Quote:
Originally Posted by d2_e4
It is odd that some issues which are basically "solved problems" in every other 1st world country (see also - abortion, gun control, etc.) prove to be so intractable in USA #1.
Some stories in the U.S. are so crazy as to be almost unbelievable.
I have a friend who clerked for judge in Texas about twenty years ago. One of their cases was a civil action against a sheriff who executed a warrant at a highway bar that was frequently almost exclusively by African-Americans. I believe that the warrant related to drugs. In the process of executing the warrant, the sheriff and his deputies hog-tied and strip searched about two dozen bar patrons. The search turned up something like one small bag of weed and a pocketknife -- in other words, nothing.
The sheriff's main defense was that he was entitled to qualified immunity, essentially because he was following established department protocol. My friend said that, at one point during the bench trial, the judge (who was African-American himself), interrupted the cross examination of the sheriff and said, "Are you telling me that, if my car had broken down in front of the bar and I had walked in to use the pay phone just before you arrived, that you would have hog-tied and strip-searched me because that was department protocol?" When the sheriff answered affirmatively, the judge said, "you can be damn sure you would have regretted that decision."
The judge eventually found in favor of the plaintiffs (of course) and took the extraordinary step of ordering that the judgment be enforceable against the sheriff in his individual capacity.