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Qualified immunity is self-evident. The idea that the government can violate the government's laws by performing lawful government duties is an inherent absurdi

Qualified immunity is self-evident. The idea that the government can violate the government's laws by performing lawful government duties is an inherent absurdity. It would also completely undermine democracy. It's also tangential and off topic to this conversation.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
that's not what qualified immunity is. qualified immunity means government officials can violate your rights by doing obviously illegal things as long as no government official has previously been convicted for doing the exact same thing.
- torstenvl 4y ago
  No. You fundamentally misunderstand qualified immunity. What you have repeated here, I assume unwittingly, is a dishonest description put forward by activists. Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity. (For those who insist on viewing everything through a political lens, qualified immunity was first articulated wrt police officers by the extremely progressive Warren Court in an 8-1 decision, the same court that gave us Miranda and struck down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving.) What many people do reasonably disagree with is the shift in Harlow so that the official is presumed to be acting in good faith, and the person whose rights were violated has the burden of proving otherwise (by showing clearly applicable precedent). A reasonable person can, and many reasonable people do, oppose Harlow and think it should be overturned. But it is not possible to oppose qualified immunity without also opposing functioning democracy.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    > Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity Actually no, it's perfectly reasonable to disagree with it as you've described. There is no analog for private companies - an employee can incorrectly think they're following the law, and end up being personally liable for actions they undertook in good faith for the company. Private companies get along just fine - in practice its not an impediment to companies accomplishing activities on the border of legality. I do believe that the focus on qualified immunity is a bit of a red herring though. What really needs to be drastically curtailed is general sovereign immunity. If police arrest someone, bust up their home, hold them for days, etc, and it turns out they're innocent, the appropriate government needs to be held directly liable/responsible for those damages. The government/department can then sort out whether those damages were due to some employees not following written policies, and if so discipline them and subrogate the damages. Right now the damages caused by law enforcement are being left as an externality funded by a perverse reverse-lottery, so predictably the injustices keep growing.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    > Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is the principle that an official cannot be sued for an action that isn't clearly shown to be unconstitutional. It shuts down a lawsuit before there is any fact finding as to whether or not the official was reasonably justified in their belief that their actions were constitutional. Yes, being reasonably justified that actions were constitutional should be a valid defense. But qualified immunity isn't a defense, it's a vehicle to shunt cases out of the system before the question of defense is raised. And we already have a judicial mechanism to decide whether or not someone's actions were reasonable: pick 12 random people and ask them if they thought their actions were reasonable, aka, a jury trial. There's no need for qualified immunity.
    - torstenvl 4y ago
      That is plainly false, as any yahoo with a PACER account can tell you. It also continues to conflate qualified immunity as a principle (which dates back in some form to 1789 and by that name specifically to 1967) with the presumption established in Harlow in 1982, despite my clear explanation above.
      - ROTMetro 4y ago
        As someone who went through the system you are wrong. Sure that might be a few cases ruled in your favor, but in the actual implementation of the rules as applied to those in the system you are incorrect. You are like the insurance company pointing to two cases where they approved treatment saying 'look, we don't deny treatment'.
        torstenvl 4y ago
        This is adjacent to my area of expertise. I do not deal with qualified immunity every day, or even every week, but my colleagues 30 feet from me do. I feel pretty confident that I know what I'm talking about.
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    There was a case where it was ruled totally fine to feed inmates rotten food AS LONG AS if they asked they were then given human grade food. Here's the thing, asking comes with huge consequences (such as being put in a cell with notoriously aggressive Bob, then having your cell 'shaken down' for contraband every day and letting Bob know the cell is being targeted because you cause trouble). You should be able to go after a person knowingly serving food not fit for human consumption, but you can't, because precedent of this case now says it's OK (as long as you server human grade food on request which how can I prove they don't) so qualified immunity is to all Food Service Administrators from this precedent.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago

that's not what qualified immunity is. qualified immunity means government officials can violate your rights by doing obviously illegal things as long as no government official has previously been convicted for doing the exact same thing.

torstenvl 4y ago
No. You fundamentally misunderstand qualified immunity. What you have repeated here, I assume unwittingly, is a dishonest description put forward by activists. Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity. (For those who insist on viewing everything through a political lens, qualified immunity was first articulated wrt police officers by the extremely progressive Warren Court in an 8-1 decision, the same court that gave us Miranda and struck down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving.) What many people do reasonably disagree with is the shift in Harlow so that the official is presumed to be acting in good faith, and the person whose rights were violated has the burden of proving otherwise (by showing clearly applicable precedent). A reasonable person can, and many reasonable people do, oppose Harlow and think it should be overturned. But it is not possible to oppose qualified immunity without also opposing functioning democracy.
- mindslight 4y ago
  > Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity Actually no, it's perfectly reasonable to disagree with it as you've described. There is no analog for private companies - an employee can incorrectly think they're following the law, and end up being personally liable for actions they undertook in good faith for the company. Private companies get along just fine - in practice its not an impediment to companies accomplishing activities on the border of legality. I do believe that the focus on qualified immunity is a bit of a red herring though. What really needs to be drastically curtailed is general sovereign immunity. If police arrest someone, bust up their home, hold them for days, etc, and it turns out they're innocent, the appropriate government needs to be held directly liable/responsible for those damages. The government/department can then sort out whether those damages were due to some employees not following written policies, and if so discipline them and subrogate the damages. Right now the damages caused by law enforcement are being left as an externality funded by a perverse reverse-lottery, so predictably the injustices keep growing.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  > Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is the principle that an official cannot be sued for an action that isn't clearly shown to be unconstitutional. It shuts down a lawsuit before there is any fact finding as to whether or not the official was reasonably justified in their belief that their actions were constitutional. Yes, being reasonably justified that actions were constitutional should be a valid defense. But qualified immunity isn't a defense, it's a vehicle to shunt cases out of the system before the question of defense is raised. And we already have a judicial mechanism to decide whether or not someone's actions were reasonable: pick 12 random people and ask them if they thought their actions were reasonable, aka, a jury trial. There's no need for qualified immunity.
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    That is plainly false, as any yahoo with a PACER account can tell you. It also continues to conflate qualified immunity as a principle (which dates back in some form to 1789 and by that name specifically to 1967) with the presumption established in Harlow in 1982, despite my clear explanation above.
    - ROTMetro 4y ago
      As someone who went through the system you are wrong. Sure that might be a few cases ruled in your favor, but in the actual implementation of the rules as applied to those in the system you are incorrect. You are like the insurance company pointing to two cases where they approved treatment saying 'look, we don't deny treatment'.
      - torstenvl 4y ago
        This is adjacent to my area of expertise. I do not deal with qualified immunity every day, or even every week, but my colleagues 30 feet from me do. I feel pretty confident that I know what I'm talking about.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  There was a case where it was ruled totally fine to feed inmates rotten food AS LONG AS if they asked they were then given human grade food. Here's the thing, asking comes with huge consequences (such as being put in a cell with notoriously aggressive Bob, then having your cell 'shaken down' for contraband every day and letting Bob know the cell is being targeted because you cause trouble). You should be able to go after a person knowingly serving food not fit for human consumption, but you can't, because precedent of this case now says it's OK (as long as you server human grade food on request which how can I prove they don't) so qualified immunity is to all Food Service Administrators from this precedent.