Comment by infinite_spin
1 day ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I think qualified immunity should not apply to constitutional violations. Giving an opt-out for those violations is antithetical to the very substance of our (US) constitution.
1 day ago
I'm not a lawyer, but I think qualified immunity should not apply to constitutional violations. Giving an opt-out for those violations is antithetical to the very substance of our (US) constitution.
It literally is not supposed to. The ruling that is currently used for the precedent is Harlow v Fitzgerald, which states:
> The Court held that "government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known."
It seems to me that a reasonable person would know this violates constitutional rights if you arrest people that criticize the government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlow_v._Fitzgerald
Qualified immunity shouldn't even be a thing at all, as far as state and local officials are concerned. It was a "mistake" (emphasis on the quotes).
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/qualified-imm...
It's weird to me that courts don't at-least attempt to review if the conduct was in good faith and plausibly reasonable given the facts know at the time.
The idea that officials aren't personally liable for mistakes made in good faith isn't bad. But somehow the US tends to produce a lot of cases where good faith requires a lot of faith :)
You would think using your office to file false charges against someone would be corruption just like using your office to embezzle money.
Qualified Immunity should not apply ever. Period. No one should be above the law for any reason ever.
Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Qualified immunity, as a concept, makes perfect sense. Police officers are not jurists, and they will make mistakes in enforcing the law. Making those officers personally liable for honest mistakes is, IMO, excessive.
The issue isn't qualified immunity itself, but rather the maximalist interpretation that seems pervasive in the US justice system, and the overwhelmingly broad definition of "honest mistake" that seemingly applies to the police, and the police alone.
I think you would find that they would make far fewer illegal mistakes if they actually had to deal with the consequences of those mistakes.
Qualified Immunity didn't exist as a concept until the 1960s, and it was put in place to shield policemen enacting racist policies and corrupt cronies of Nixon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity
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"Doctors and nurses will make mistakes in performing medicine. Making those doctors and nurses personally liable for honest mistakes is, IMO, excessive."
How many other jobs can we apply this to?
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Where I work, we follow quality management systems to ensure mistakes don't happen. Of course they do, people are human, but the point is to find why something happened and enact a corrective action to ensure it doesn't happen again. Is it a personnel problem that requires more training? Do procedures need to be updated to cover something new? Do we need new tools? Sometimes it really does boil down to a personnel issue where someone has been instructed, trained, and given all of the tools they need yet they still error. That's when management steps in and either transfers or fires them. That same system needs to be applied to police. When camera phones came out, suddenly cops were faced with people recording them. We have had many lawsuits where the cops have been told that people are allowed to film them and there are plenty of department manuals that state the same. At this point, a cop should never have the excuse of qualified immunity for violating someone's right to film because how much it's been harped on and any that do should be personally liable.
> Police officers are not jurists, and they will make mistakes in enforcing the law. Making those officers personally liable for honest mistakes is, IMO, excessive.
Or maybe police training should be longer than a coding bootcamp... in some countries, police work is an undergraduate major and the programs are quite competitive. Similarly, there are countries without qualified immunity as a policy, and it doesn't seem to fundamentally undermine policework there.
Other jobs don’t require this kind of shield. Instead, they require insurance.
Qualified immunity isn’t qualified, and it’s a horrific distorting function on your society, as officers get to act with impunity.
They’re given more and more power, and less and less responsibility.
Your own usage of "honest mistake" is overwhelmingly broad, so it's not at all clear what alternative definition of qualified immunity you are advocating.
We should have the exact opposite of qualified immunity - committing a crime under the color of authority as a serious felony in itself.
Require them to get liability insurance like other important professions.
yup, i think a majority of people would agree with you, so why hasn't it happened? I think the answer is that elected representatives are more beholden to public sector unions than their constituents.
Texas: Famously pro-union
yeah texas is definitely not pro-union - except that the only public sector unions that are allowed are for police and firemen... with Texas police unions contributing the the 3rd highest amount to politicians (behind CA and NY) - so its a real thing.
https://www.pelrb.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Public-S...
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/06/police-unions-spend...
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The problem with that is sometimes it's not clear if something is a constitutional violation. Here, it was clear, but in general you don't want to do that.
Something that should be exempt from qualified immunity are actions that go against court orders.