“The majority today,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, “gives officers license to inflict gratuitous pain on a nonviolent protestor even where there is no threat to officer safety or any other reason to do so.” https://vtdigger.org/2026/03/25/us-supreme-court-rules-vermont-police-officer-is-immune-from-excessive-force-suit-stemming-from-2015-protest/ #SCOTUS #ACAB #Vermont
@MFennVT as is so common, Sotomayor doesn't seem to have read the opinion that she's criticizing so sensationally, as the opinion says the exact opposite of what she lays out.
The opinion leaves officials wide open for prosecution should they use gratuitous force. It only applies qualified immunity to non-gratuitous force.
Heck, that's the "qualified" in "qualified immunity"!
Sotomayor should know better.
Yes, I did read all of Justice Sotomayor's dissent.
The problem is, she didn't actually describe what was in the majority opinion, so that's why I wonder if SHE read the opinion of the Court!
What she described was not what was in the majority opinion.
@volkris If you're on the side of the majority of the Supreme Court, I have nothing more to say to you. Bye.
@volkris Did you actually read all of Justice Sotomayer's dissent? She makes it pretty clear why the majority was wrong in their decision, as they most often are.
Further in the article, a Vt law professor interviewed also states, "the Court’s ruling has made challenges to qualified immunity even more difficult by narrowing possible cases of misconduct to almost exactly prior cases, effectively stopping many cases of misconduct from reaching the courts."
This is bad decision.