Is there a law that punishes cowardly cops? In the military, According to 10 U.S. Code § 899 - Art. 99. Misbehavior before the enemy. Acts of cowardly conduct are punishable. Any member of the armed forces who before or in the presence of the enemy— runs away; shamefully abandons, surrenders, or delivers up any command, unit, place, or military property which it is his duty to defend; through disobedience, neglect, or intentional misconduct endangers the safety of any such command, unit, place, or military property; casts away his arms or ammunition; is guilty of cowardly conduct; quits his place of duty to plunder or pillage; causes false alarms in any command, unit, or place under control of the armed forces; willfully fails to do his utmost to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy any enemy troops, combatants, vessels, aircraft, or any other thing, which it is his duty so to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy; or does not afford all practicable relief and assistance to any troops, combatants, vessels, or aircraft of the armed forces belonging to the United States or their allies when engaged in battle; shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct. Is there a similar law that punishes cops who show acts of cowardly conduct?
The only time cops are violating the law for cowardice is when they fail to intervene in misconduct by another cop, see, e.g., here at page 10 (two police carry out a blatantly unlawful arrest, but there is also liability for the two other junior officers watch and do nothing about their superiors' misconduct), or when an arrested or incarcerated person has been placed in peril by the cop, see, e.g., here (police arrest woman and put her in a squad car on train tracks and fail to try to rescue her when a train is about to and then does smash into the squad car where she is helplessly handcuffed and locked in). This said, cops are routinely disciplined or fired for cowardice as an employment matter (see, e.g., here where a policeman who fails to rush in to stop a school shooting in progress was &quot;suspended in the immediate aftermath of the attack and later resigned&quot; and also here in a similar case). But, they are rarely disciplined or fired for being too aggressive even if it crosses the legal line unless the facts are unequivocally clear.
The police officers themselves are covered by Qualified Immunity - to put it briefly, a government official acting in their official capacity in a discretionary act (as in, they have some discretion in whether/how they carry out the act) is immune from suit so long as they pay reasonable deference to relevant law. In the case of the police, so long as the search or seizure itself is reasonable (either because there is a warrant, or because they had probable cause), they can take appropriately destructive measures to carry out their duty. Even if the search or seizure is later found to have been unreasonable, an officer may still have Qualified Immunity unless their action violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which reasonable person would have known" (Harlow v. Fitzgerald). However, a search/seizure doesn't give the police license for arbitrary destruction, whatever they do has to be reasonably pursuant to the legal search/seizure. For example, if a suspect is barricaded in a house with a gun, they can knock down doors, windows and walls to apprehend them. On the other hand, that does not mean the officers can then break open safes to try and find evidence - once their probable cause for the entry is fulfilled (apprehending the suspect), they need to get a warrant to do more than a plain sight search of the house. Warrants will specify what items are being searched for, so even with a warrant the police have to take reasonable measures to carry it out - an example of an unreasonable measure would be to tear into walls in order to try and find a stolen bicycle. On the other hand, tearing into walls could be justified if their warrant included searching for drugs from a dealer, where it is not uncommon to hide them in the walls. States and the Federal Government enjoy Sovereign Immunity from suits in most cases. There are some exceptions, but none would apply in this case so long as the general policy of the police department was not illegal or unconstitutional. However, county and city governments do not enjoy Sovereign Immunity and state governments and the Federal Government often allow suits against them for negligence from their actors, so someone injured by unreasonable police action can usually try to recover damages from the officer's department.
How far can one go to defend him/herself from an unreasonable search and seizures, in the same sense of one defending him/herself from an unlawful arrest? Not very far. Basically all you can do is try to talk the officer out of it. He thinks he sees evidence in sight... If the police officer reasonably believes that there is evidence of a crime in plain view, then the officer can proceed to seize the evidence. If the property owner tries to use force to prevent the seizure, then the officer can arrest the property owner. ... the property owner ... highly believes there is no possible way he could have seen the evidence from outside his property. It doesn't matter what the owner believes (unless the owner can somehow convince the officer before the search). What matters is what the court believes. But the owner cannot bring the matter to court before the officer enters the shed. If the officer insists on entering the shed and the owner can establish in court that the officer couldn't see the evidence and that there was no other lawful basis for a warrantless search or seizure, then the evidence will be inadmissible. The owner might also be able to prevail in a civil suit for the violation of civil rights, but the bar for such a suit is very high, so the likelihood is very small.
In the United States, the government has, multiple times, destroyed homes while trying to catch a fugitive. And the homeowner sometimes makes a claim in federal court that this is an unconstitutional taking without compensation in violation of the 5th Amendment. In Lech v. Jackson, the 10th Circuit decided that the police and city were not liable for destroying a house while trying to arrest a criminal who had fled there. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case. But in Baker v. City of McKinney, Texas, less than 3 months ago, a district court declined to dismiss a case in which police destroyed a home to catch a fleeing criminal. Allegedly, in this case the police were given a key to the door, a garage door opener, and the code to the back gate by the homeowner - and instead of using those, they used explosives on the garage door and used a BearCat to knock down the fence and the front door. I'm not sure to what extent those facts, perhaps showing that the scale of the destruction was unnecessary, matter. To the best of my knowledge the case is still ongoing.
Even if you had grounds for a lawsuit, you could not make it come out of the officer’s pocket. Under Chapter 4.64 of the Seattle Code, the City of Seattle is generally required to defend and indemnify city employees who are sued for doing their job. If you sue a police officer, the city pays his lawyer; if you win or if the city decides your claim is legitimate, the city pays whatever damages there were. The provision does not cover “claims and/or litigation arising from any dishonest, fraudulent, criminal or malicious acts or omissions of officers or employees of the City,” but that requires a lot more than “I wasn’t parked illegally,” and in any event you cannot force that issue -— only the city can. That’s between the officer and the city, and has nothing to do with you. This provision is pretty common in employment, including government employment. If I’m working for you and am acting in good faith, doing things for your benefit under your instructions, it’s only fair for you to shoulder the costs if I mess up. When it comes to government employees (whose job often makes people very angry at them), indemnification is extremely common. If police officers faced the risk of financial ruin for innocent mistakes, it’d be very hard to find anyone willing to do the job.
In short, no, that cant be a pardon for those police officers who would be now influenced to take more violent actions towards those they detain. Pardons are only applicable to past actions. You may be pardoned before charges are filed, but the actions must have already occured. Though I less certain about this, simply because Ive never heard such a thing proposed, I would also note that it is highly improbable that the actual statement he made - generic and during a speech - could everbe interpreted as an affirmative act intending to grant pardons to anyone who may act in that manner in the future.
TL; DNR: No. Charging the Councilwoman under §2383 for making a speech would violate the First Amendment, and &quot;levying war&quot; in the §2381 means actually fighting, not conspiring to fight. 18 USC §2383 Since §2383 is a statute, it must conform to the Constitution. To charge Sawant for what she said in a speech would violate the 1st Amendment, which says, &quot;Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...&quot; Even without the First Amendment problems, §2383 would not apply. The words &quot;rebellion and insurrection&quot; in §2383 are usually read to mean real violence, not vague words that may or may not involve violence. Not even Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who has had several armed standoffs with the government, was charged under §2383. 18 USC §2381 Since §2381 is based on Art. 3, §3, the Treason Clause of the Constitution, the First Amendment does not apply to it. Following the Treason Clause, §2381 has two prongs. To be guilty of treason, one must either: a) Levy war against the United States; or b) Adhere to its enemies. &quot;Enemies&quot; has been interpreted to mean enemies in a real war, so the second prong does not apply. Since Sawant is not actually levying war against the United States, §2381 can only apply to her if it covers a conspiracy to levy war against the United States. The Supreme Court decided it did not in 1807, in Ex Parte Bollman. Bollman was charged with conspiring with Aaron Burr to carve a new country out of the US. The Court ordered Bollman released. In his opinion, John Marshall explained why: However flagitious may be the crime of conspiring to subvert by force the government of our country, such conspiracy is not treason. To conspire to levy war, and actually to levy war, are distinct offenses. Marshall’s narrow reading of the Treason Clause was consistent with the views of the Founders. In Federalist 43, James Madison explained that in the past, “violent factions” had often used “new-fangled and artificial&quot; definitions of treason to “wreck their alternate malignity on each other…” To keep from repeating this sorry history, the Constitution “opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger,” by defining what constituted treason and specifying how it was to be proved.
Criminal charges are filed and prosecuted by the government, on behalf of the public, and there is no requirement for approval or cooperation by the victim. As a policy matter, a DA may decide to not charge a person in case the victim is unwilling (though less so in cases of domestic violence), perhaps because of the widespread impression that the victim has to "press charges" (which indeed they would have to do in the case of private prosecution, which is no longer allowed in the US). The alleged victim's reddit exchanges on the topic are here. An uncooperative victim does not make a good witness, even if they are compelled to testify. The police statement that they cannot pursue an investigation should not be interpreted as a statement of law, it's probably a statement of policy and practicality.