Strict Liability Offenses
Reaction paper
Strict liability offenses
According to both criminal law and tort law, strict liability happens when a defendant is liable for committing an action, regardless of the mental status or the intent when the action is committed. Examples of strict liability offenses according to criminal law, include statutory rape and possession crimes. The situations considered inherently dangerous, according to the law, are imputed as a strict liability (Goldberg & Zipursky, 2016). In a case of strict liability, the plaintiff is not required to prove negligence or fault. However, there are lenient punishments given to strict liability offenders, which mitigate the potential unfairness. It is also unfair that a defendant is held liable for a crime committed that is unrelated to the defendant’s intentions.
Case study
A man named George Floyd died while taking a knee to his neck by a Minneapolis police officer. That happened on twenty-fifth May 2020, in Minneapolis (Dreyer, Trent, Anderson, Askew, Boyd, Coker, & Montoya-Williams, 2020). Floyd was arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit bill. When the police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for several minutes, other police officers that were on the scene prevented bystanders from interfering with the arrest and intervening as events unfolded. While that happened, Floyd was constantly complaining about how he was unable to breathe, but the police officer continued restraining him until the medics told him to stop. By that time, they couldn’t find a pass, and that led to his death.
The case leaves me wondering if there is qualified immunity for police misconduct. The doctrine of qualified immunity has been criticized since it shields police in virtually every lawsuit. Qualified immunity is explained as to have been enacted in 1871. It was referred to as section 1983 after the US Code placement. American law’s primary civil rights provide that the police and the rest of the state actors are to be liable to the person who suffers an injury for deprivation of any rights. Section 1983 forms a standard of strict liability for police and the rest of public officials found to have violated the people’s constitutional rights that include the right to be free from the unreasonable use of force.
I’m afraid I have to disagree that police officers and the other law enforcers are provided qualified immunity even after committing strict liability offenses. Gladly, people have been protesting on the streets, demanding justice for such brutality. Floyd was not guilty of strict liability charges since there was no injury inflicted on anyone. Sources say that he was allegedly accused of using a counterfeit bill. That did not give the officer permission to kill him. Floyd deserved a lenient punishment instead of being killed. The police officer who killed Floyd and the other two present at the crime scene were also guilty of the strict liability offenses.
The protests have helped the family of George Floyd to achieve justice since each of the police has been charged guilty and given appropriate punishment. The Minneapolis City Council voted to restructure the police department as a new community-based system of public safety. In this ruling, a police officer could lose qualified immunity protection only when the statutory or constitutional rights are committed. The prosecutors in Floyd’s death increased potential sentences for the police officers involved beyond the accused’s guidelines. They argued that Floyd was vulnerable while being knelt on the neck in handcuffs. For a person to win a strict liability case, he has to be injured, and in this case, Floyd was injured and more so killed.
References
Goldberg, J. C., & Zipursky, B. C. (2016). The Strict Liability in Fault and the Fault in Strict Liability. Fordham L. Rev., 85, 743.
Dreyer, B. P., Trent, M., Anderson, A. T., Askew, G. L., Boyd, R., Coker, T. R., … & Montoya- Williams, D. (2020). The Death of George Floyd: Bending the Arc of History Toward Justice for Generations of Children. Pediatrics, 146(3).
