TSA Agent Intentionally Strikes Captain In Groin -- With Full Immunity From Lawsuits
04-21-2019, 11:10 AMQuote: (04-21-2019 10:36 AM)trickster Wrote:
Quote: (04-21-2019 10:22 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:
Quote: (04-21-2019 09:21 AM)trickster Wrote:
Right. This makes more sense.
“The ruling does not mean that T.S.A. agents are totally above the law.
“This doesn’t protect these agents from criminal liability, for example, but it does give them immunity from being sued by people who feel they’ve been treated unfairly,” said Wendy Patrick, a lawyer who has handled cases involving assault and battery and a lecturer at San Diego State University.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/busin...unity.html
So, you cite a news story about a completely different case, where a passenger was criminally prosecuted for assaulting TSA agents, and you believe that this has some bearing on the case-at-hand?
If a TSA agent intentionally strikes a passenger in the groin without cause and the passenger cannot sue him for compensation (which is exactly what happened in this case), then it does, in fact, "mean that T.S.A. agents are totally above the law."
If the police refuse to arrest a TSA agent who intentionally strikes a passenger in the groin without cause and the TSA agent is instead given a monetary bonus for his actions (which is exactly what happened in this case), then the law does, in fact, completely protect TSA agents from criminal liability.
If the U.S. Supreme Court does indeed reverse the decisions of the two courts below it will likely be because this factual scenario was so damn egregious, i.e., assaulting an innocent airline captain who was was simply doing his job and following the procedures of the U.S. government by protecting access cards for classified government systems.
Are you serious? You clearly don't understand how the US legal system works. It was a federal court -- the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, not some county judge. Their opinion is precedent in their jurisdiction and applies to more than the case at hand. The person was acquitted by the way, not that it matters.
And it is quite clear -- TSA agents can face criminal liability. So no, they are not above the law. I realize this doesn't square with the narrative you want to believe but if you read the article and the opinion, you can easily see that TSA agents are immune from civil suits, not criminal liability.
Do you have zero reading comprehension? Did you not read the title of the very news article that you read: "Court Gives T.S.A. Screeners Immunity From Abuse Lawsuits"
Did you not read the content of the very news article that you read: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled on Wednesday that T.S.A. agents are administrative employees of the federal government and not law enforcement officers. They are therefore immune from being sued for misconduct in civil cases."
The case had nothing to do with criminal liability. Instead of actually citing the court decision, you cited some lawyer from the other side of the country (not even admitted to practice law in the circuit court that issued the decision) who gave her opinion about her understanding of basic criminal law, as if it has some bearing on the impact of this decision (which involved civil law, not criminal law).
Criminal law was not involved in the case cited in your article -- period. So, it has no impact on this discussion. In the case discussed in this thread, the police refused to arrest the TSA agent because they knew that he had government immunity for his actions. Sure, if a TSA murders or rapes someone, the police will arrest him. As a practical matter, and as proven by the facts of this case, TSA agents can commit felony-level groin strikes with impunity.