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If someone's suit is thrown out over qualified immunity, can one sue the federal government over qualified immunity itself as violating their civil rights? I'v

If someone's suit is thrown out over qualified immunity, can one sue the federal government over qualified immunity itself as violating their civil rights? I've tried to comprehend the logic of it, but I gave a very hard time. It's like the judiciary decided there is a set of ways ones civil rights can be violated, and they all were discovered before a specific date.

codefreeordie 4y ago
Not directly, but you could appeal on those grounds but the Supreme Court has ruled in the past on Qualified Immunity so you're not likely to get your petition granted. (You can sue the United States over qualified immunity generally, but you'll be found not to have standing, and your suit will be dismissed put of hand)
semiquaver 4y ago
One important thing to understand is that the US government enjoys absolute immunity from suit under the doctrine of “sovereign immunity”. It may only be sued with its express consent, normally provided by statute. Congress periodically passes laws such as the Federal Tort Claims Act creating categories of offenses that it consents to being sued under. If you sue the government for something that Congress has not already authorized, standing doesn’t even enter into it. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sovereign_immunity https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sovereign_immunity Typically (as in the case at issue in this article) government officials are sued in their individual capacity, since suing them in their capacity would immediately fail. In this context they’re just people and do not have sovereign immunity. Instead the Supreme Court created (they might say “recognized” but we should call things what they are) something called “qualified immunity” in 1982 for such cases, subject to certain limits. Because conservative jurists tend to be pro-law-enforcement the list of things that can defeat a qualified immunity defense has grown smaller and smaller over the years. At some point the Supreme Court ruled that to overcome a qualified immunity defense the violation had to obviously and exactly fall into one of the small number of categories that they had developed from prior cases. That’s where we are now. (IANAL)

codefreeordie 4y ago

Not directly, but you could appeal on those grounds but the Supreme Court has ruled in the past on Qualified Immunity so you're not likely to get your petition granted. (You can sue the United States over qualified immunity generally, but you'll be found not to have standing, and your suit will be dismissed put of hand)

semiquaver 4y ago

One important thing to understand is that the US government enjoys absolute immunity from suit under the doctrine of “sovereign immunity”. It may only be sued with its express consent, normally provided by statute. Congress periodically passes laws such as the Federal Tort Claims Act creating categories of offenses that it consents to being sued under. If you sue the government for something that Congress has not already authorized, standing doesn’t even enter into it. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sovereign_immunity https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sovereign_immunity Typically (as in the case at issue in this article) government officials are sued in their individual capacity, since suing them in their capacity would immediately fail. In this context they’re just people and do not have sovereign immunity. Instead the Supreme Court created (they might say “recognized” but we should call things what they are) something called “qualified immunity” in 1982 for such cases, subject to certain limits. Because conservative jurists tend to be pro-law-enforcement the list of things that can defeat a qualified immunity defense has grown smaller and smaller over the years. At some point the Supreme Court ruled that to overcome a qualified immunity defense the violation had to obviously and exactly fall into one of the small number of categories that they had developed from prior cases. That’s where we are now. (IANAL)