The Supreme Court ’s Dereliction of Duty on Qualified Immunity

Jay SchweikertThis morning, theSupreme Court denied all of the major cert petitions raising the question of whether qualified immunity should be reconsidered. This is, to put it bluntly, a shocking dereliction of duty. As Cato hasargued for years, qualified immunity is an atextual, ahistorical judicial invention, which shields public officials from liability, even when they break the law. The doctrine not only denies justice to victims whose rights have been violated, but also exacerbates our crisis of confidence in law enforcement. By holding police officers to a far lower standard of accountability than ordinary citizens, qualified immunity deprives the entire law enforcement community of the public trust and credibility they need to do their jobs safely and effectively.There was simply no excuse for the Court to decline this golden opportunity to begin addressing its mistakes in creating and propagating the doctrine of qualified immunity. The petitions before the Court plainly demonstrated both the moral injustices and practical absurdities of the “clearly established law” standard. InCorbitt v. Vickers, for example, the Supreme Court let stand anEleventh Circuit decision granting immunity to a police officer who shot a ten ‐​year‐​old child in the back of the knee, while repeatedly attempting to shoot a pet dog that wasn ’t threatening anyone. And inBaxter v. Bracey, the Court let stand a Sixth Circuit decision which said that a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs