The Conservative Case against Qualified Immunity

Clark NeilyCongressional Republicans have taken some puzzling positions over the past few years, one of which is their near-uniform opposition to reforming qualified immunity, a judge-made doctrine thatroutinely shields rights-violating police and other government officials from accountability for their misconduct. Notwithstanding Republicans ' partial policy makeover, their embrace of qualified immunity is a particularly odd stance for proponents of an ostensibly conservative ideology that espouses personal responsibility, limited government, and the proposition that judges shouldapply the law rather than making it up themselves. As explained below, qualified immunity is utterly antithetical to every one of those values.1. Personal responsibility. A bedrock principle of conservative ideology is that people should be responsible for their own actions. Conservatives tend to be skeptical of efforts to attribute personal shortcomings and misbehavior to external factors such as poverty, schooling, lack of economic opportunity, or nebulous concepts like " structural racism " ; instead, they embrace the idea that individuals can overcome those disadvantages and should be held accountable when they fail to do so.But somehow this commitment to accountability and personal responsibility goes out the window when the person in question is a police officer rather than a drug addict or welfare recipient. When it comes to cops and other government officials, conservatives —or at least Co...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs