunities to limit rights enjoyed by citizens while expanding the government’s ability (at both federal and local levels) to control what citizens can or can’t do. Very little of its recent work seems willing to act as a check on government power. And this case, unfortunately, is right in that wheelhouse, which means it’s far more likely to deny cert than examine a case that might result in qualified immunity being reined back in.

Filed Under: 8th circuit, entrapment, jonathan large, mahnomen county, minnesota, qualified immunity, supreme court