Should the City Be Liable for Rachel’s Death?
By Randall Holcombe • Monday March 8, 2010 1:46 PM PDT • 27 Comments
Rachel Hoffman was a 23-year-old graduate of Florida State University who was arrested for possession of marijuana in 2007, and then while under court supervision was arrested again in 2008. Police tried to get her to identify other marijuana users in exchange for reduced charges, but Rachel wouldn’t rat out her friends. So the police gave her the opportunity to participate in a sting operation instead, to get some bigger targets. She was given $13,000 to buy drugs and a gun from Deneilo Bradshaw and Bradshaw’s brother-in-law Andrea Green on May 7, 2008.
During the sting police lost track of Rachel, and her dead body was discovered 50 miles away two days later. In separate trials both Bradshaw and Green have been convicted of murder.
In one sense the sting worked better than the police anticipated. They had hoped to be able to get Bradshaw and Green on drug charges, but actually got them on the bigger charge of murder. That success came at the cost of Rachel Hoffman’s life.
The murder convictions behind them, Hoffman’s family is now suing the City of Tallahassee, seeking damages in a civil suit. Should the city be liable for Rachel’s death?
There is no question the Tallahassee Police Department made many mistakes by putting an inexperienced girl who had already demonstrated a penchant for irresponsible and risk-taking behavior in a position of dealing by herself with two individuals the Department knew were dangerous. Indeed, the Department admitted this, disciplined several policemen, and gave its severest penalty to the officer who recruited and was handling Rachel, Ryan Pender, by firing him.
While I have much sympathy for Rachel’s family, it is unclear to me that the city should be liable. The city is not a person and cannot make decisions — good or bad — and any monetary liability would come out of the pockets of the city’s taxpayers. I live in Tallahassee, I am one of those taxpayers, and I was appalled when I learned the facts of this case. Am I now responsible for paying civil damages to Rachel’s family? The court will decide.
Meanwhile, in an interesting companion case, Ryan Pender, who is represented by a union that is appealing his firing, will be going to arbitration to see whether he is entitled to reclaim his job. It would be ironic if Mr. Pender got his job back, essentially reversing the earlier judgment that he erred, but the city lost its lawsuit, essentially saying the citizens of Tallahassee are responsible for the loss of Rachel.
Tags: Criminal Justice, Drugs, Police 
If anyone has a claim to taxdollars — including retired victims of Social Security, etc. — Rachel’s family does. However, as a strict libertarian, I can only endorse that the officers who put her in that situation be held personally liable, their assets liquidated and paid out to her family, their future earnings seized to compensate for their criminal actions. Individual police officers should be held liable for everything they do that violates people’s rights. This would make being a police officer much less attractive for many people, but that would also be a good thing.
Anthony Gregory | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
It’s unclear to me why Rachel’s family has more of a claim than Social Security recipients, Anthony. SS recipients did pay in all their working lives with the promise that they would get retirement benefits in return. That would seem to give SS recipients a legitimate claim to their benefits. Meanwhile, Rachel foolishly agreed to participate in the sting that cost her her life.
I do agree that any civil damages should come from the police officers who put her in that position, though. That’s what makes Ryan Pender’s arbitration proceedings an interesting companion case to this civil suit.
Randall Holcombe | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
Well, Social Security taxpayers are robbed, as are all taxpayers — but just as with anyone else, their “right” to taxdollars is contingent upon their right to other people’s money. The same formula applies. Their claim is not “legitimate,” although it is understandable. But many recipients at this point probably get more than they put in. Furthermore, some folks are far more victimized by the U.S. state than even taxpayers — Iraqis and Afghans, for example, whose claim the U.S. assets I think is surely at least as valid as Social Security taxpayers.
I think Rachel’s case is special because she was coerced into a situation in which she died — coerced under threat of years of imprisonment, which in effect means abuse, dehumanization, etc. It’s hard for me to see how even a scintilla of blame falls on her. Was she really being “foolish”? In retrospect, yes, but if the state forced me to cooperate in its criminal enterprise under threat of years of imprisonment, I might behave foolishly too.
Anthony Gregory | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
Of course governments at all levels also have assets. I say we liquidate those, and give the proceeds to tax, war, and police state victims.
Anthony Gregory | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
We’ve got to attack the problem at the root. As long as Americans have this unhealthy “hero worship” thing with arrogant, ill-tempered, heavily armed public employees in paramilitary regalia, adorned with gold/silver talismans issued by the state...there will be abuse at the hands of these sub-normals.
If we can prove that they convinced her to go along with this plan of theirs using coercion of any kind, if they so much as made her feel like she might be at a higher risk of a parking ticket. Then strip them of all property and possessions, bar them permanently from working in the peacekeeping field again. Then once they find gainful employment again, garnish 30% of their wages for life as reparations to the girls family.
Randall, while I agree that the Social Security recipients payed into the system their entire lives. I (a layman with no legal training) must apply the same “reasonable standard” to the social security recipients as to the victims of Bernie Madoff. The crimes are virtually identical.
What legal recourse do the victims of Madoff’s ponzi scheme have to recover their losses? What legal guarantees do they have within the recourse available to them that they will be made whole?
Let us right now, today, apply that same standard to all social security payees over 50, give them back in lump sum the dollar amount that they paid in over the course of their lives (plus the prevailing interest rate).
Then, to borrow a phrase from a former resident of the white house, let’s “kill social security first!” Because, like any ponzi scheme, it’s the last round of suckers that gets left holding the bag. And I’d say my generation (I’m 42) just got tagged.
Ron Jones | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
The details surrounding her “volunteering” for a sting for bigger fish, not her friends. The city has all the man power and information to conduct a sting without her. My guess is this wasn’t standard policy for police stings.
It’s too simplistic to say the officers are liable since their superior officers approved the operation. How far does accountability for the death of an officer or civilian go? All they way to chief? At some point city officials are liable. If so, then a civil suit is reasonable.
If I were in a position where the city hurt me or my family I’d want greater accountability and restitution than the firing or assets of a couple of individual contributors. I’m fine with that as a taxpayer because then I have the same recourse under the law. In addition the people at the top would be voted out too.
If we don’t allow city to be sued then it has far greater power than it does now. This actually reduces our civil liberties and freedom. That’s worth a few pennies in taxes to me.
Talman Stoner | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
You paid taxes to the police officers to conduct the investigations and arrests. And you would have paid the taxes to have her imprisoned. Granted, you probably don’t agree with the policies and so you are a tax victim, but what about all the people who do support them?
It is my humble opinion that in a strict libertarian sense of justice, those people who support the policies should be held liable, too. Is it impractical? Probably. Is it more just? I think so. Unfortunately, the court will probably lump you in with those people when it forces all taxpayers to pay up.
Brent | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
Exactly my thoughts about the ‘foolish’ point. How foolish is it to agree to the wishes of the men with the guns under the threat of more loss of liberty? Seems to me they coerced her and gave her a gross sense of security that was not in fact true. I agree that it is not right to use money seized through taxes to award to her family, but unfortunately that is the only system we have that gets the attention of those in power.
I do like the idea of leaning the responsible detectives and I would throw in their superiors for good measure for causing this to happen. Perhaps this story is just the perfect blend of bad laws (prohibition), a coercive law enforcement and an unjust legal system for punishing government failures to get under my skin.
AJ | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
Well, Ron, at 42 you will be left holding the bag, or you will be paid in Chinese “dollars”. The US dollar is now virtually worthless but try to get by on a “barter” economy and the fascists will come knocking at your door. There may still be time to bring back our Republic but people must act fast, starting in November of 2010.
amishfarmer | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Well let’s see, she should have stayed away from drugs, her first mistake. She should have turned in druggie friends if she wanted to strike a deal, her second mistake. She should have done the time for her crime, if she didn’t want to do the sting, her third mistake. All three mistakes her own fault and her own choice. I guess she should have made better choices. END of story!!
Bomber | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Okay, time for a reality check. Police Officers work for the Municipality by which they are employed. Thus, Rachel’s family should indeed file the law-suit, but should also be suing the officers. The courts, if allowed to follow common-law (I know big stretch), will hopefully discover whether or not the officers acted on their own, or were “persuaded” to abuse Rachel in this manner – which is sadly all to often the case “do what you are directed or loose your job.”
Like it or not, we have these governments. And being a libertarian, and not an anarchist, I don’t suggest that we work to erase that. The solution to abusive governments is not to deny people such as the family of Ms. Hoffman their right to restitution. Rather, if guilty, they – either the officers, the government, or both – should have to pay through the teeth. Yes, this means that we the tax-payers must pay in the first round, but remember, they already have our money. The key is that we cannot allow it to end there. We the tax-payers MUST stand up to the government when they come looking for the tax increase to offset those losses. If denied the tax increases, they will have to live under a reduced budget as a result of the lawsuits, and – might – think twice about such practices again. Either way, the guilty must be held accountable, and we must not allow them to simply pawn the bill off on us.
Please note, that the most important part of the above is that we, each one of us, MUST actually join the fight against governments passing these penalties along to taxpayers, that means that we cannot just sit at our computers and prophesize, we have to actually DO SOMETHING, and become active, either by running for office (and hopefully getting elected), or becoming involved with those in office to help them “see the light”, or as a last resort, fighting at the grass-roots level against those would have “us” pay for “their” bad policies. Remember, freedom is not free.
Sincerely – former Town Trustee – Frederick, Colorado
joe4liberty | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Thanks for all the comments. I didn’t want to say anything about Social Security, but Anthony brought it up. I will point out that a difference between Social Security recipients and participants in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is that people are forced to participate in SS, whereas they chose to “invest” with Madoff.
I completely agree with everyone that Rachel agreed to participate in the sting only because she was being threatened with jail time by the police, and that the officers of the Tallahassee Police Department were responsible for her death. And, I completely agree that the officers who put Rachel in that ultimately fatal position should be personally responsible for what they did, including Ryan Pender, who is now engaged in arbitration to try to get his job back. My question is: Should Tallahassee taxpayers also be liable? What did Tallahassee taxpayers (including me) do to make us liable in this case?
Randall Holcombe | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Again Randall, Tallahassee taxpayers won’t be liable – per se – since I am making the assumption that you are not expecting – or even hoping – that you will be receiving a refund of those taxes any time soon. Thus, what will – or rather SHOULD – happen is that IF the government is found liable, they will fork over the funds that would have otherwise been spent on the games that they play with the money (trust me, having served 4 years in municipal government, FAR more is wasted than is spent on legitimate municipal expenses ie. roads, police, etc.. etc..). Thus, if they are found liable, and are made to pay, AND you do not allow them to pass along the bill to you the taxpayers, then you will not be paying it – per se – again, the money has already been taken from you, but rather, you will be bringing about the reduction in the size of your municipal government. If they can’t steal more from you, than they have to pull in the belt.
And again, if you get elected to the Tallahassee city council, you will get to see first hand just how much money is being spent now on illegitimate expenses. Just a thought.
I will concede however that in reality however, most of your neighbors will not fight beside you, and so if found liable, the city government will cry poor, say that they need a tax increase... “for the heroes”, or “for the children” or some other tripe, all the while handing out hundreds of thousands to the little league, and swim clubs, funding police for the High School (despite the fact that such funds should be coming from the school board’s budget), spending millions building a golf course to subsidize fat old men’s Saturday afternoon’s recreation, and a thousand other “municipal expenses”, the citizens will cave, taxes will go up, and THEN you will be paying for the justice that Rachael’s family deserves.
PS, all of this was illegal anyway. Entrapment is against the law in all 50 states. Entrapment is when someone breaks the law in an attempt to catch someone else breaking the law. The police forced Rachael into entrapment, and thus they all broke the law. The question is whether or not the officer’s superiors (chief, county manager, city council, etc..) condone such behavior.
joe4liberty | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
A similar problem exists with “just compensation” in eminent domain cases. Ultimately, the compensation is stolen loot and cannot be just.
Anthony Gregory | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Thanks for your comments, Joe. First, I agree that I, personally, would be hard-pressed to notice any effect if the city did lose this suit and pay Rachel’s family. I was really thinking about whether, in principle, taxpayers should be held financially responsible for the misdeeds of their governments.
And, I completely agree with you that what the Tallahassee Police Department did in this case was completely reprehensible.
Anthony, I don’t think the issue is exactly the same with just compensation in eminent domain cases. The idea behind eminent domain is that there is a public benefit from the property that is taken, so presumably taxpayers benefit from the public use of the property, even though they pay for it through their taxes. In the case of using government money to compensate people for the wrongdoing of public employees, some people did something wrong (in this case the TPD), and other people (the taxpayers) are then asked to pay compensation.
The common element in Rachel’s case and the two examples you brought up (Social Security and eminent domain) is the premise that taxation is theft. OK. But in the case of Social Security people were forced to pay in with the promise that at a later date they would collect retirement benefits, if they lived that long. And in the case of eminent domain there is the promise of a public benefit in exchange for the cost imposed on taxpayers.
The issue I was trying to focus on is that in Rachel’s case some people (on the TPD) did something wrong, and other people (taxpayers) are then asked to pay for it. Should taxpayers be on the hook for the misdeeds of government employees? That’s different from asking whether we should force taxpayers to fund programs that presumably give them benefits in return.
Randall Holcombe | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Yes, but governments must be shown that they cannot do as they please. While I agree that the individuals in this case must be held accountable up to and possibly including having them pay restitution for the rest of their lives, in the minds of the government, they can just replace the officers and continue with the practices that, in this case, gets people killed.
Unless you are advocating abolishing government altogether (anarchy), we will still have government. And to keep it just, a victim must be able to extract restitution from the agency that condones, or worse – expects, such behavior as that which was displayed in this case. Again, the proper answer is to have them [government] loose the money with which they are already ‘playing’, and not allow them to pass the bill along to you.
As for the comment on Eminent Domain, I don’t understand how that line of reasoning comes into play. With the exception of extremely rare cases (the mountain will collapse and the entire town will be killed – including you – if we do not have access to your land – but even then, a little salesmanship would work much better than stealing the land), Eminent Domain is never justified, and thus, instead of stealing money from the taxpayers to pay for the land, they can still either not take the land in the first place, or just give it back.
PS, I fought and lost a battle to defend a man’s property from Eminent Domain in my town – vote went 3-3 mayor broke the tie and stole the land so that they could put in a drainage ditch on it so that a developer wouldn’t have to give up his own land to build the ditch… then the economy failed, the developer went bust, the land sits idol, and the man still can’t get his land back.
joe4liberty | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Again, thanks for your thoughtful comments, Joe. I wasn’t trying to defend either eminent domain or Social Security; I was just noting that in those cases there is the premise that government provides a benefit to taxpayers in exchange for the taxes paid. That’s not the case if compensation is paid to Rachel’s family.
You do make a good point that if the money comes out of the government budget, it may penalize those who made the bad decisions and give them an incentive to be more careful in the future. I’m fairly confident that in this case, if the city loses the suit the money will come out of general revenues, not the TPD budget.
Randall Holcombe | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
And I assure you that there is MORE than enough waste in the General Budget to offset a compensatory ruling, and if they can’t raise the taxes, they just might learn something.
Anyway, didn’t mean to imply that you were defending either ED or SSI, just jaded from the trenches. BTW, great article, thanks for the information.
joe4liberty | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Are you aware that the only recourse for the family is to sue the city. We’ve managed to insulate police officers and especially prosecutors from facing the financial fall out of their poor decision making with qualified and absolute immunity. As impercise as suing the city is, it is the only way to put any real pressure on government. Taking it away by making the city not liable would effectively give the police and prosecutors a blank check to exercise their already vast powers.
In short, you are wrong...unless of course you can get rid of or re-work the immunity laws, but seeing how it is pretty much set up and controlled by the legal establishment....good luck with that.
Steve Verdon | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
Randall, why should taxpayers be any more on the hook for “public goods” like roads than for the “public good” of knowing that if their rights are trampled by the police, they might have financial recourse?
I’d rather pay taxes to give money to victims of the state — war victims, social security victims, eminent domain victims — than for most of the stuff government finances.
Anthony Gregory | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
“Again, thanks for your thoughtful comments, Joe. I wasn’t trying to defend either eminent domain or Social Security; I was just noting that in those cases there is the premise that government provides a benefit to taxpayers in exchange for the taxes paid. That’s not the case if compensation is paid to Rachel’s family.”
Randall, it seems to me that there is no more reason to believe the premise that you will get back from Social Security what you put into it than the premise that if the cops kill your daughter, you will at least be compensated something.
Anthony Gregory | Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
The police officer was acting as an agent for the city. Agency law applies. The city is liable to the family.
Bill | Mar 10, 2010 | Reply
Is there no sense that the police union bears more responsibility for the officers’ actions than the city government (the employers/managers of the police officers) and the taxpayers (the shareholders) in turn?
After all, the union negotiates and accepts the conditions of employment and work performance, typically in an adversarial fashion with the city. I.e., the city wants higher qualifications and performance and the union wants more pay. Performance is sacrificed for pay at the union’s behest.
So again, why isn’t the chain of accountability — and hence, liability — employee -> union -> managers -> employers -> shareholders?
Federalist | Mar 12, 2010 | Reply
Probably not. I’m sure they’d run right to qualified immunity.
Frankly, I’m a bit shocked that they fired one of their own. Usually the police will not throw one of their own under the bus unless they do something really horrible like rape the polive chief’s daughter.
Really, this will make quite a bit more sense if you’d just quit using this logic stuff you are relying on.
Steve Verdon | Mar 12, 2010 | Reply