Posted on 10/19/2021 9:31:09 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Government granted immunity to abusive bureaucrats is tyrannical.
There are plenty of conservatives who don’t support qualified immunity and the many abuses it permits.
So you think cops should be hesitant to do their jobs for fear of being sued? The immunity is qualified, not absolute.
I don’t know how huge a win it is. Qualified immunity has been established case law for some time. Unless the officer in question knowingly violated the law in the course of their actions then they’re protected from civil suits.
Like when a guy arms himself with a hammer and threatens others (including the officers) with it?
Yes, surely the family should be able to sue the officers after they shoot that guy. After all, it was just a hammer. Captain America doesn’t need a gun to take a hammer off someone.
/s
The fault is with Congress: the have the power to specify what the limits of conduct are in terms of civil rights. They’re just too lazy and too cowardly to rein in courts that invented the doctrine.
“Qualified immunity has been established case law for some time.”
Not according to the 9th and 10 circuit courts.
Qualified immunity is not what it sounds like.
It does not keep officers from being charged with crimes.
It does not automatically keep officers from being held personally civilly liable for civil rights violations.
In federal civil rights lawsuits the federal judge has to authorize the municipality/state govt entities granting of indemnity (we the City will pay all damages found by a jury)
The lefties want to get rid of it because they have an army of attorneys who will sur sue sue the cops who make arrests.
If you are subject to a lawsuit good luck getting a home loan or refinanced.
The problem with qualified immunity as it is currently applied is that it is almost impossible to overcome. It doesn't matter how egregious the offense, the officer will have immunity unless there is a specific case in that particular judicial circuit, with the same exact set of particular facts, that has previously held that the actions were unlawful. It becomes a Catch-22: because there is no previous case law, the case gets thrown out - which means no case law can ever be created to establish that the conduct is illegal. Even if the conduct were established as illegal in another judicial circuit, that would not be enough to overcome qualified immunity. So a case with the same set of facts in the 5th Circuit that overcame qualified immunity would not do so in any other Circuit.
The Circuit Courts ruled that qualified immunity wasn't allowed because the officers in question committed crimes or violated the victim's rights in the course of their actions. The Supreme Court ruled that the actions in question were not criminal so qualified immunity protections remained.
I like cautious LE. Winging it with no regard for damage done has cost society a ton of lives/money. No QI needed in a free society.
The only defense is to take matters into your own hands and defend yourself when the cop goes into “criminal” mode.
e.g. civil asset forfeiture must be nipped in the bud during the stop. “I shot the cop because he was robbing me.”
The Supreme Court ruled that the actions in question were not criminal so qualified immunity protections remained.
***So the standard is “as long as it’s not criminal”? That’s a recipe for tyranny.
That is correct!
The Court is to decide if existing law/ruling is Constitutional.
Not to “write laws” from the bench.
This is why Congress loves that COVID is being run by Executive Mandate as it means NONE of them has their fingerprints on it.
They are safe from retribution if things go bad.
I’ve been advocating for the abolition of qualified immunity on this site for over a decade.
“So you think cops should be hesitant to do their jobs for fear of being sued?”
Cops provide no service to most conservatives, and in fact are an impediment to enforcement of law.
Abolish qualified immunity.
It sounds like you know more about this issue than I do. Thanks for the explanation.
That’s incorrect.
There was no case directly on point here either:
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/taylor-riojas.pdf
Overcoming Qualified immunity doesn’t always require a case directly on point.
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