Judging Freedom - Simone Biles, Nassar Victims Sue F.B.I. for Investigative Failures

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 8, 2022. It's about 345 in the afternoon here on the East Coast. My dear friends, don't forget to like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. It helps us expand our reach. You may generally be familiar with this terrible case at the University of Michigan involving a gymnast physician by the name of Dr. Larry Nassar. Dr. Nassar was a serial abuser, sexually abusing many, many, many young women, not the least of whom was Simone Biles, an American Olympic champion gymnast. Yesterday, Ms. Biles announced that she and many of her colleagues would file a lawsuit seeking a billion dollars collectively against the FBI. This is a very unusual lawsuit to sue the FBI for its failure to unearth enough evidence to prosecute someone in order to stop him from his serial behavior. I'm not so sure that that lawsuit is going to survive

a motion to dismiss, and I'll tell you why. It should survive. People who are harmed by the negligence of the government, in my view, absolutely should be able to sue the government. Of course, suing the government is like suing everybody else. The government is bankrupt. The government borrows the money, and we all pay higher taxes as the government pays interest on the borrowed money. But that's a longstanding problem that is generally irrelevant to this case.

What is relevant is a Supreme Court opinion written by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who basically said, as horrible as this sounds, the police are not obliged to protect our lives and property. They are not obliged to prevent crimes before they happen. What the heck do we give them a badge and a shield for? Translate that to the FBI. They're cops in business suits and with a college education, but they're still basically cops who carry a badge and who carry a gun and who investigate crimes. In the case of Dr. Nassar, there were many, many, many dozens, dozens of victims. So the theory of the case is, why didn't the FBI stop this midstream? I really think

under the present law, the only way these young ladies, all of whom have been horribly wronged and deserve an award from the FBI, the only way they're going to prevail is if they can show that the FBI knowingly, for some nefarious and inappropriate reason, looked the other way. But generally, the failure to uncover evidence or the failure to anticipate crime is not actionable, cannot form the basis for an award for damages by a jury. But who knows? This is how laws change. First-year law students know this phrase, bad cases make hard law. Hey, sometimes hard cases change the law for the better. We'll see if that happens here. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.