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Qualified immunity was made up by courts, their legislating from the bench should have no merit, and therefore revoking qualified immunity is the right thing to

Qualified immunity was made up by courts, their legislating from the bench should have no merit, and therefore revoking qualified immunity is the right thing to do under checks and balances. We need a replacement, one written in legislation, that puts fixed narrow limits on how immunity applies. If you break the law - you should receive no protections. There is no excuse for enforcers of law to not know the law. This will put the liability into officers And government workers/representatives hands and force them to respect the law.

mike_d 6y ago
> Qualified immunity was made up by courts That is how our whole system works. The first amendment for example doesn't have an explicit "yelling fire in a movie theatre" exemption, yet the courts have defined tests that determine if speech is protected. > We need a replacement [...] If you break the law - you should receive no protections That is exactly how it works today. Once you have been found guilty in a criminal court, you no longer have any protections against civil cases.
- stormbrew 6y ago
  > That is exactly how it works today. Once you have been found guilty in a criminal court, you no longer have any protections against civil cases. I don't think this is true? The test is much more narrow than this. You could potentially be convicted of a crime even if you didn't have a reasonable belief that you were doing so, but qualified immunity explicitly dictates that you have to be intending to break the law or that your actions both violate a law and that there is extremely clear precedent that they do so. That seems, unusually for civil cases, to be a much higher bar than criminal conviction requires.
- nitwit005 6y ago
  If it's how the system is supposed to work, it's strange that members of the supreme court have complained about the lack of legal basis. Interpreting the law, such as what the first amendment is supposed to mean, is indeed what the courts are supposed to do. Making up new laws wholesale is supposed to be the legislature's job.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  > The first amendment for example doesn't have an explicit "yelling fire in a movie theatre" exemption Always remember that this was an argument to imprison people for passing out flyers opposing the WWI military draft.
namdnay 6y ago
> was made up by courts That's hardly unusual in a common law system..
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Yeah but indefinitely precedent goes way beyond its intended purpose in achieving consistency. Especially when we have legislatures that rather not weigh on in issues whenever possible because they are worried about attack ads. If I were to tweak it, I would make precedent expire, and even obligate the legislature to vote on a bill by the time it does that the courts ratify disambiguates the issue at and. Consistency and democracy.
Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
> There is no excuse for enforcers of law to not know the law. I wonder how often cops break the law because they actually don't know, or if they do know but also know they'll get away with it. For example, police are still trying to arrest people for recording them, despite courts repeatedly upholding that citizens have a right to record police. Do cops actually don't know citizens have the right to record them, or are they just making threats that they know won't hold up because they know they can get away with the lie?

mike_d 6y ago

> Qualified immunity was made up by courts That is how our whole system works. The first amendment for example doesn't have an explicit "yelling fire in a movie theatre" exemption, yet the courts have defined tests that determine if speech is protected. > We need a replacement [...] If you break the law - you should receive no protections That is exactly how it works today. Once you have been found guilty in a criminal court, you no longer have any protections against civil cases.

stormbrew 6y ago
> That is exactly how it works today. Once you have been found guilty in a criminal court, you no longer have any protections against civil cases. I don't think this is true? The test is much more narrow than this. You could potentially be convicted of a crime even if you didn't have a reasonable belief that you were doing so, but qualified immunity explicitly dictates that you have to be intending to break the law or that your actions both violate a law and that there is extremely clear precedent that they do so. That seems, unusually for civil cases, to be a much higher bar than criminal conviction requires.
nitwit005 6y ago
If it's how the system is supposed to work, it's strange that members of the supreme court have complained about the lack of legal basis. Interpreting the law, such as what the first amendment is supposed to mean, is indeed what the courts are supposed to do. Making up new laws wholesale is supposed to be the legislature's job.
pessimizer 6y ago
> The first amendment for example doesn't have an explicit "yelling fire in a movie theatre" exemption Always remember that this was an argument to imprison people for passing out flyers opposing the WWI military draft.

namdnay 6y ago

> was made up by courts That's hardly unusual in a common law system..

Ericson2314 6y ago
Yeah but indefinitely precedent goes way beyond its intended purpose in achieving consistency. Especially when we have legislatures that rather not weigh on in issues whenever possible because they are worried about attack ads. If I were to tweak it, I would make precedent expire, and even obligate the legislature to vote on a bill by the time it does that the courts ratify disambiguates the issue at and. Consistency and democracy.

Sohcahtoa82 6y ago

> There is no excuse for enforcers of law to not know the law. I wonder how often cops break the law because they actually don't know, or if they do know but also know they'll get away with it. For example, police are still trying to arrest people for recording them, despite courts repeatedly upholding that citizens have a right to record police. Do cops actually don't know citizens have the right to record them, or are they just making threats that they know won't hold up because they know they can get away with the lie?