Lower Courts Agree -- It's Time to End Qualified Immunity

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/lower-courts-agree-its-time-to-end-qualified-immunity/

Earlier this month, Mississippi federal court judge Carlton Reeves reluctantly held that a white police officer who detained, interrogated, and illegally searched Clarence Jamison, a Black man driving a Mercedes-Benz, for nearly two hours despite clearing multiple background checks, could not be held accountable for his actions. Why? Because his hands were tied by qualified immunity. Judge Reeves relates his frustration in his opinion:

“Judges have invented a legal doctrine to protect law enforcement officers from having to face any consequences for wrongdoing. The doctrine is called ‘qualified immunity.’ In real life it operates like absolute immunity.”

Qualified immunity is a legal defense that can shield police officers from liability for misconduct. Once an obscure legal doctrine, it has become a central focus of activists’ calls for police accountability following nationwide protests over police brutality. In fact, officer Derek Chauvin, the cop who killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for over eight minutes in a video seen around the world, might evade accountability in a civil suit through qualified immunity.

The Supreme Court created the first version of this defense more than 50 years ago as a limited amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the “Ku Klux Act” because it was meant to protect the rights of freed slaves after the Civil War in the face of the Klan’s reign of terror. Under Section 1 of the act, now referred to as Section 1983, people were given the right to sue state government officials for violating their constitutional rights and hold them liable for damages.

*snip*

[lunatica]

1. Why do police officers even require this immunity?

If they do their jobs without the need to kill Black people for just being Black then they shouldn’t need any immunity shield to hide behind. Fuck!

[Nevilledog]

2. Exactly.

[crickets]

3. K&R for visibility.