"Qualified Immunity" is unqualified BS

Their Humanity Matters too.

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"Qualified Immunity" is unjustifiable BS  too.

Here are some quick facts on its unfathomable history ...

What is qualified immunity?

“Qualified immunity” is a special protection for government officials the U.S. Supreme Court created in 1982 as an act of judicial policymaking.  By default, all government officials are immune from liability if they violate your rights. Whether your rights were actually violated doesn’t necessarily matter.

Under qualified immunity, government officials can only be held accountable for violating someone’s rights if a court has previously ruled that it was “clearly established” those precise actions were unconstitutional. If no such decision exists—or it exists, but just in another jurisdiction—the official is immune, even if the official intentionally violated the law.

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Unlike most typical defenses, a victim or the victim’s family has to convince a court that qualified immunity doesn’t apply. All a government officer has to do is invoke the doctrine. If the victim can’t persuade a court qualified immunity shouldn’t apply—by pointing to a specific earlier case—the victim’s case is thrown out. And if the case is not thrown out the first time around, the government official has several more opportunities to invoke the doctrine.

Institute for Justice .org

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One of those [Qualified Immunity] cases involved Judith Gray. In a manic state, she walked out of the hospital in Athol where she was being treated for bipolar disorder. An Athol officer found her shuffling down the sidewalk, barefoot. Gray refused to go back to the hospital. The officer, who outweighed her by 75 pounds, dropped her to the ground and tried to handcuff her. When Gray kept resisting — holding her hands under her chest to prevent them from being handcuffed — the officer tased her in the back. He was then able to handcuff her.

Could a jury have found the officer used excessive force? Yes, a federal appeals court said. But did the officer know it was wrong to tase a mentally ill woman in the back for refusing to be handcuffed? No, the court ruled.

"Because there were no cases like this, he wouldn't have known at the time he did it that he could be violating her rights," says Kesten, who represented Athol in the case. "He gets qualified immunity."

WBUR.org

Qualified Immunity is often a legal defense for Law Enforcement Officers, who have violated the civil rights of others — especially the civil rights of people of color.

If the Judge rules this quaint “formality” applies — then the case will not even go to trial, no matter how egregious the offense.

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Qualified Immunity is unqualified BS.  It makes a mockery of civil rights.  It tramples all over the human rights — of the victims — of such “officially-dismissed” abuses of power.  It white-washes what most would call “crimes” — if common-sense were allowed to be applied. 

This is one of those “structural changes” that is desperately needed.  It is long past time, to revoke this “judicial doctrine” of privilege, blindly followed by arranging judges for decades.

Until it is — its victims will be victimized TWICE by it:  Once by the violence, and then again by the lack of accountability for the violence, committed by those we empower to “protect us” ...

They are supposed to PROTECT people — ALL people — not shoot them.

No wonder Qualified Immunity is derisively called the Cop’s “Get out of Jail Free” Card … by those left in its destructive wake.

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What is a justice, equality, and fairness -seeking society to do?

Well, we can follow the initiatives taking place in the state of Virginia:

Virginia Lawmakers Advance Bill That Bans Qualified Immunity for Cops

www.courthousenews.com — Aug 26, 2020

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While state governments and activists around the country have talked about rolling back these shields, by a vote of 12-8, Virginia legislators appear to be on their way to doing it.

“This legal doctrine effectively denies access to justice,” said the bill’s author Delegate Jeff Bourne, D-Richmond, in the House Courts and Justice Committee that moved his bill on to its next step Wednesday evening. “None of these bills are particularly radical; at the core they allow Virginians to pursue the same rights they have in federal courts.”  

Bourne’s bill specifically creates a new cause of action — a new kind of law suit under the statute itself — to file a complaint for violation of rights which are “granted to such person[s] under the constitutions and laws of the United States and the Commonwealth.”

It also specifically denies the use of “sovereign immunity and any other statutory immunities” as a defense against these claims.

“We’re trying to give our citizens an opportunity to seek redress in the appropriate situation and this bill does that,” said Delegate Jay Jones, D-Norfolk [...]

The scourge of LEO violence against black people MUST STOP.

Repealing the legal-shields, that protect such law-breaking officers — like “Qualified Immunity” — will help to make rogue cops accountable for their lawless actions.

No one should be above the Law.

Least of all, the worst offenders of it … walking around with a badge and a gun — some BS legal-shield — whose ‘judicial merit’ was never even clear in the first place.

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Qualified Immunity is protecting the wrong people. 

It needs to stop.  Period.  End of Story … End of Privilege.

Bad cops belong in prison.  Period.  End of Story.   End of the legal-coddling.

   

The Victims of bad cops deserve Justice.   Not excuses.  Not MORE of the same ...

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