Qualified Immunity

Author: Danielle

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#1
Danielle
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Qualified immunity refers to a series of legal precedents that protect government officials (including police officers) accused of violating constitutional rights. The rationale for qualified immunity is that officials should be free from vacuous lawsuits and thus deserve to be put "on notice" as to what is and is not constitutional behavior. It is a standard that has seen government officials get off for assaulting and arresting a man for standing outside of his own home, for shooting and killing a man who had been sleeping in his car, for beating a man after pulling him over for broken lights, for leaving an innocent man's home in ruins after conducting a SWAT raid on the wrong house, and for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Without a prior ruling with identical facts, the victims in the above scenarios were not allowed to state their claims before a jury.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas — among the court's most liberal and most conservative members, respectively — have previously criticized qualified immunity. Congressional Democrats have made multiple attempts in recent years to limit qualified immunity, though none have been successful. 

Do you support qualified immunity?
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Wylted
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Without qualified immunity, would we really hold cops responsible for violating constitutional rights when they acted in good faith?

Many laws have been found to be unconstitutional when challenged at a later date. Wouldn't a police officer who enforced those unconstitutional laws be made liable without qualified immunity? 

Wouldn't that mean you requiring police officers to be constituitional scholars when let's be honest most have an IQ that is barely 3 digits. That's an unfair burden on them I would think. 

I'm now going to take a look at your individual examples. 
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Yeah, your examples are dumb. 

They are all pulled from reason also which has a clear libertarian bias and are twisting the actions almost as bad as liberals would.

For example the raid by 24 cops of the wrong house. Why would the cops be individually responsible ?

It's not their job to double check the warrant is for the correct address. They are are the grunts. Somebody above them fucked up and they had an order to enter that home. The police department as a whole should be liable in that lawsuit, not the grunts who were doing their job. 

Possibly the judge should be at fault also. 
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Another article it questions why harsh force would be used for a simple traffic violation. Ultimately the suspect determines the level of force an officer uses, more than the officer does. He resisted and they have to use the minimal force necessary to subdue him. Sometimes the most minimal force to over power somebody can get pretty brutal.  

The cops can just let a person go for a simple traffic violation, merely because the guy is resisting and it would force them to use force. This means that we are giving assholes who refuse to cooperate with police, more rights than cooperative people. I Don't think you want to live in a society where the assholes have more rights than nice people
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FLRW
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@Danielle

    No
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@Danielle
Great post. Qualified immunity is an abomination
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@Danielle
Is your issue mainly with the concept of qualified immunity or how it is applied?

Because you give a couple examples that might be bad (haven’t looked at them quite yet, as I want to know your problem with it), but those might not be representative of how it is usually applied.

Conversely, if you don’t think public officials should have any special civil lawsuit protections, then I can see that as a more problematic position
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Danielle
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@Wylted
Without qualified immunity, would we really hold cops responsible for violating constitutional rights when they acted in good faith?
We prosecute everyone else (non govt employees) regardless of whether they claim to be acting in good faith or not. See virtually all negligence cases. 

Wouldn't a police officer who enforced those unconstitutional laws be made liable without qualified immunity? 

Nope. 

Wouldn't that mean you requiring police officers to be constituitional scholars when let's be honest most have an IQ that is barely 3 digits. That's an unfair burden on them I would think. 
On the contrary, people who are given privileges that go above and beyond everyday citizens should be expected to know the laws they are paid to enforce. I can't think of a lower bar for police officers than knowing the basic elements of our civil rights. It takes like 3 months to become a cop in many places vs. 2-3 years to get a cosmetology license. That's nonsensical. I think NYC cops have the longest training - 6 months. Meanwhile it takes 4 years to get a bullshit administrative degree. But most importantly on this point, everyday citizens are expected to know the law and are penalized for breaking laws whether we were aware of them or not. It makes no sense to hold police officers to a lower bar in terms of following the law than everyone else in society.  

Yeah, your examples are dumb. 

They are all pulled from reason also which has a clear libertarian bias and are twisting the actions almost as bad as liberals would.
Being pulled from Reason is obviously completely irrelevant unless you can demonstrate how the alleged bias makes the examples "dumb." 

For example the raid by 24 cops of the wrong house. Why would the cops be individually responsible? . . . It's not their job to double check the warrant is for the correct address. . . Possibly the judge should be at fault also.
The article does not say that they are individually responsible. Perhaps it's not so much as the examples are dumb so much as you misunderstood them and/or  did not read thoroughly. The article specifies one particular person that should be held responsible: Captain David Cody, who spearheaded the raid, because he should have known that it was unconstitutional to barge into someone's home without a warrant, destroy their property, and arrest them without knowing who they even are. It's not like it was an active shooter situation. 



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Danielle
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@Wylted
The most important thing to remember is that cops are always, ALWAYS given the benefit of the doubt in any lawsuit. Whether it's ruled on by judge or jury, there is a demonstrated bias that presumes cops are telling the truth or acted in good faith. The media is more aware of cop abuses these days, but there's still a really good chance that people are going to be very understanding in most situations. And besides, it's like cops always say... don't break the law and you won't have any issues. Simple! Plus, if the cops truly made a "mistake" they would likely not be thrown in jail. Maybe instead they would lose their job, be moved to desk duty or something like that rather than given a slap on the wrist and paid vacation in response to doing something egregious. 

And remember cops are not the only ones who get qualified immunity. 
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@Danielle
Wouldn't a police officer who enforced those unconstitutional laws be made liable without qualified immunity? 

Nope. 
LOL, qualified immunity was literally created to do just that.

On the contrary, people who are given privileges that go above and beyond everyday citizens should be expected to know the laws they are paid to enforce.

Some legal scholars estimate that we unknowingly commit on average 3 felonies a day. You can't expect officers to have more than a basic understanding of the law.

hink NYC cops have the longest training - 6 months. Meanwhile it takes 4 years to get a bullshit administrative degree. But most importantly on this point, everyday citizens are expected to know the law and are penalized for breaking laws whether we were aware of them or not.
Cops with 4 year degrees have been proven to be better officers than rookies entering the job, but after the first year those difference just about even out. There are some good arguments to be made about requiring a degree. It's not relevant to what we are discussing though. The supreme court has already determined that police officers do not need to know the law in order to enforce it. Even overturning that supreme court decision wouldn't overturn qualified immunity as it came after qualified immunity was a thing.


he article does not say that they are individually responsible. Perhaps it's not so much as the examples are dumb so much as you misunderstood them and/or  did not read thoroughly. The article specifies one particular person that should be held responsible: Captain David Cody, who spearheaded the raid, because he should have known that it was unconstitutional to barge into someone's home without a warrant, destroy their property, and arrest them without knowing who they even are. It's not like it was an active shooter situation. 
Correct I skimmed it, and I didn't feel like spending hours researching the details of each article, when we are talking about a specific subject. Sorry

I am going to agree with you here. We shouldn't have that happen. We also shouldn't have so many raids, particularly no knock raids which should probably be made illegal. Innocent people, both cops and citizens have died because of no knock raids. It's a policy issue though and the particular case I didn't look at. Sometimes they end one scout and he writes down the wrong address, or the warrant is for an old address. A lot of things can go wrong. I'm probably going to agree with you, that these things should not happen. However it doesn't mean we shouldn't have qualified immunity. It means we should make raids, very rare and that we need to make sure more due diligence is taken to make sure the correct properties are raided, especially if it is not a time sensitive reason for raiding a place.

The most important thing to remember is that cops are always, ALWAYS given the benefit of the doubt in any lawsuit. Whether it's ruled on by judge or jury, there is a demonstrated bias that presumes cops are telling the truth or acted in good faith.
They should be given the benefit of the doubt. I understand with lawsuits the burden of proof is lower, but everyone should get it.

rather than given a slap on the wrist and paid vacation in response to doing something egregious. 
If they have a severe use of force thing, they absolutely should be paid while an investigation takes place and they seek mental help. I've killed somebody before, it doesn't feel good and can cause a lot of ptsd. If they haven't been shown to do any wrong doing, why should they lose the ability to pay their bills. It's one of the benefits to most of them being unionized as well.

usually when they are on suspended leave for an investigation, it's the union paying their wages, but even when it's not. I would hope if you were accused of something at work, you'd get paid if they required you to take off, while they figure out the full story.

I want to ask you. What good does removing qualified immunity do? Is it just to punish people the media and the uneducated masses think is a bad cop, based on the first headline they see?