Probably the last thing we’re going to say in the wake of the Derek Chauvin verdict is this, and we’ve said it before but it bears repeating in part because no one else is saying it:
Why are lawyers and courts and judges getting a complete pass while we’re actually prosecuting and imprisoning cops?
We can understand that the optics of the work of lawyers and judges are unlikely to include choke-holds and whatnot, but surely we can think it through a little more than that. People are on “qualified immunity” again, for example. Largely getting it wrong, as Scott Greenfield recently pointed out. But of course that’s not the main thing here.
The Main Thing is that the SCOTUS just made up qualified immunity to do what they do best, which is favoring the government, and generally favoring those who are more powerful and/or wealthy, those who are already winners in the game, over everyone else. And no litigant is more representative of that than….the government.
We’ve pointed this out before. Repeatedly. For years.
And why just “qualified” immunity? That’s the lesser kind of immunity afforded to cops. Judges are absolutely immune. They gave that to themselves, and just made that up, too. And they extended absolute immunity to prosecutors.
That is, why don’t we abolish absolute immunity while we’re at it?
We haven’t even scratched the surface of what is really wrong. We won’t begin to do that until some very hard questions are asked about the legal profession and the judiciary. It’s past time to do that.
In other words, sending Derek Chauvin to prison is no more than, and probably considerably less than, a band-aid. Lawyers – especially prosecutors – and judges must be called to account as well.
Ugh.