Here's a nickle. That's well said.

Here in Ohio, most police chiefs are appointed by mayors and approved by city councils.  Our county sheriffs are elected.  So the chiefs are tied to politics, at least here in Ohio which is where the case we are talking about occurred.  While the woman's arrest was a case of mistaken identity, the protocols that are in place that dictated the aftermath are mostly a result of zero tolerance, imo.

The weekend is no excuse for any lapses, especially when the welfare of a new born and their mother is involved.  Resolving this situation should become a highest priority, that is unless the police assume that the woman is who they think she is and she deserves all the maltreatment she gets.  It is this attitude that is really at the heart of the matter.  The system believes that everyone is guilty until they prove their innocence.  Go into court for even a petty offense and when you go to the clerk's window to pay your fine, more often than not, you get treated like a dirt bag.  The only place you get presumed innocent is in the court room itself, and then it is only because they have to.

I see nothing that shows any sloppy work on the part of police.  They were just doing their job given the information at hand.  The woman is definitely entitled to redress and compensation.  Her children were seized from her, she lost her job and most importantly she now has an arrest for heroin trafficking that will follow her for the rest of her life.  While the charges were dropped, one's arrest record is almost always never changed.  Her next encounter with any law enforcement will immediately show this arrest detail and her treatment will immediately change in a bad way.

The System, is a faceless entity that is monolithic, uncaring and unresponsive to outside influences.  It only recognizes names and numbers.  Humans are its commodity and nothing more.  The only thing it reacts to is money and power.  You cannot punish the system.  All you can do is charge the system with a debt that it must pay.  Who pays that debt does not matter to the system.  It will continue along its merry way and let the legal experts decide who pays what to whom.  The members of the system are just as stuck in it as are their charges (us) and have little control over it.  The system rarely (read never) learns from its mistakes.  The only learning that goes on is at the gatekeeper level.  Those who capture and admit us to the entry point which takes me back to zero tolerance.  If you have never been formally admitted into the system, it is hard to understand what it really is.  Once in, you no longer have any control over your life until it releases you, completely.  As in all fines, sentences and restrictions have been satisfied and lifted.  

So in the case of this woman, I would deem her an award of $1 million dollars, after legal fees.  She may find herself unemployable after this arrest through no fault of her own based simply on her arrest record.  This amount should be sufficient to set her up for the rest of her life.  What she ends up doing with the money is of no one's concern.  They take her as she is and can not judge her and her abilities or lack of.  No one is going to be fired over this other than the woman herself.  More than likely insurance companies will pay the money, so the government will not suffer any losses nor learn any lessons.  We will see more of these situations as time progresses, not less as the long arm of the law gets longer and longer.

The only things that governments understand is money and even that is debatable.  Let's keep this simple.

My 2¢

Not sure what you're proposing as this ideal fix. Police departments don't generally answer to civil government; police chiefs are (everywhere I've ever lived anyway) separately elected and can't be fired. They are unaccountable by design.

That is also a political remedy. It works if the majority gets outraged, but this kind of abuse happens to minorities. In this case, a minority of one.

What we need is a remedy that can punish law enforcement—an over-arching authority that can prosecute the people who normally make prosecution decisions. Seems like maybe a role for state government.

This has nothing to do with division. In fact one-party states (like California or Wyoming) are probably more vulnerable to abuse of power than places with contested politics.

It also isn't clear that this case is abuse of power, other than the law she was arrested under itself, which isn't the cops' fault. This is more a garden-variety blunder, a case of mistaken identity. Sloppy work is not abuse of power, that implies intent and I don't see that here. But carelessness with power also needs to be held to account and law enforcement doesn't have a very good track record there either.

islander wrote:

Not sure what you're proposing as this ideal fix. Police departments don't generally answer to civil government; police chiefs are (everywhere I've ever lived anyway) separately elected and can't be fired. They are unaccountable by design.

That is also a political remedy. It works if the majority gets outraged, but this kind of abuse happens to minorities. In this case, a minority of one.

What we need is a remedy that can punish law enforcement—an over-arching authority that can prosecute the people who normally make prosecution decisions. Seems like maybe a role for state government.

This has nothing to do with division. In fact one-party states (like California or Wyoming) are probably more vulnerable to abuse of power than places with contested politics.

It also isn't clear that this case is abuse of power, other than the law she was arrested under itself, which isn't the cops' fault. This is more a garden-variety blunder, a case of mistaken identity. Sloppy work is not abuse of power, that implies intent and I don't see that here. But carelessness with power also needs to be held to account and law enforcement doesn't have a very good track record there either.

It also isn't clear that this case is abuse of power, other than the law she was arrested under itself, which isn't the cops' fault. This is more a garden-variety blunder, a case of mistaken identity. Sloppy work is not abuse of power, that implies intent and I don't see that here. But carelessness with power also needs to be held to account and law enforcement doesn't have a very good track record there either.

None of Y'all?  I think we have a reasonably well demonstrated  (and warranted)  fear of abuse of power. The civil court just happens to be about the  only recourse that is ever effective. Sure you could lobby your city council and see about getting some real accountability, but most within the departments won't speak our, and then there is the fear of continued harassment.   As long as our politics is so completely divided, our governance will continue to fail to serve us all. 

ScottFromWyoming wrote:

Agree that punitive damages don't help, disagree that they are ever merited. Punishment is not what civil law is for, that's what criminal law is for. Adding punishment to civil law distorts the outcomes as well as the process.

The process itself is punitive, tho not intentionally. Things like discovery get abused to make it abusive, and the cost of the process is by itself a weapon.

I'm also fascinated that what got the comments was the likelihood that she will sue rather than the abuse of power that caused the problem in the first place. None of y'all can see this happening to you?

 Red_Dragon wrote:
 

I think the quote is "buzzards gotta eat, same as worms..."

but who's counting?

ScottFromWyoming wrote:

Agree that punitive damages don't help, disagree that they are ever merited. Punishment is not what civil law is for, that's what criminal law is for. Adding punishment to civil law distorts the outcomes as well as the process.

The process itself is punitive, tho not intentionally. Things like discovery get abused to make it abusive, and the cost of the process is by itself a weapon.

I'm also fascinated that what got the comments was the likelihood that she will sue rather than the abuse of power that caused the problem in the first place. None of y'all can see this happening to you?