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- Hacker News
- People don't read enough court decisions. Did you know you don't have a constitutional right to be protected by the police either
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzale...
> the Court ruled, 7–2, that a town and its police department could not be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for refusing to enforce a restraining order, even though the refusal led to the murders of a woman's three children by her estranged husband
by mathisfun123 - Government officials allowing this to happen should be sentenced to acute lead poisoning.
- Good chance that's how they got this way.by fwip
- US residents are only allowed to buy and drink brawndo (TM), for safe and clean consumption, they can even use it to irrigate the crops because it has electrolytes!!by tamimio
- This seems to fall under the whole “promote the general welfare” part of the Preamble of the Constitution, though perhaps the court is unaware of it.by cocacola1
- Give how vague constitutional clauses have been (ab)used to sneak in legislation through the judicial system (eg. roe v wade, or louisiana v. callais), the last thing we need are even more avenues to sue the government just because the plaintiff doesn't think the government is acting in the way they think is best.by gruez
- That sentence just says why we're making a national government (i.e. giving up some of our rights). It does not create some unlimited requirement for governments (especially state) to do whatever they can to promote general welfare, whatever that means. It doesn't even grant unlimited authority to do so. Or really say anything at all except state a very general purpose for why a national government is a sensible thing to have.
> We the People... in order to... [do establish] this Constitution
by ndriscoll - > Rather, he said residents should take other paths to redress, including electing better representatives and petitioning the government for remedies.
Is suing the government not essentially a petition for remedies? How else do you get the gov to listen?
by bix6 - >Is suing the government not essentially a petition for remedies? How else do you get the gov to listen?
The polite answer to that is JFK's line, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
by GolfPopper - The article left off part of part of what the court said, which was (emphasis added):
> Rather, the remedy for Plaintiffs’ injuries lies in pursuing tort claims, electing representatives who will better manage the public-water system, and petitioning their representatives for other remedies.
Suing the government is indeed one of the things the court said they could do. They just can't sue alleging a violation of the particular federal statute they used in this suit.
by tzs - Constitutional right? No. But, it's an abject failure of the local government overseeing the infrastructure to fix or solicit help to fix. Jackson, MS government failed. Targeting them on the grounds of a constitutional violation seems like borderline legal malpractice, but probably an unfortunate standard time wasting legal protocol, for lawyers to suggest this was a viable route to begin with.by tyjen
- > He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.”
We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.
by Avicebron - I completely disagree. Not everything can be included in the Constitution. We have ordinary laws to address things like this.by db48x
- The court ruling his here [1]. While this article is way better than the one from yesterday, it does have some big problems.
Better to just take a look at the ruling itself. Note that it contains two opinions. First is the majority opinion, joined be 10 judges on the 15 judge panel. Then is an opinion joined by 5 judges that dissents in part and concurs in part.
[1] https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pd...
by tzs - > alleged that the city knowingly allowed residents to drink unsafe water.
Surely knowingly letting people drink lead contaminated water breaks other laws rather than their constitutional rights?
- Turns out, if the government does it, no.by etchalon
- Dependence on "interpretation of the day" of the US Constitution seems to have overtaken regular maintenance of the law in a lot of high profile issues for the last many decades.by zamadatix
- This ruling seems obviously correct to me? The plaintiffs claimed this was a 14th amendment issue, but at the time the 14th was added cholera outbreaks were still somewhat common in the US and there was no remote notion of safe drinking water provided universally by municipal governments.
Hopefully there is some other legal redress under a different law or EPA regulation, but the courts can't just give in to faulty reasoning like that because people were wronged by the government.
by _--__--__ - > Plaintiffs allege1 that the City, through a series of acts and failures to act, caused lead to leach into Jackson’s drinking water. City officials then, despite the presence of lead in the water, incorrectly told residents that the water was safe to drink, despite knowing it likely was not.
This is the allegation. Doesn't sound much like "the constitution guarantees us safe drinking water," but rather "the constitution says our city government officials can't knowingly poison us and lie about it"
by cowpig - It should just be reckless endangerment criminal charges - they knew it was unsafe and provided it anyways.by giantg2
- That'd require them explaining why "the 14th Amendment predates germ theory" is a reasonable argument but not "the Second Amendment predates machine guns".by ceejayoz
- Yes? Why would there be? This is a nation built on negative rights. If you pay taxes/fees to some institution for a service and the the institution fails to provide it, that's already covered by some contract law, no?
I know this will be read as me saying they shouldn't have clean water. What I'm saying is that declaring a positive right is not an effective approach to satisfying that right in this country, or anywhere that I'm aware. But especially this country. If I was in that jurisdiction I would be kind of insulted if this was presented as a reasonable approach to secure clean water.
by chermi - > This is a nation built on negative rights.
I have a positive right to legal counsel, and trial by jury. We have, over the years, extended that to access to education and a wide variety of other items.
The Ninth Amendment exists in the Bill of Rights specifically to combat this misconception that the Constitution is an exhaustive list of the rights you possess.
by ceejayoz - It should just be criminal reckless endangerment since they knowingly provided unsafe water.by giantg2