Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is a disgusting person.
MSNBC’s Jen Psaki asked Pritzker to elaborate on comments he made on Sunday about the ability to charge ICE agents with breaking state and local laws.
Pritzker answered (so glad Pam Key of Breitbart transcribed this because I did not want to hear his voice):
“We don’t know that anybody would be held accountable at the federal level. So we’re looking at all of the options at the local level with county state’s attorneys, with attorneys general to to go after people when they’re breaking Illinois law, when they’re breaking local law. And, and we think that they have, you know, when they’re driving through an area, someone’s yelling at them and they decide to simply throw a tear gas canister out of the car as they’re driving through at someone who’s on the side of the road, that, it seems to me, is I know is a violation of Illinois law. And so the question is, can we hold the officers, the agents responsible when they do something like that? If it were a police officer, we could, if it was, you know, you or me or just an average person throwing a, you know, a tear gas canister out the side of a window at people, we could hold them responsible. So it seems like they ought to be held responsible for breaking local and state laws.”
Can Pritzker do this? Mike Miller at RedState cited the State Democracy Research Initiative.
That article explained why a state cannot prosecute federal officials.
Basically, a state cannot prosecute a federal official if that person acted “within the bounds of their lawful federal duties.”
I found this interesting quote (emphasis mine):
Seth Waxman, the former Solicitor General of the United States, interprets the origins, purpose, and the critical importance of the federal immunity defense as embodied in this well-known Tennessee v. Davis quote as follows:In short, subjecting federal officers to state criminal sanctions for carrying out their federally appointed duties could make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the federal government to function. Even the most dedicated federal servant would be reluctant to do his job conscientiously if he knew it could mean prison time in the state penitentiary. Seth P. Waxman, What Kind of Immunity? Federal Officers, State Criminal Law, and the Supremacy Clause, 112 Yale L.J. 2195, 2230-31 (2003).4
How about civil court? It’s a route someone could take, but I doubt it would satisfy Pritzker:
Further, there are other methods of recourse against officers (federal and otherwise) who commit wrongs against citizens. Tort law is the law of civil (non-criminal) wrongs. This means that the federal LEO harm a private citizen, the citizen can sue for compensation. Suing versus winning the lawsuit are two different things. But, the citizen can sue for battery, (physical beating) assault, (threat of physical beating) or even false imprisonment. (detaining someone for no legal reason) And while the federal government has immunity on many actions private citizens would otherwise be liable for, they are not immune to suit for intentional torts such as those above. (§ 2608(h)).
The Institute of Justice mentioned the Federal Tort Claims ACT (FTCA), but even that has exceptions when the official carried out a “discretionary function” and many intentional torts: “Courts across the country disagree about how to apply this rule, but many have stretched this immunity to cover most acts by law enforcement and other government agents.”
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