Cornell Law professor Joseph Margulies observes that the Memphis Police Department’s Policies and Procedures document is missing an entire section called “Response to Resistance,” which sets the rules governing the use of force by a Memphis officer, including deadly force. Professor Margulies points out that adopting or amending rules is not enough to solve the problem that led to the murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police officers; rather we police culture must change. Indeed, Margulies argues, the SCORPION unit was doing exactly what Memphis leaders inside and outside the Department wanted it to do.
Cornell Law professor Joseph Margulies comments on the videos released by the City of Memphis documenting the murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police officers. Professor Margulies points out that the atrocious conduct captured on video reflects a police culture that encourages brutality and indifference, arguing that if the Memphis Police Department can’t change the culture they’ve created, their officers don’t deserve the badge.
Igor De Lazari, a Brazilian legal scholar, Antonio Sepulveda, Professor of Law at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and at the Fluminense Federal University, and Ana Beatriz a legal assistant at the Public Ministry Office of the State of Santa Catarina and Criminal Procedure Law Specialist, comment on the police use of lethal force in Rio de Janeiro. The authors suggest several institutional and social policy changes that would begin to address the disproportionate use of lethal force in Rio and restore public faith in its public security policy
Austin Sarat—Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College—explains why the police murder of George Floyd was the worst moment of 2020 in American law. Professor Sarat proposes that we remember the event and that date—May 25—as “infamous,” a word reserved for rare and atrocious events like the bombing of Pearl Harbor, in an attempt to capture the brutality and inhumanity of the act.
Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies uses the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta by police to explain some lessons for reform we might learn. Margulies calls upon us to use this case to reexamine the circumstances that should result in a custodial arrest and to shrink the function of police so as to use them only in the very few situations that truly require them.
Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the proposal that eliminating or substantially reducing the qualified immunity currently enjoyed by police officers would address racism and police brutality. Although the idea has lately garnered some bipartisan support and could potentially have some benefit, Dorf describes two reasons to be skeptical of the suggestion. He concludes that for all of its flaws, qualified immunity may actually facilitate the progressive development of constitutional rights.
University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton praises the response of liberal clergy in response to President Trump’s seemingly opportunistic photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. Hamilton calls upon these religious leaders to continue speaking out loudly in the name of inclusion, love, and truth.
Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies comments on some lessons to be learned from the recent killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Though he laments the atrocious and unnecessary act of violence, Margulies too resists the urge to demonize, instead adopting a personal philosophy to better understand and approach humanity: There is no them. There is only us.
