Mr Bearded Truth – 12 – Qualified Immunity with Spike Cohen

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FULL TRANSCRIPT TEXT

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hello and welcome to mr america the
bearded truth covering political and
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and important discussions on topics that
affect us all
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brightening the future by bringing
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and now your host the friendly
neighborhood libertarian jason lyon mr
america the bearded truth on muddy
waters media
hello everybody welcome in
i am so excited for tonight’s episode
tonight’s show we have one a hell of a
guest
um i don’t say this about everybody but
i say this about everybody who comes on
um one hell of a man coming on tonight
to have an incredible discussion
all around qualified immunity
and so without further ado uh we gotta
do all the housekeeping stuff so welcome
in this is of course somebody waters
media production um so excited for matt
and spike for giving me an opportunity
to come on here and and talk about my
opinions my views and and everything
going on and as the intro goes thank you
of course to brian scott lambrick and
jennifer for that um we’re going to be
talking about all these different topics
one issue at a time one liberty at a
time and so tonight’s we’re coming on
with spike himself spike cohen the 2020
vice presidential candidate
oh
it’s exciting
it’s amazing
i i i can’t believe that this is a thing
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so without further ado
let’s bring the man on if you guys could
please give a warm welcome to spike uh
spike we have the nards cohen welcome on
for the first time
to the mr mark of the bearded truth how
are you doing tonight sir we have the
nerds that is
like to think kennedy and a guy named
uh kevin walling for making that the new
thing that everyone says about me which
happened in illinois this weekend
multiple people coming up saying nards
nars i’m like yeah nerds thank you
jason i am so happy to be on the show as
i was sitting here listening to you with
your incredible hosting that you’re
doing so far
my first thought was
i’m so glad to finally be on this show
after
what three years of you being on on uh
on the muddy water stand roughly
roughly with it with a couple high eight
i
um and then
as i’m sitting here i think but wait a
second
that means that he hasn’t had me on his
show
for three years
so now i’m angry
so i’m going to try to push past my
anger
because i do love you it’s like it hurts
it’s more of a hurt than an anger but
i’m also angry you are
on my top list of i i don’t know i’ll
i’ll shorten it top 25 libertarians
names 25 libertarians name spike no it’s
good there we go that’s good so you had
to see you had to interview the other 24
and now you’ve gotten
to your
25th favorite spike and then you know we
just had like the
in in typical spike form it took a
little while for the responses and and
so you know they’re very busy spikes and
so you just so
don’t hate that oh no i get them yeah
and
it’s
i’m sorry listen
i am not i am not upset well i am upset
but i’m not i’m not going to let that
influence
our discussion because i think it’s very
important also small uh small
housekeeping thing it’s actually and i
by the way i’m not beating you up on
this because i said it incorrectly many
many times it’s technically anchor dot f
anchor dot fm slash muddied waters
okay not media okay i did that many
times i told uh matt and i think matt
did it many times too and then finally
he’s like chess body waters i’m like oh
just money watch so it’s anchor dot fm
slash muddy waters uh for our podcasting
and all and anchor dot fm slash money
water slash subscribe to become a
musketeer a musketeer so that was the
official name i was gonna ask you that
was actually i don’t know we you took my
i don’t you took my first question from
you so so okay now we both are sitting
oh man so tonight i
as i was um running through this this
new segment that we have where we we
take one topic and we run through it um
i i wanted to find good prominent
libertarians who are good messengers and
could you know sell this and and as i
was trying to talk to people and being
like hey you know do you guys know
anybody do you have any ideas out there
um
you’d be surprised with how many people
went spyco and qualified immunity and so
i was like well
that’s it we have to do this um i’ve got
a local activist here in my county that
uh she’s like both of my kids
first of all
got
told that spike hates kids um but also
that they loved his take on qualified
immunity and so that’s all that they
talk about and
so
that guy who hates kids
is really good about qualified immunity
yes so so next time we’ll have to talk
about kids um but
and why i don’t hate them yes i just
have some concerns about their community
yes yes they they’re they’re reckless
and but the child community needs to
make
needs to stop making excuses and own
some of their failures
yes
and they need to clean the room once in
a while they need to clean and they
definitely need to clean their room okay
you know listen to jordan peterson you
got to make your bed yeah or else
or the lobster she’ll get you or
something to that lobsters well the
blobsters are in
what happens the early bed maker gets
the lobster because when you
when you
when you’re putting the stuff up in your
bed you’re like oh who put this lobster
here and george peterson’s like it’s me
anyway so
qualified immunity is very important um
speaking of qualified media so
qualify i guess it’s probably important
to talk start with what qualified yeah
even is yes what it is and where it came
from yes
so coming i coming we both kind of come
from the right originally like made
and it’s interesting seeing our our our
cohorts from the right who will say
things like well you know qualified
immunity
is what keeps uh police officers from
getting uh sued recklessly for you know
for you know
they can’t they can’t even do their job
any time they go and pull someone over
they’re gonna get sued for pulling
someone over and you know the the the
left just wants to end qualified
immunity so cops can’t do their job and
protect our freedoms which
it’s a whole other discussion but the
the
what qualified immunity is
the short answer
is
qualified immunity is the equivalent of
being able if you got sued for negligent
homicide or if you got sued for uh you
know contributing to someone’s death
in a way that by breaking the law or
being a malfeasan or negligent
and you go to
court
and say your honor
i was just doing my job do my turn and i
was just doing my gerb and the the
the judge goes
oh
well in that case i’m dropping all
charges that’s qualified immunity so
here’s the history behind qualified
immunity
uh in
1871 it was either 1870 or 1871 i
believe 1871. yes a law was passed this
was during the reconstruction era after
the
uh the civil war ended and especially in
the south but really across the country
you had police that were being
weaponized mostly against black people
but they were honestly they were being
weaponized against everyone but they
were the ones feeling it especially in
the south the most where you literally
had police that were just rounding
people up and you know trying them for
things that you know were bogus or they
just round them up and lynch them
sometimes they wouldn’t even bother
uh to uh you know round them up and uh
and do a kangaroo trial they would just
round them up and kill them
and so
the federal government was limited in
what they could do other than to because
this was before the days of you know
federal involvement in policing this was
before the days of um this was before
the days of there really being an active
uh civil rights movement really the only
thing that could be done was for uh
black people or anyone that was being
marginalized by government to just use
guns to defend themselves so the the
federal government introduced something
called the civil rights act of 1871.
uh i believe it was actually the first
civil rights act and it did many
different things but one of the things
it did was it made it the law
that you could sue someone
you could sue a police officer or a
government agent or a politician and you
know anyone in government you could sue
them
if they violated the law and violated
your rights in doing so
so this this was if they had broken the
law and they had violated your rights in
doing so you could sue them just like
you could sue everyone else because up
until that point there was a question as
to whether you could do that because um
they used to they had the idea of
sovereign immunity and it was not quite
clear whether that applied to individual
agents of the state or just the
government itself and they said no
that’s just for the government
individual individual agents of the
state including police officers can’t do
this to you which i think is the right
decision
i mean i would have liked for the
government not to have immunity either
but yes
if not completely eliminated this at
least says individual bad actors can be
sued okay yeah um so into the 1960s
i’m trying to remember the exact year
but it was in the 1960s 69 where the was
it
if you’re talking about the supreme
court opinion 69 yes the supreme court
opinion so up until then during the
civil rights era you had a a slate of of
um lawsuits that were being filed
against police officers who were
violating the law and violating people’s
rights and
one of them made it to the supreme court
i wish i could remember the exact one
but one of them made it to the supreme
court where the police had again this
was established that they had broken the
law and that they had violated people’s
rights
and
they sued and it went all the way to the
supreme court who said
no
uh actually you can’t sue them because
if what they’re doing is within the
scope of their job
and uh
then you and there wasn’t so at this
point it wasn’t quite as bad
qualified immunity was being introduced
but it said that as long as there was a
reasonable suspicion to think that they
didn’t know that this law had changed
that it had been reasonably that there
was a reasonable uh um i forget the
exact wording but basically reasonable
suspicion that they didn’t know that
this was against the law now keep in
mind if you or i said hey we didn’t know
that was against the law they’d say
ignorance is no excuse yeah
the law is no excuse but for police
officers yes they actually absolutely if
they if it’s reasonable to think that
they were uh that they didn’t know then
they would be immune and this began the
idea of qualified immunity now it keeps
getting worse
with each new decision
for qualified immunity every time it
went to the top courts the supreme court
would make it tougher and tougher and
tougher until eventually we get to what
we have now
reasonable suspicion
means that unless that exact same
thing
hasn’t already happened in that exact
same jurisdiction not just in the us but
in that exact district
that that federal court district if that
happened in that exact same jurisdiction
that they are and had already been found
to be illegal in violation of someone’s
rights and that person was given
qualified immunity for it if that hadn’t
already happened
then the officer in this case can say
well your honor you couldn’t have
possibly expected me to know that i i
couldn’t possibly yeah and that has led
to some of the most ridiculous things
like one example is there were police
officers who already had someone
detained already had his uh he was
already i think he was lying he was
either sitting up or lying down but he
had his hands behind his back he was
detained he was no threat he was
neutralized they went ahead and just
stick their canine dog on there a k-9
officer on him just for fun and he
mauled the guy
that guy sued them
and there was even another example in
that jurisdiction
where the where police officers had
sicked a canine on someone who had been
uh who had been uh restrained and was no
longer a threat but these cops were
still given qualified immunity because
in that first case the suspect was
sitting up and in this case the suspect
was lying down or in that first case
they were lying down and the suspect
went but literally the difference
between lying down and sitting up
changed whether or not this qualify
there there have been exam there was
another example where police officers
stole 250 000 worth of precious coins
and they weren’t sued for it
because that hadn’t happened yet and how
could the officers have possibly known
that it was illegal to steal someone’s
property well i mean with with of course
we’ve had this conversation the previous
episode but with things like civil asset
forfeiture
it’s legal for them to steal it how
would they know that it’s illegal for
them to steal it if it’s legal
nobody though here’s the problem because
that actually i guess they could say
that but in that case in civil asset
forfeiture perfectly fine guys because
that goes to that agency yeah it’s
actually laundered through the federal
government and then it goes to that
agency and shared with the federal
government in this case they’re keeping
it for themselves that’s wrong that’s
that civilization is perfectly fine but
no so so i i guess maybe that was what
they used while your honor we’d steal
all day long we figured we literally
plunder every car that drives past us
this every single car we’re robbing
everyone we can’t keep some coins we
didn’t know that well i guess we know
now listen learn right
but this is qualified immunity
and you know
we can talk some more about what that
ends up leading to
but but the reality is qualified
immunity does not protect officers who
are just doing their job it does not
protect i heard another example
firefighters who you know they decide
that you know this house the fire is
already too far gone and so they just
start protecting the other houses and
and pouring water on you know uh um
using hoses on the other houses to try
to maintain that that’s not illegal that
is them deciding what is the best thing
to do they can’t be sued for that that
falls well within the regular scope of
work uh an officer who pulls someone
over isn’t going to be sued an officer
pulls someone over and it was determined
that the force that they used was
reasonable is not going to be sued the
only time that this is ever invoked has
ever been invoked and never would be
invoked is when it has been established
that the officer broke the law or the
firefighter broke the law or the cps
worker broke the law or whatever else
and
they had violated someone’s rights in
doing so and then they still don’t get
sued
and and
and i think that
you know
we’ll certainly get into this kind of in
the
in the end of this but even
for like the argument of all these
officers are going to get sued
and and the idea that these are all
gonna be you’re gonna have frivolous
lawsuits of an officer merely pulled
somebody over and then you get sued
right
right i i isn’t it the court’s purpose
to even take kind of frivolous lawsuits
and go yeah this is frivolous and throw
it out i
because exactly in in my
very uneducated reading of the first
amendment it says we have the right to
redress our grievances against
government yes that’s crazy so so
but
we haven’t had a supreme court case on
that so qualified immunity
and so exactly and and that’s a good
point to make man because we hear this a
lot like well it’s just going to tie up
our courts with lawsuits well
it’s tying up our courts now
you have a case of someone who blatantly
violated the law and violated someone’s
rights in doing so and instead of the
local judge saying yeah i know this he
broke the law in this case the case can
go forward instead it gets taken all the
way to the supreme court how is that not
tying up i mean there’s far more of a
backlog at the federal court level uh
than there is
typically typically at the local or
state court level why not stop clogging
it up there yeah because now you’re
forcing every case against an officer to
go all the way to the supreme court to
determine whether that’s already
happened in that jurisdiction so that
actually clogs up the courts and again
you can right now file a frivolous suit
of it against a cop
or or a firefighter all that’s going to
happen is it’s going to go in front of a
judge and they’re going to go they
didn’t even do anything wrong what was
your problem like they didn’t break the
law they didn’t violate your rights but
you know you can’t
this is that we’re throwing this out
that’s all that would happen in this
case no one’s gonna be empowered to file
bad lawsuits all this does is when at
that point when the judge goes
yeah this broke the law this violated
the rights instead of forcing it to go
all the way to scotus now they can say
okay the lawsuit goes ahead and they can
actually and again the the the jury
can decide whether uh whether it rises
to the case of deserving of a lawsuit
you still are being judged by a jury of
your peers or whatever and they can
decide what the reward should be and
what if you’re if what you’re asking for
is too much or whatever but that’s all
you need to allow people to have due
process if it’s been determined that the
person in government has violated the
law and violated your rights in doing so
otherwise how on earth are you ever
going to expect to have a small limited
government if confirmation do whatever
the hell they want you can’t do anything
about it yeah and and i think one of the
one of the contexts we needed uh
certainly foreign and and
my fault on this as well but is that
this is these are civil cases these are
not even like criminal charges and so
this is when
you know you may already have
when we talk about qualified immunity
this is this is one of those levers that
i’ve spoken about with with previous
episodes of like policing reform and
everything else these are levers to have
more accountability within the system
and and so
as we know there are
the way that the system works is when
the police investigate the police to see
if the police did did wrong you can
for criminal activity
you’re not going to expect a a great
outcome uh most of the circumstances and
so this gives you a third party this
gives you a third level or a third third
maneuver in this and and so we need to
have that availability there for people
to to see um their wrongs be righted in
in some faucet um
exactly it also has a deterrence effect
and and here’s an example of that we we
look at the derrick shelving case we
look at george floyd derek shovin uh
long before he murdered george floyd
he had 17 other excessive use of force
complaints against him including two
deaths he might have murdered two other
people we don’t we don’t know
um when the minneapolis police
department looked at derek shovin they
made the same cost-benefit analysis that
police departments across the country
make when they encounter the bad apples
in their bunch they looked at him and
said this is a bad cop he’s he’s uh he’s
killing people
but if we try to remove him we’re gonna
have to fight the police unions the
police unions are gonna fight us tooth
and nail it’s going to cost us an
absolute fortune and more than likely or
at least there’s a decent chance that
we’re not going to be able to get rid of
him
but if we keep him on the force thanks
to qualified immunity he can’t be sued
we can’t be sued maybe the the city will
have to you know put out some
settlements that the taxpayers pay for
but it’s not going to affect our bottom
line as individuals or as an
organization and eventually he’s
probably gonna end up murdering someone
and get caught up on tape and then we
can put him in jail and he won’t be able
to murder anyone else
this encourages bad actors in police
departments and in other government
agencies we’ve heard the nightmares of
cps workers threatening straight up
threatening on camera to frame people
and to say their abusive parents even
when they are we’ve seen all of these
things happen we have seen agents of
government who just flat out in front of
cameras do whatever the hell they want
and not get in any trouble and they know
that they’re not going to be held
accountable okay because they have very
strong unions and they know that their
employer is not worried about getting
sued now
imagine if qualified immunity didn’t
exist
imagine if those times that derek
shoving did those things
the people that he was doing them to
could get an attorney who would be happy
to take on the case take it to court and
sue him as an individual his police
department who hired him uh and possibly
if they can even prove that there are
individual people above him that knew
that what he was doing or other agent
other officers who knew that what he was
doing sue them as co-defendants okay now
what you have is the exact opposite now
the cost-benefit analysis is screw these
unions i’m not going to get sued
personally out of house and home we’re
going after this guy now it’s gonna and
the unions don’t want to get sued either
so now they’re gonna be saying we need
to figure out how to make these officers
more accountable one way they probably
would end up being held accountable if
you look at any other professional
the difference between typically a a
worker and a professional a laborer and
a professional typically speaking is
that the professional has some level of
liability for what they do okay so
doctors lawyers um uh even some uh
certain types of contractors they’re
bonded they have liability protection
against what they do because they’re
such good professionals and they’re good
at their craft and what they do could
potentially it’s it’s a it’s a risky
enough thing that it could potentially
cause either monetary damage or property
damage or even physical damage it could
kill someone even and we know that they
are lying that they have a liability
there and so they are able to get
liability insurance
which protects them because there are
going to be times that people will screw
up or do the wrong thing hopefully it
doesn’t lead to someone dying but if it
happens once or maybe twice they’re
protected but if and the person that um
the person that that damage was done to
knows that they’re bonded and that
they’ll get a reward yeah that’s you
know for that if it happens but also if
you have a doctor or a lawyer or a uh or
or you know you know someone in masonry
or whatever who keeps screwing up and
who keeps getting sued they’re not going
to be able to get liability coverage
which means no one’s going to want to
hire them in fact in some cases it’s not
legal to hire them so this would lead to
police departments saying if you want to
work for us
you need to get liability insurance yeah
and even you know that doesn’t
yes they may even raise their salary to
pay for the liability insurance or the
taxpayer may pay for the liability
that’s not the point the point is if
they can’t get covered because they keep
getting sued because they keep doing the
wrong thing they can’t be a cop anymore
and they gotta go find a job doing
something else and that deterrent effect
there are a lot of people that get into
policing work because they want to do
the right thing yes they want to help
people and they get there and find out
it’s not what they thought it was going
to be but then also other people sign up
because they’re [ __ ] and i’m sorry
if you’ve gone last morning but they’re
because they want to have
to use that badge and that gun and that
authority and that immunity to be able
to do whatever the hell they want to
people if you let them know yeah yeah
you can maybe do that once and then
you’re going to get sued just like
anyone else would uh and you won’t ever
even be able to get hired by anything
else and that’s going to follow you
around for the rest of your life they’re
much less likely to become a police
officer this is a deterrent all the way
around even though it isn’t criminal
punishment yeah no and and and
you highlighted something really good
and i want to i want to bring this up is
that right now with the way the system
is working these civil cases are being
paid out not by the police agency not by
the police officer it’s being paid by
the city right um briana taylor who was
murdered in her home um
her family was paid out by the city
so the people who were involved
yeah yeah so so we are all held
accountable for this and it’s just as
long as they’re not taking from the
people who are causing the harm the harm
doesn’t stop there’s no accountability
there and so we have to have what you’re
talking about you have to have that
insurance if you have somebody driving
on the road that’s hitting a million
people every year
no one’s going to insure him and it’s
he’s without insurance in many states
you can’t drive or everything else and
this so it’s the exact same thing as
what you’ve laid out it’s it’s a strong
deterrent that people have to have to
follow through on this and so i i think
that we’ve already debunked like some of
the big um defenses there right the
financial side of things and then of
course like frivolous lawsuits and it’s
just like okay so
getting rid of this what does what does
our system look like as you eloquently
laid out we have accountability
we have deterrence for bad actions
but yep
i want to bring this up to you um
one of the other things that comes up is
that a police officer in a moment
you know where a single moment can
really change the outcome of something
how is this going to how would this
affect them um you know
because you are you are in a
circumstance with um
where your alertness has to be
heightened right you’re you’re concerned
for the safety of of the individual
you’re you’re attempting to apprehend or
engage with you’re concerned with people
around you and everything else um how
would this
how would removing qualified immunity
actually affect a circumstance like that
well putting aside the fact that this is
also an argument for ending the war on
drugs ending the war on victimless
crimes ending the war on guns limiting
the number of times that police officers
are even interacting with the public in
the first place treating them more like
fire departments who are coming out and
actually be able to you know deal with
something that’s happening as opposed to
constantly patrolling around bothering
people while they’re driving and and you
know seeing if they committed some kind
of infraction that they can that they
can you know wrap people up for putting
that aside even in the current system
again
if it has if you have a reasonable
reason to have used violence i don’t
think anyone is worried that the
presumption of proper you the
presumption that use of force was proper
by police officers that that they aren’t
airing on that side you’re not going to
stop a criminal justice system from
airing on the side of presuming that the
use of force was uh what was was legal
if if it’s even marginal whether it was
or was not all of the examples of people
that we’re seeing that are actually
having qualified immunity invoked or
people that are being prosecuted and so
forth these are people where the
evidence was so overwhelming that there
was no way to conclude anything else
sometimes it was examples where officers
themselves were admitting to it so it
was not just like oh last minute so for
example
let’s give an example of of of
of this the shooting of michaela bryant
i think that’s how her name is is
pronounced this was in columbus ohio
earlier this year and the long story
short was that michaela bryant uh was a
teenager who was living in foster care
and she was being uh bullied by i
believe some of the children that also
she lived with or neighbors or some
someone else in school she was being a
bullied by other teenage girls and those
teenage girls either lived in her house
or had come to her house and she called
the police
now a police officer showed up and
others showed up behind him he came out
he was there for about five or six
seconds out of his car and suddenly he
sees a uh a young lady a teenage girl or
a young adult girl a young woman um
running after a person and knocking them
over and then
grabbing a knife or already had the
knife in her hand and started running at
another girl and the officer is saying
no put it down put it down put it down
put it down by the time and i mean if
you watch the video you can watch it
frame by frame at the moment she’s about
to just stick this girl up he shoots her
well it turns out he shot the girl and
incidentally when he when he shot
michaela had he just
stood there more than likely that other
girl would have died i mean she was
literally like this being stabbed she
would have either died or been you know
injured or whatever she would have been
stacked many times uh and
he found out after he shot her that that
was what actually called the police now
in that moment
and put yourself in this this officer’s
shoes i can’t imagine what poor michaela
had been going through that she’s
calling the cops and felt so desperate
that she felt like she had to fight back
in that very moment put yourself in that
officer’s shoes he doesn’t know who he’s
dealing with he doesn’t know he’s all he
knows he’s been called out because of um
uh because of someone threatening a girl
and and violence and bullying and then
he gets there and someone’s knocking
people over and trying to stab people
yeah in that moment he shot and killed
her and in doing so i will maintain he
saved that other girl’s life even if she
was the initial bully or whatever else
he saved that girl’s life and or at
least saved her from from harm at the
very least yeah
that is a pr and he was not charged and
many people were upset about that and i
understand why they were upset about
that you know she was a young girl she
had been to her life had been miserable
she was in foster care she was being
bullied relentlessly she was desperate
and she probably in that moment just
snapped and and but
look at what happened with the officer
it was a tough decision he made it he
had no
literally in the time i’ve been talking
about it it happened 20 or 30 times yeah
like this was something that happened
inside of like 10 15 seconds okay he
just didn’t have time he got out of the
car there’s a bunch of people in the
front yard he’s trying to ask people
what’s going on all of a sudden he sees
this curl run out i mean the actual part
about her running out and then running
after it was maybe four or five it was
quick it was a few seconds
he wasn’t charged
rightfully so if he had been sued and
there was no qualified immunity i cannot
imagine that any judge would look at
that evidence and say
yes this officer has has has commit has
violated the law
and violated the rights of someone
because those are key things it’s not
just did they obey police procedures
it’s did they violate the law he did not
violate the law and because of that he
wouldn’t get sued so that’s what it
would look like are there are there may
be some rare examples where someone
could be sued frivolously i’m sure there
could but for every one of those you can
point out thousands of examples where
people would be held accountable who
should be yes
i i knew you were gonna nail that and
and
it’s it’s sad that of the story that you
brought up of of young miss bryant but
it it does really bring that and bring
that true of
here’s here’s the circumstance where a
split second decision right if he would
have froze for that second right it
would have been two people dead and that
yep
and because he would have still had to
shoot her he would have still had to do
something unless after killing this girl
she then put the knife down for some
reason even though she wouldn’t do it
before killing her or stabbing her then
yes the the girl you could worst case
scenario that girl could have died and
then michaela could have run after the
cop or run after someone else and now
he’s got a shooter now i mean
it was a terrible terrible terrible
situation
i actually waited a couple weeks to talk
about it because i knew that the
tensions were high club also a little
bit of pretext here or context here
columbus uh ohio has the highest rate of
police murders uh in the country it’s
not even close per capita it’s
ridiculous they have
the number of people who have been
killed by police under at best
questionable circumstances is absolutely
through the roof so i get you know it’s
sort of one of those uh you know if i do
this to my thumb it doesn’t hurt okay it
doesn’t hurt but if i have slammed my
thumb into this fridge over here
multiple times and it got run over by a
car now even just me blowing on my thumb
it’s going to be excruciating pain so
this community that has been inflamed by
cop
cop murder after caught murder after
caught murder after cop murder and now
this teenage girl gets killed who was in
foster care and being bullied i get why
they were upset i understand i i’m not
gonna try to say that i don’t get it
because in context it makes perfect
sense why they were upset it was like oh
good now you’re killing teenage girls um
and the officer was white and michaela
was black and the vast majority of these
shootings are white officers killing
black people so i get it i get that but
this is where the courts are supposed to
come in and try to be a fair adjudicator
of this and they often are not and being
qualified immunity
forces the courts to be fair
adjudicators of this or at least to
adjudicate it in the first place it
gives people a fighting chance of having
a shot of actually being of holding bad
officers accountable and in the case of
this officer
there’s not a i cannot imagine that he
would he would able to be sued because
the the facts at the very least it was
there there was a good bit of question
there’s at least
a preponderance of evidence that he did
the right thing and keep in mind civil
courts the the the uh um
uh the uh threshold for evidence is a
little bit lower but even with this a
preponderance of the evidence is that he
he
in that moment he made the right
decision and and i think it’s important
when we talk about his decision right
it’s not just the right decision because
he was a police officer um the right to
use deadly force is is one that is
granted to everyone by their human
by being alive right this was given to
you by your creator that the the use of
deadly force is a force that a person
knows or should know
that causes a risk of serious bodily
harm or or risk of death um and can only
be used when under self-defense or the
defense of others and certainly that’s
why this was justified so it’s not even
a matter of him being a police officer
in this but it is a matter of of
qualified immunity had this been a
different circumstance where where we
would have seen him be bad this is where
qualified immunity really differentiates
between the people
and government officials and law
enforcement and this is why this is such
a big conversation for the entire
criminal justice system um reform this
is why it’s policing reform this is why
it’s it’s all these different reforms
because we need to have to where people
are held accountable regardless which
which profession they’re in and and as
joe garcia from um from our last episode
two weeks ago
law enforcement should have not the same
standard as people but but you know
be held to a little bit of a higher
anything a higher standard at the very
least they thank you joe and joe’s
actually a former cop and anyone who
watches this show knows that um because
he was on here what’s up that was last
week two weeks two weeks ago liberty
veronica was last week
yes okay oh that’s right liberty
roundtables last week um the uh uh
if anything at the very least police
officers should be held to the same
standard as everyone else they should
not get a much
lower standard where they’re almost
treated like children uh into but yet
given all of this authority and
responsibility but then when it comes to
accountability they’re given next to
none
but honestly they should be given even
more accountability they they should be
held to an even higher standard um and
like you said this isn’t a cop thing if
someone had had randomly been walking
down the street and seen the same scene
and used deadly force to protect the
person that michaela was about to stab
then they would have also been legally
or at least morally in the right to do
so and i believe in columbus which does
allow gun ownership they would have been
legally able to do that now imagine
another example if that police officer
had killed michaela and then now keep in
mind after he killed michaela a lot of
the people there were very very upset
this was her home and so like her foster
parents were there and her like friends
were there and people are yelling what
did you do you killed her you killed her
you killed her now if the officer had
shot one of them
he would be protected by qualified
immunity even if
even if he were criminally charged for
doing that
and put in jail for it he’d still be
protected by qualified immunity from
getting sued for it and that’s the point
if you reach a point where you can
actually i mean you notice derek shoving
wasn’t actually sued
he was criminally charged and the city
did a settlement but he was never sued
because they would have taken that crap
through court and they would have said
that he was protected by qualified
immunity unless there was already a case
where someone had been sued for
murdering someone in whatever federal
court district uh minneapolis is it
that’s the ridiculousness even worse
than that so like specifically to the
derrick chavin uh george floyd’s
circumstance they could have argued that
the amount of seconds that derek chavin
was on on george floyd’s situation or on
his on his neck was a different
circumstance a different situation had
never been ruled and therefore
guaranteeing almost guaranteed
qualified immunity
you could have where a cop had literally
suffocated someone to death by kneeling
on their neck in that exact kind of
circumstance but well maybe there wasn’t
a curb there maybe it was a dirt road
or maybe yeah maybe they the other cop
it took then 15 minutes to do it and it
only took him you know nine minutes so
you know he could have known that six
minutes earlier would have been a
problem you know it could have been any
of like as stupid
that there wasn’t a crowd with the other
one but with this one there was a crowd
there telling him please don’t murder
this guy in front of us or you know
whatever it could have been who knows
what it could be that the in the other
case it was a it was a smaller person
and in this case a bigger person you
know big people just need to be
suffocated to death like what the the
the absurdity of these cases if any of
you want to hear about the absurdity
google uh eminent domain or can you tell
me uh qualified immunity well look okay
that’s absurd you can look that up later
yes but look up uh uh you know qualify
immunity cases or like you know bad
qualified immunity cases or something
like that you will hear some of the most
infuriating there was there were prison
guards
in a prison i forget where i think it
was out west um and uh either jail or
prison guards corrections officers it
was corrections it was in prison because
they were corrections officers and uh
there was a guy that they were torturing
by using uh uh
i forget if they use the tear gas or
taser let’s say they one person use tear
gas they use the other use taster so
let’s say they use uh a taser they used
a taser to torture this guy in his cell
he wasn’t doing anything wrong they just
wanted to
and they couldn’t be the courts ruled
they had qualified immunity even though
there were other corrections officers in
that same jurisdiction who had tortured
some poor guy in the cell because one of
them used tear gas and the other one
used a taser because that’s the
difference right oh your honor i
couldn’t have possibly known that you
weren’t cool with it with tear gas but
with electricity i figured that would be
fine yeah i couldn’t have possibly known
that that’s how ridiculous this stuff is
and
you know i i know you it probably best
to talk about how to end this because i
would hope anyone having watched this
for the last you know 49 minutes i hope
we don’t have any more stragglers i hope
at this point we’re all in the same on
the same page when this needs to
yeah no i i definitely um that is of
course the big thing that we’ve got to
talk about but uh coming off of your
point before we get to how to end this
sure um sure sure
that that point of
things change right so a taser versus a
tear gas the this is why we have to have
this difference um this this very well
rhymes with just to bring it back to
constitutionality for people who still
believe in it um
when it comes to like your rights right
you have many people against the second
amendment that say well as the
technology changed right it doesn’t mean
that that the second amendment means the
same thing so yeah
so if things are supposed to stay the
same in accordance with with the people
who
who disagree with the constitution from
the basis of it needs to be
the constitution needs to be limited not
the government right right this doesn’t
hold hold true right this is completely
inconsistent with that um
and and so the people who support the
constitution right we need to have the
constitution as we pointed out the first
amendment of being able to redress our
grievances whether it’s a criminal court
case or a civil court case be able to
have that and and so
as if you guys are on the side that you
guys are still questioning this
rewatch this episode of course because
spike cohen laid it out beautifully
perfectly amazingly
something yeah maybe you missed
something
so so constitutionally both by the
letter and by the concept or presumed
concept a sense of concept a sensible
concept behind the constitution so like
jason was saying by the letter you know
the originalist interpretation of this
is that you should be able to sue bad
actors in government you should be able
to use whatever needs to be used to hold
bad actors accountable and that it is a
a judicial activism that led to yes uh
to this but and if it helps most of
those judicial activists were appointed
by democrats so if that helps this was a
democratic judicial activism that
created uh that created the uh the
qualified immunity doctrine and its
continued strengthening from the 60s
until about 2001 i think was the last
really big qualified immunity
strengthening that happened and it’s
been pretty bad since then but also from
the concept of the constitution if the
purpose of the constitution is to uh not
enumerate your rights
but to enumerate the limits the the only
things that government is allowed to do
and to make clear the things that it is
not allowed to do and to keep government
in in a very very uh narrow pathway of
what it’s allowed to do in its scope of
what it’s allowed
if you still if if you allow a loophole
of saying well yes technically the
government can’t do this and can’t do
that and can’t do this and can’t do that
but if politicians and police officers
and judges and prosecutors and cps
workers and you know firefighters and
social workers and you know uh any
government employee can just violate
your rights whenever they want to and
break the law whenever they want to and
we’ll just hold them immune to it uh
then there is no the constitution means
absolutely nothing your rights mean
absolutely nothing the concept of
limited small government means
absolutely nothing if they can simply
ignore it and never be held accountable
which
that’s what’s been happening
so if we’re gonna even try to do real
constitutionalism because as we all know
that wasn’t real constitutionalism right
we’re gonna actually try to do real
constitutionalism it has to come with a
high degree of accountability for those
whose job it is to enforce the the
existence and the the uh enforcement of
government and its laws and its rules
and its standards
yes uh 100 agreed and and so with that
other than electing spy coin to every
office in across this nation uh local
state and federal um held them at once
yes all of them at once uh just
code
yes uh because you have the nards right
that’s that’s the requirement
you’re that’s what it said so it says
has to be 30 in order to so this is a
very rare part article i think 12 of the
article 69 of the constitution says that
in order section 420 all
to all yes section 420 69 420 uh uh in
order to be elected to all offices at
once the person has to be a native born
uh a native born american natural
natural-born citizen of the united
states ted cruz
uh they need to not be
the zodiac killer ted cruz
their dad cannot have killed jfk ted
cruz
they have to be at least 35 years of age
baby ted cruz and they have to have the
narns
that’s it spike is the only one
so other than that
other than that
okay putting aside that the honestly
that what’s
upsetting about qualified immunity is
that the easiest way to do it to end it
is also the least likely one to happen
so the easiest way to do this
would be if the supreme court justices
the next time they had a qualified
immunity case said
we were wrong or our court was wrong the
same way they did with like uh uh dred
scott and uh um brown versus border like
the way they’ve done previous cases
where they’re like no we were just
straight up wrong and we’re gonna
completely refute all of that they would
have to do that they would have to say
the concept of qualified immunity is
perverse it is anti-constitutional it is
anti-civil rights uh
you know it is a terrible thing and
therefore there is no more qualified
immunity again the law says you should
be able to to um uh to to sue bad actors
in government if they break the law
that’s the law they’ve just twisted it
into this so the easiest thing to do
would be to untwist it and say no this
was bad our this court was wrong and
we’re correcting it by saying that there
will no longer be any qualified immunity
and now if you have broken the law if it
has been established that you’ve broken
the law and violated someone’s rights
you can get sued just like anyone else
can get sued that is almost guaranteed
not to happen because the court is loath
to admit that it was wrong yes it is and
i understand the reason why there’s
actually an argument that that prevents
judicial activism that once you have a
precedent on the books that the judges
sort of have to defer to that or or
typically do defer to that i would argue
that this is one of those cases where
the judicial activism happened and this
should undo it but the likelihood of it
happening is very very very low so then
here’s the next thing that can happen
which is unfortunately also unlikely to
happen but it can happen
it’s more it’s honestly more likely to
happen but it’s not as easy
the federal government would have to the
congress would have to simply pass a law
that says that there is no qualified
immunity that
basically because the the congress can
pass this and the the courts are not
going the likelihood of the courts uh
saying
because in fact the courts have even
said this in supreme court has said that
this can be fixed by fact uh justice um
clarence thomas yeah in one of the more
recent decisions said this is something
that can and should be corrected by
congress if congress corrects this i
think the supreme court will breathe a
sigh of relief and say okay great
finally you fixed this mess that was
created you know 60 years 70 years yeah
yeah you can finally fix this for us
that would take a a majority uh in fact
it doesn’t even affect the budget so it
would take just majorities in both the
house and the senate to pass it the
problem is they want to attach something
like this to some stupid omnibus bill
and and then this side’s going to vote
against it because it doesn’t it also
has something else attached to it that
they don’t like or whatever instead of
just a clean like what what uh i’ve been
hanging out this weekend with uh former
congressman justin amash uh libertarian
congressman justin amash who introduced
a bill to end qualified immunity just
that and qualified immunity and that was
it and uh it wasn’t given an upper down
vote because that’s not how the house of
reps has worked for quite some time uh
it is a top-down system it’s controlled
by uh nancy pelosi um and uh now and
nancy pelosi chuck schumer and mitch
mcconnell basically control uh congress
there is no independence happening there
there’s no fighting happening there um
so here’s the other thing that can be
done
it can be fought at the state level so
you so for example in ohio i’m working
with a group called accountability now
ohio and they’re putting a
constitutional amendment on the ballot
for the people of ohio to vote for that
ends qualified immunity in ohio it says
that it is that it is illegal to invoke
qualified immunity that uh state funds
can’t be used for prosecute state funds
including taxpayer money uh for salaries
so someone’s money cannot be used for an
attorney to argue qualified immunity
judges will not respect qualified
immunity it’s just flat out and
disqualified immunity you can’t invoke
it in court and before it can get to the
supreme court it has to happen in that
court so we can do this at the statewide
level so you can pressure state
legislatures to do this real quick if
you guys know anyone in ohio please tag
them in this video right now have them
watch this tell them it’s incredibly
important that they need to get a part
of this they need to spread the message
they need to help make this happen this
is this is more than just a podcast
where we come and we learn and we listen
um but this is this is activism this is
this is how we make changes
and this is how we set people free in
our lifetime um one one podcast at a
time one tag at a time one friend at a
time one family member at a time
exactly one spicism at a time
[Laughter]
at a time so yes uh if you have anyone
in ohio or near ohio who would like like
to help with rallies or putting together
events or whatever else uh tag them let
them know about accountability now ohio
they’re on instagram they’re on facebook
they’re on uh twitter i’m not sure if
they’re on youtube as well but they are
on facebook instagram and twitter and um
and you know that we are working hard to
end qualified immunity in ohio uh if
you’re in tennessee work with for all
tennessee they want to end qualified
immunity there for all tennessee.org uh
there are activists across the country
who are trying to work at the state
level and qualified immunity i believe
i’m trying to remember i think there are
one or two states that have done it um
but i don’t remember which ones now and
i might not be right about that but i
know that there have been attempts to do
it and uh the more pressure it’s going
to be easier to happen at the state
level the state legislatures are more
likely to do this than congress just
because congress is a cesspool and gets
very little accomplished um
i guess you can contact your supreme
court justices and tell them you want
qualified immunity to end they certainly
can do it it would be the simplest way
to do it but i don’t see it happening um
and i don’t see either any either part
either the republican or democrats
appointing justices who are likely to
look back at bad case uh case law and
bad uh precedent and say this is
anti-liberty it’s anti-small government
it is certainly not in keeping with the
uh the framers intention uh the
originalist constructionist uh
constructionist interpretation of this
um and uh and and break it down uh
honestly the long term is we have to get
libertarians elected across the country
yes um the more libertarians there are
in office the more and the the you know
the silver lining is it doesn’t just end
with qualified immunity civil asset
forfeiture the war on drugs uh criminal
justice reform um all of these things
these are all things that happen when
you get people in office who actually
respect your rights who actually respect
your agency who believe that you do best
when you are most free who believe that
you own yourself who believe that we
should be dismantling all of the power
and freedom and money that’s been taken
from you and out of these centrally
planned systems and put the money back
in power and freedom back in your hands
where it always belong that’s and with
that will come ending qualified immunity
i i think that this is with that that
mic drop i think that’s the perfect time
to end i know that you are limited a
little bit on time and so i want to
thank you yes uh absolutely amazing
having you on tonight and so uh real
quick to wrap up guys uh make sure you
guys are staying tuned to mighty waters
for the rest of the week tomorrow you’ve
got this this no this guy over here
there we go this guy and matt wright uh
traversing the muddy waters of freedom
on uh at eight ish eastern
and then following up with that
wednesday spike’s got his show my fellow
americans with his guest of
do you know oh no you want me to know my
guess oh no man okay thursday night i
you’re good thursday night thursday
night with matt wright on the writer’s
block he’s got anna johnson the lpwa
state chair that’s of course the
libertarian party washington um party
which is actually was my first
considered real home state so
um
bringing it from from the west coast
here to the muddy waters of freedom
thursday night and then of course friday
night you’ve got from bayous to igloos
with eskimo uh as rated as one of the
most intelligent people on muddy waters
media by this guy over here
this guy over here and clearly not this
guy because this guy sucks appointing
but uh and of course um cajun who is
still cajun um
and so you guys want to check into them
at 9 30 p.m eastern
also this weekend if you live in the
state of washington i’m going to be
touring through washington on a
washington state tour all weekend and
friday i’m going to be in seattle
uh on saturday i’m going to be in
the tri-cities area i forget
specifically which city but i’ll be in
the tri-cities and then on sunday i’ll
be in spokane and if you want more
information about the events that i am
doing if you go to spikecoin.com and
click on events you will see my
washington events there you can also go
to the libertarian party in washington
on facebook on youtube uh on facebook on
twitter on instagram they have all the
information as well on their website lp
yeah it’s not forgetful pwa.org or
lpwashington.org it’s one of those if
you google libertarian party of
washington you’ll find them and we’ll do
that and then join us right back here
same bearded place same bearded time for
the next fantastic episode of mr america
the bearded truth who’s your guest going
to be
next week we are going to have oh no it
just messed up
next week we’re going to have jessica
etheridge who actually may have been the
parents of those said children
don’t worry that situation got rectified
with the kids and spike hating kids okay
my close kids but uh we’re gonna have
jessica etheridge coming on to talk
about women empowerment versus feminism
so it’s gonna be a fun conversation of
what is let’s get to the root of it all
let’s talk about it and everything else
so it’s gonna be a good time and so
don’t miss out on all this muddy good
goodness get over to anchor dot fm slash
muddied waters slash subscribe to be a
part of the exclusive community the mud
skins
be a musketeer in the muddy militia and
it gets better folks but wait there’s
more tell us what they get jason
actually i’m going to tell you so we are
starting up starting next no starting
the second tuesday of next month section
starting the second thursday of next
month and every second thursday of every
month after that we are resurrecting the
muddy zoom
where you can hang out on the zoom call
with me and matt jason if he is
available and uh eskimo and uh cajun if
he’s available and possibly ashley and
sean if they’re available all the muddy
all-stars are going to be there might
have some special guests occasionally
and we’re just going to have a fun chat
with all of us the muddied
mutzkateers let’s go without we’re the
they’re the musketeers we’re the muddy
crew the money crew and then all of our
and all of our our subscribers all of
our musketeer militia mud people um and
then they’re they’re gonna hang out
we’re gonna hang out on a zoom call and
then we’re still gonna we’re gonna live
stream it so that all of your uh jealous
friends and loved ones can watch you be
cool
by only paying 10 bucks a month and it
will make them go wow how can i be cool
and hang out with the musketeers in the
muddy crew and you can say you can too
go to anchor dot fm slash muddy water
subscribe we’re gonna be doing that
every month that’s starting uh next uh
so if you wanna get involved
in that
anchor dot fm slash muddy water slash
subscribe you also get exclusive muddied
waters content including i’ve been
putting up all the panels i did on
freedomfest we’re gonna be doing more
stuff like that you get ad-free
listening of all of our podcasts on
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well you don’t have to listen to us tell
you to use anchor uh basically and uh
and then you get the money zoom as well
for 10 bucks a month for less than the
cup cup price of a cup of coffee every
week you can you too can be a part of
the growing muddy waters mud family
that we are creating that’s so much
better than what i could have ever said
you guys
just get over there the mud family
we’re dirty and it’s great
we’re dirty my family
but yes so thank you guys all i i thank
you spike for for taking some time out
thank you and uh please go enjoy your
dinner tonight and be well be good we’ll
see you tomorrow night here uh eight-ish
whenever ish happens
but um
but we love each and every one of you
guys who came in viewed this watch this
and we love you even more if you are one
of those uh subscribers so become a
musketeer tonight
don’t wait and uh we will talk to you
guys all again here soon see you guys
throughout the week and i’ll see you
guys back here monday night with jessica
etheridge you guys take care
oh go
oh no i forgot this isn’t my show go
ahead
so be well everyone and fight for
freedom keep doing the good good work
and make sure you guys are sharing this
out to
the people of ohio and tennessee
especially but we’ll see you guys soon
and where he’s going and where i’m going
we’re we actually won’t need roads
because we’re flying that’s good
washington also has some some decent
roads for the taxes they pay
i’m about the return