What is the appropriate punishment for a cop killing a non-criminal?

[DetlefK]

What is the purpose of a community? To share resources and to provide security. A "crime" is when somebody breaks that compact.

Why punish crimes? To dis-encourage further criminal acts.

How is the magnitude of a punishment determined? According to the perceived magnitude of the crime.

- Stealing little and stealing much. Stealing much is worse, so the punishment for stealing much is harsher than the punishment for stealing little.

- Hurting someone and killing someone. Killing someone is worse, so the punishment for killing someone is harsher than the punishment for hurting someone.

- An ordinary person killing someone and a law-enforcer killing someone.
Is one worse than the other? Which one is worse?

If you join a community, you outsource your sovereignty of decision-making to the community and you sacrifice parts of your freedom for the well-being of the community. In return, you are allowed to participate in the easier access to resources a community provides and you are allowed to participate in the increased security to your bodily well-being the community provides.
Security is normally provided by a sharing and synergy of the martial resources of the community-members.
Law-enforcers are specialized members of the community whose task it is to provide you with security. If a community has law-enforcers, they are the principal distributors of security. This is their main task and their contribution to the community as members of said community.

If an ordinary member of the community violates someone's security, that is a crime because he violated his part of the compact.
If a law-enforcer fails to provide the community (or individual members thereof) with security, that is a crime because he violated his part of the compact.
If a law-enforcer violates someone's security, what kind of crime is that?

If an ordinary member of the community violates someone's security, that is a crime that concerns primarily two people: The perpetrator and the victim.
If a law-enforcer fails to provide the community (or individual members thereof) with security, that also concerns primarily two people: the law-enforcer and the victim he failed to protect.
If a law-enforcer violates someone's security, that crime concerns more than two people. Why? It concerns the perpetrator, it concerns the victim and it concerns the fact that the law-enforcer is no longer a principal provider of security, robbing the community as a whole of security.




Summary:
It is therefore my conclusion that, when committing equal crimes, law-enforcers should be punished more harshly than ordinary citizens, because they inflicted a damage to the community that exceeds the magnitude of the crime itself.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Murder charges.

I don't think that any person should be treated differently. Civilians who kill police are already pursued with far more diligence than those who kill non-police. Police should at least be indicted and charged the same as any civilian. As it stands, they are essentially given a free pass for most brutality, most murders. Almost never indicted, much less tried.

Where I think we need a change is not in the severity of punishment, but in the process. I think EVERY death at the hands of law enforcement should automatically be investigated as a murder, and tried as a murder by non-police. If it is 'justified', it will be a really short trial, and they'll be acquitted. If not, at least they'll actually go to trial for the crime, as opposed to being let off by internal affairs or grand juries presented with false 'evidence' by DAs who do a 'Who, me?' when it comes to deciding whether or not to present evidence they already know is false, and will actually utilize a prosecutor.

[peacebird]

3. Manslaughter and loss of ability to be a cop anywhere should do it.

I think murder requires premeditation? Some cases would probably qualify for murder, but all should at least be manslaughter

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. Well, whichever is appropriate. Obviously don't overcharge specifically to make sure that the cop

walks free simply because there is no evidence to support the greater charge.

The important part is that the instance isn't blown off by those with a vested interest in seeing that police never face appropriate criminal charges.

[peacebird]

16. I agree totally.

[Spatened]

9. If the officer acted properly and in self defense...

... Why should they have to take the time and expense to go through a full trial?

Same concept goes for civilians...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

12. Because they're a representative of the state.

And the citizens need to have some confidence that the state simply won't kill them.

Look at what we've seen in just the last year or two.

A man killed for selling loose cigarettes. A man killed for running away from an officer after a traffic stop. A boy killed for playing with a toy gun. A man killed for shopping for an airgun while talking on his cell phone. A man killed for jaywalking.

NONE of those people did ANYTHING that warranted a death sentence, even after a trial, yet all were killed by police WITHOUT a trial, and all of those police walked free.

[virtualobserver]

2. I agree with your post, but......

How do we eliminate the inherent "power corrupts" and "protect one of your own" aspects of policing. Doctors do it....the Catholic Church does it.

I don't know.

[MohRokTah]

4. The same punishment a criminal gets for killing a cop. eom

[metalbot]

6. Some "benefit of doubt" needs to be given to police

This won't be a particularly popular opinion here, but there's a fundamental difference that we EXPECT between police officers and civilians. We EXPECT police officers to chase bad guys. It's what they are paid to do. We pay them to wear firearms and catch bad people. If you want people to be willing to take that job, then you need to provide them with some degree of legal protection for making reasonable mistakes. We generally don't charge surgeons with murder when they make a mistake.

If I found an intruder in my home, grabbed a gun, chased them out of the house, followed them into a dark alley, and then shot them as they reached into their pocket as they reached for a cell phone, I should almost certainly be charged with murder.

A police officer doing the same thing has probably simply done his job and made a tragic mistake.

That being said, you still need to have a rigorous process by which we determine whether a police officer has acted reasonably, and that process should not be conducted by the officer's own department. In addition, if the police officer refuses to give a full statement, the investigation should immediately be treated as a criminal investigation. A police officer should be free to exercise their fifth amendment rights, but if they choose to do so, then we should treat this purely as a criminal prosecution, since that's the only circumstance under which the fifth applied. Also, body cameras need to be mandatory.

I don't actually disagree with your conclusion - "when committing equal crimes, law-enforcers should be punished more harshly than ordinary citizens", but we have to have slightly different rules about what constitutes a crime, given that it is sometimes a police officer's job to shoot at people.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

15. If police kill someone who was not doing something that would result in a death penalty

that 'benefit of doubt' needs to be removed.

If you can't be executed for a crime AFTER a trial, you shouldn't simply be allowed to be gunned down without a trial for that crime.

[Logical]

17. I disagree, the citizen has not been trained and is out of their element......

The cop is trained to handle it. The cop should be held to a higher standard.

[hobbit709]

7. Stealing much gets you little punishment-look at the banks.

[DetlefK]

8. That's because the perceived magnitude is smaller.

Embezzling $100 million? Who can imagine that much money???

But stealing $2000 in cash from a store? 2000 bucks, that's a handfull of money, that's a car, that's two monthly salaries, that's rent and expenses.
People can imagine what it's like to have or not have $2000.

[Nye Bevan]

11. Bernie Madoff got out of prison already? (nt)

[hobbit709]

13. His mistake was stealing from the 1%, not the 99%.

[Nye Bevan]

10. Of course it depends on the circumstances.

1. A cop stalks and kills a guy because he is having an affair with the guy's wife and wants him out of the picture. Punishment = life without parole.

2. A cop is pursuing a suspect and has forgotten to set the safety catch on his gun. When he struggles with the suspect he fires accidentally and kills him. Obviously, the punishment here would be something less than life in prison.

[Iggo]

14. Same as when someone kills a cop.

Equal protection under the law.