Text of the petition:


    Dear Sir/Madam,

    I am writing to ask that you reintroduce House Bill 111 which was first introduced in the 2021 legislative session, or a narrowed version which would only apply to members of law enforcement. Without this legislation, members of the public have no real ability to hold individual police officers accountable for violating their constitutional rights, due to the contrived doctrine of "qualified immunity" which was invented by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1967. This idea of qualified immunity has no basis in statutory law or the original text of the Constitution and indeed is in direct opposition to the plain text of 42 USC 1983 (https://law.justia.com/codes/us/2021/title-42/chapter-21/subchapter-i/sec-1983/) which sets forth a remedy for seeking redress for the violation of federally protected rights.

    Workers in almost every profession, from doctors to tradesmen, can be held civilly liable for monetary damages should they intentionally, or negligently cause harm to people whom they serve. It defies common sense that police should get a free pass for circumstances which are arguably more important – the liberty and life of others. Police are there to hold bad actors accountable for their actions, but they themselves are frequently not held to the same standard. From the Better Business Bureau to Yelp, there is some financial deterrent to bad practices by a business and its employees. Due to nature of policing, it is understood that there cannot be the same level of transparency as in other organizations, but there must be a duty of care that should be exercised, similar to that of a surgeon who should double check before leaving a clamp or sponge in a patient at the end of an operation.

    While the goal is not to impede police officers from carrying out their sworn duty, the threat of financial accountability should sharpen their focus on following the law while not violating the constitutional rights of others. As in any profession, employees are human and make good faith mistakes. There is a minority of employees in any profession however, who do not act in good faith. This unfairly tarnishes the reputation of rest of the employees - In Poor Richard’s Almanack, Benjamin Franklin in 1736 worded the saying as “The rotten Apple spoils his Companion.”

    The current state of affairs is such that due to the nonsensical application of qualified immunity, the bar to prevailing in a civil action against an officer intentionally violating someones civil rights is so high that courts have regularly found officers to be criminally liable while at the same time denying financial redress to those harmed. We should be able trust the American jury system to fairly decide whether an officer violated a plaintiff's civil rights without the court putting its thumb on the scale by preventing cases from even being heard by a jury of our peers. If we cannot, then our system of laws is well on it's way to the loss of its legitimacy. Please end qualified immunity for police in New Hampshire.



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