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Full-Text Articles in Law
Qualified Immunity And Unqualified Assumptions, Teressa E. Ravenell, Riley H. Ross Iii
Qualified Immunity And Unqualified Assumptions, Teressa E. Ravenell, Riley H. Ross Iii
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
Section 1983 gives people the right to sue a government official for violating their constitutional rights. Qualified immunity provides these same officials with an affirmative defense -- even if they violated the constitution, they are not liable for monetary damages if the right at issue was not clearly established at the time of the alleged conduct. The qualified immunity is based upon the basic assumption that “a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct.” If the law was clearly established the official will be liable. If not, the Court has reasoned that it would be unfair …
Prison Medical Deaths And Qualified Immunity, Andrea Craig Armstrong
Prison Medical Deaths And Qualified Immunity, Andrea Craig Armstrong
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
The defense of qualified immunity for claims seeking monetary damages for constitutionally inadequate medical care for people who are incarcerated is misguided. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, medical illness is the leading cause of death of people incarcerated in prisons and jails across the United States. Qualified immunity in these cases limits accountability for carceral actors, thereby limiting incentives for improvements in the delivery of constitutionally adequate medical care. The qualified immunity defense also compounds other existing barriers, such as higher subjective intent standards and the Prison Litigation Reform Act, to asserting legal accountability of prison and jail …
Policing Suspicion: Qualified Immunity And "Clearly Established" Standards Of Proof, Seth W. Stoughton, Kyle Mclean, Justin Nix, Geoffrey Alpert
Policing Suspicion: Qualified Immunity And "Clearly Established" Standards Of Proof, Seth W. Stoughton, Kyle Mclean, Justin Nix, Geoffrey Alpert
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
This Article explores the intersection of Fourth Amendment standards of proof and the “clearly established” prong of qualified immunity. It illustrates how the juxtaposition of the Court’s insistence on a low level of specificity for the development of suspicion and a high degree of specificity for the imposition of liability makes it exceedingly difficult to hold officers accountable for violating constitutional rights. And it offers both a path for future research into the development of suspicion and suggestions for methods that police agencies can use to improve the development and articulation of suspicion. Ultimately, it contends that policing in the …
Civil Rights Litigation In The Lower Courts: The Justice Barrett Edition, Aaron L. Nielson, Paul Stancil
Civil Rights Litigation In The Lower Courts: The Justice Barrett Edition, Aaron L. Nielson, Paul Stancil
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
Now that Justice Amy Coney Barrett has joined the United States Supreme Court, most observers predict the law will shift on many issues. This common view presumably contains at least some truth. The conventional wisdom, however, overlooks something important: the Supreme Court’s ability to shift the law is constrained by the cases presented to it and how they are presented. Lower courts are thus an important part of the equation. Elsewhere, the authors have offered a model of certiorari to demonstrate how lower courts in theory can design their decisions to evade Supreme Court review; they also explain why such …
Recalibrating Qualified Immunity: How Tanzin V. Tanvir, Taylor V. Riojas, And Mccoy V. Alamu Signal The Supreme Court's Discomfort With The Doctrine Of Qualified Immunity, Patrick Jaicomo, Anya Bidwell
Recalibrating Qualified Immunity: How Tanzin V. Tanvir, Taylor V. Riojas, And Mccoy V. Alamu Signal The Supreme Court's Discomfort With The Doctrine Of Qualified Immunity, Patrick Jaicomo, Anya Bidwell
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
In December 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued its most important decision on qualified immunity since Harlow v. Fitzgerald, and the issue in the case did not even involve the doctrine. In the Court’s unanimous opinion in Tanzin v. Tanvir, which dealt with the interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Justice Thomas explicitly distanced the Court from the very type of policy reasoning used to create qualified immunity. He also embraced the availability of damages claims against government officials as historically justified and often necessary to vindicate individual rights and to check the government’s power. The …