Utah man must pay for permission to sue officer who killed his dog
Salt Lake City resident Sean Kendall's dog, Geist, was shot and killed by a police officer searching for a missing child in 2014. Following local uproar, the city offered Kendall a $10,000 settlement, which he rejected, arguing that "It would be like, 'For $10,000 you can break into my backyard and kill my dog.' That's not right."
But if he wants to sue the cop responsible for Geist's death, Kendall will need much, much more than $10,000. That's because Utah law requires anyone who wants to sue the police to pay the officer's court costs and attorney fees up front — a bill that could easily run into the tens of thousands, and which would only be reimbursed should Kendall win his case.
Kendall's attorney, former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, argues this requirement "severely undermines the rule of law, while letting abusive law-enforcement officers off the hook for their violations of the state constitution and other state legal protections." Kendall currently awaits a court ruling on whether the legal fees law is unconstitutional.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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