5 ms·

As it currently stands, qualified immunity means that officers are immune from lawsuits unless their behavior (e.g., beating the hell out of a guy to whom you n

As it currently stands, qualified immunity means that officers are immune from lawsuits unless their behavior (e.g., beating the hell out of a guy to whom you never identified yourself) has previously been found to be unworthy of immunity.

jvanderbot 4y ago
That's a recursive definition, it precludes expansion of not-immune behavior. Any behavior you think should be unworthy of immunity by definition has not yet been demonstrated as being unworthy of immunity? And therefore is worthy of immunity?
- firstlink 4y ago
  Congratulations, you now understand how qualified immunity works in the US!
- gwd 4y ago
  I think the idea is similar to the "ex post facto" provision of the constitution. In "ex post facto", you can't be convicted for something if, when you did it, it was legal. The idea here is that police can't be sued for something if, when they did it, there was no court ruling explicitly saying "that's a violation of constitutional rights". So a court could say, "Yes, this court is now declaring what those officers did to be unconstitutional. But there was no clear court case at that time, so they can't be sued unless they do it again." Which leads to really bizzare outcomes, like this instance -- or an instance where police just outright stole stuff from a guy [1]. A court had never ruled that stealing from citizens was unconstitutional, so he couldn't sue them for it. [1] https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-court-jessop-theft-kelsay-police-brutality/ https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-cou...
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    there's a really big difference between ex post facto and specific existing case-law.
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    Note that qualified immunity is entirely a matter of statutory interpretation and not at all constitutional law. Congress can change any part of the doctrine or get rid of it altogether at any time.
    - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
      And yet somehow this statutory interpretation trumps Constitutional prohibitions. What does "supreme law of the land" even mean if the Supreme Court can privilege a statute over redress for the violation of Constitutional rights?
      - bradleyjg 4y ago
        The Supreme Court rarely implies a cause of action for money damages. The inherent constitutional remedies are things like the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine that forbids things found in an illegal search to be introduced at a criminal trial. Because Congress created the cause of action, it can control its contours (whether QI is a reasonable interpretation of the statute is a different question.)
        anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        This is a good point. I understand what you're saying. But it makes various rights toothless in all ways, since there's effectively no way to enforce them. For instance, how do you post facto enforce the third amendment without a tort claim? > Because Congress created the cause of action I've seen this rationale stated before, but in common law, and natural law before that ("natural" as in how it functions, not the political philosophy), didn't some of these causes of action pre-exist Congress, and thus should be grandfathered in as ninth amendment rights?
        bradleyjg 4y ago
        This gets into the distinction between law and equity. It’s a pretty obscure topic for non-lawyers but the gist is that a court sitting in equity would almost never award damages. While the Supreme Court is a court of law and equity, the power to imply a cause of action stems from its inheritance of equity powers and so is limited by them as well. (This is all based on memory and so the details may be off.)
  - ncallaway 4y ago
    If the reasoning was actually based on an ex post facto analysis, wouldn’t it have to apply broadly to all actors and all civil lawsuits? The fact that qualified immunity only applies to state actors in their job functions makes me skeptical of the “ex post facto” reasoning. If that’s the case, why isn’t it a much more broad concept?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Analemma_ 4y ago
No, it's worse than that. QI means officers are immune from lawsuits unless their behavior has been previously found to be unworthy of immunity and they were aware or should have been aware of this fact. This is, by design, an impossible standard to meet, so in practice QI is unlimited and absolute.
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  So we should expect zero lawsuits against police officers to have been won at trial or settled last year, right?
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    ~ zero. Tangent: are settlements not typically paid by the city or the union? (And the union will get the money from the city in the end, anyway.)
    - bradleyjg 4y ago
      Always the city. There’s universal indemnification de facto or de jure. This is a bigger issue than QI but gets virtually no attention. I suspect the plaintiff’s bar is behind that as they’d prefer QI go but indemnification stay.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        if you fix QI, cities would fix indemnification themselves pretty quickly. The problem with QI is that since the suits never even get started, the police and the cities get to ignore the problem.
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    the actual figure is way lower than it should be. there are, however police officers dumb enough and violent enough to meet the ridiculously high bar that is required.
mindslight 4y ago
Qualified immunity is just part of the problem, and it is only relevant to civil suits. While it would be nice for the victim to get some sort of legal vindication and compensation, what we really need is for this gang of violent criminals to go to prison for a long time. The larger problem is that sovereign immunity is being extended to people who happen to work for the government, rather than only applying to the government itself. This convention needs to be completely eliminated.

jvanderbot 4y ago

That's a recursive definition, it precludes expansion of not-immune behavior. Any behavior you think should be unworthy of immunity by definition has not yet been demonstrated as being unworthy of immunity? And therefore is worthy of immunity?

firstlink 4y ago
Congratulations, you now understand how qualified immunity works in the US!
gwd 4y ago
I think the idea is similar to the "ex post facto" provision of the constitution. In "ex post facto", you can't be convicted for something if, when you did it, it was legal. The idea here is that police can't be sued for something if, when they did it, there was no court ruling explicitly saying "that's a violation of constitutional rights". So a court could say, "Yes, this court is now declaring what those officers did to be unconstitutional. But there was no clear court case at that time, so they can't be sued unless they do it again." Which leads to really bizzare outcomes, like this instance -- or an instance where police just outright stole stuff from a guy [1]. A court had never ruled that stealing from citizens was unconstitutional, so he couldn't sue them for it. [1] https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-court-jessop-theft-kelsay-police-brutality/ https://reason.com/2020/05/19/qualified-immunity-supreme-cou...
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  there's a really big difference between ex post facto and specific existing case-law.
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  Note that qualified immunity is entirely a matter of statutory interpretation and not at all constitutional law. Congress can change any part of the doctrine or get rid of it altogether at any time.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    And yet somehow this statutory interpretation trumps Constitutional prohibitions. What does "supreme law of the land" even mean if the Supreme Court can privilege a statute over redress for the violation of Constitutional rights?
    - bradleyjg 4y ago
      The Supreme Court rarely implies a cause of action for money damages. The inherent constitutional remedies are things like the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine that forbids things found in an illegal search to be introduced at a criminal trial. Because Congress created the cause of action, it can control its contours (whether QI is a reasonable interpretation of the statute is a different question.)
      - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        This is a good point. I understand what you're saying. But it makes various rights toothless in all ways, since there's effectively no way to enforce them. For instance, how do you post facto enforce the third amendment without a tort claim? > Because Congress created the cause of action I've seen this rationale stated before, but in common law, and natural law before that ("natural" as in how it functions, not the political philosophy), didn't some of these causes of action pre-exist Congress, and thus should be grandfathered in as ninth amendment rights?
        bradleyjg 4y ago
        This gets into the distinction between law and equity. It’s a pretty obscure topic for non-lawyers but the gist is that a court sitting in equity would almost never award damages. While the Supreme Court is a court of law and equity, the power to imply a cause of action stems from its inheritance of equity powers and so is limited by them as well. (This is all based on memory and so the details may be off.)
- ncallaway 4y ago
  If the reasoning was actually based on an ex post facto analysis, wouldn’t it have to apply broadly to all actors and all civil lawsuits? The fact that qualified immunity only applies to state actors in their job functions makes me skeptical of the “ex post facto” reasoning. If that’s the case, why isn’t it a much more broad concept?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Analemma_ 4y ago

No, it's worse than that. QI means officers are immune from lawsuits unless their behavior has been previously found to be unworthy of immunity and they were aware or should have been aware of this fact. This is, by design, an impossible standard to meet, so in practice QI is unlimited and absolute.

bradleyjg 4y ago
So we should expect zero lawsuits against police officers to have been won at trial or settled last year, right?
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  ~ zero. Tangent: are settlements not typically paid by the city or the union? (And the union will get the money from the city in the end, anyway.)
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    Always the city. There’s universal indemnification de facto or de jure. This is a bigger issue than QI but gets virtually no attention. I suspect the plaintiff’s bar is behind that as they’d prefer QI go but indemnification stay.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      if you fix QI, cities would fix indemnification themselves pretty quickly. The problem with QI is that since the suits never even get started, the police and the cities get to ignore the problem.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  the actual figure is way lower than it should be. there are, however police officers dumb enough and violent enough to meet the ridiculously high bar that is required.

mindslight 4y ago

Qualified immunity is just part of the problem, and it is only relevant to civil suits. While it would be nice for the victim to get some sort of legal vindication and compensation, what we really need is for this gang of violent criminals to go to prison for a long time. The larger problem is that sovereign immunity is being extended to people who happen to work for the government, rather than only applying to the government itself. This convention needs to be completely eliminated.