Sorry, JD: here's why your masked ICE goons don't have the immunity you claim
The Trump administration is trying to take the world back not just to the Dark Ages, when people were tortured to death for their beliefs, but to the Stone Age when neanderthals with the heaviest clubs held most power. Neanderthals commandeered rare earth minerals fecund hunting grounds from weaker neighbors because they could. But when they came up against more organized, ordered, and civilized Homo Sapiens, they became extinct.
Trump advisor and Neanderthal genetic marker Stephen Miller is on record lusting for the good old days when women were dragged by their hair into the cave. He told CNN during an interview that, “We live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
He wishes. Shamefully unfamiliar with exalted human histories that produced the Magna Carta, the League of Nations, or the United Nations pact designed to prevent the next Hitler and World War III, Miller added in a later talk that “President Trump’s authority will not be questioned.”
Miller is damaged goods, a lip-snarling, Nazi-adjacent creep born into privilege. When he ran for office in high school, his stump speech claimed the right of all privileged students to litter, to trash the place, because paid staff would clean it up. That was 25 years ago, but people never really change, and Miller is now trying to help Trump re-arrange the world order.
Immunity for ICE agents?
Renee Nicole Good was murdered when one ICE agent shouted for her to “get out of the f------ car,” while another told her to move her car, which she tried to do.
Instead of investigating Good’s murderer, Jonathan Ross, for carrying a gun with PTSD, Trump’s DOJ opened an investigation into Renee Good’s wife — her political contributions, texts and social media posts, her life. MAGA videos of the murder (“Mouthy Dykes get what they Had Coming”) show Good’s wife failing to genuflect or cower in fear, instead suggesting the angry agent go get himself some lunch.
Seconds later, Ross shot Renee three times in the head as she was trying to move her car, then called her a “fucking bitch.” When Trump launched the DOJ investigation this week, six DOJ career officials, including prosecutors, quit in protest.
After Good’s murder, JD Vance engaged in a PR blitz to empower other rogue ICE agents, declaring that they have absolute immunity for murdering people.
Vance and his masked goons need some basic education on the law:
- ICE agents are not immune from prosecution for murder or any other crime.
- There is no statute of limitations for murder.
- Presidents can only pardon for federal crimes, not state crimes, the most serious of which is murder.
Qualified immunity — the theory
Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine created by the U.S. Supreme Court that protects immigration officers from civil liability, but not when they knowingly violate the law. Most importantly, it does not protect federal agents from prosecution under criminal laws.
In 2001, the Supreme Court set out a two-step analysis for qualified immunity:
- Whether “the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right.”
- “Whether the right was clearly established” when he acted.
In Good’s case, the constitutional right not to be shot in the face while trying to move one’s car is clear and established.
In less clear cases, what constitutes excessive force turns on policy, practice and the facts of the case. As explained last week, deadly force cannot be used by law enforcement officers in most circumstances. The DOJ deadly force policy, similar to the DHS policy on deadly force, states that deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect, and that firearms may not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless a person is threatening the officer with deadly force by means other than the vehicle, and no other means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle.
In Renee Good’s case, a car slowly rolling away does not pose imminent danger to anyone. Ross didn’t move out of the way, and even continued filming with his cellphone in one hand while he shot Good with the gun in the other. If he’d really “feared for his” life he’d have dropped the damned phone. Calling her a “fucking bitch” immediately after also suggests anger, rather than fear, was the motivator.
There is no statute of limitations on murder, and presidents cannot void state prosecutions
For most crimes, a limited window of time exists in which to charge and pursue a conviction, known as a statute of limitations. The driving theory is that witnesses lose fresh recollections about what happened with the passage of time, and that people — criminals, victims, and witnesses — need to get on with their lives at some point.
Statutes of limitation for state crimes vary across state lines, but in general, serious crimes have shorter limitations, and moderate crimes have medium limits (3-7 years for felonies like assault/burglary). For heinous or very serious crimes like murder, terrorism, or serious sexual offenses, most states have no statute of limitations, which allows prosecution at any time.
Complexity arises in the context of prosecuting federal officials for state crimes. A constitutional principle known as the Supremacy Clause holds that states should not be able to undermine federal policy by using targeted criminal prosecutions. Trump, Vance and Miller are trying to use the Supremacy Clause to give all federal ICE agents a get out of jail card, likely inspired by the Supreme Court ruling that Trump has immunity from prosecution for official acts.
But Trump and Co. are clearly mistaken. Even Trump’s own immunity ruling remains unsettled. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent opined that, under the majority’s grant of immunity, Trump could order Seal Team Six to assassinate his rivals with impunity, but Samuel Alito and John Roberts pushed back, suggesting that assessment was wrong.
ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who shot Renee Good three times, should, and likely will, be tried for murder. If he is not, ICE will become Trump’s paramilitary force, moving us a giant backward towards Trump/Vance/Miller’s Neanderthalic rule by club, and Good’s murder will surely become precedent for more murders to follow.
- Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.