A Dreadful Police Shooting Highlights the Need to Change a Terrible Law | National Review

A Dreadful Police Shooting Highlights the Need to Change a Terrible Law | National Review

Share. Qualified immunity needs to go. “But I’d go farther. As I’ve argued before, it’s time to rethink qualified immunity entirely. It’s time to apply the plain language of the relevant statute and hold public officials liable for their constitutional violations every time they commit a violation. After all, protecting and defending the Constitution is their primary job. As Fifth Circuit judge Don Willet wrote last year, “to some observers, qualified immunity smacks of unqualified impunity, letting public officials duck consequences for bad behavior — no matter how palpably unreasonable — as long as they were the first to behave badly.” In fact, there is a budding left/right consensus against qualified immunity. Organizations such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Reason Foundation, the National Police Accountability Project, and Public Justice (among others) have joined forces to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the doctrine. So far they’ve been unsuccessful, but it can take time to persuade justices to rethink longstanding doctrine.”