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Qualified Immunity In Section 1983 Cases: The Unanswered Questions, Kit Kinports
Qualified Immunity In Section 1983 Cases: The Unanswered Questions, Kit Kinports
Kit Kinports
Part I of this Article describes the general policies underlying qualified immunity and the Court's decisions defining the scope of the defense. Part II then addresses two answered questions concerning Harlow v. Fitzgerald's impact on the substantive content of the qualified immunity defense: Is immunity available to the defendant who actually knows that her conduct is infringing the plaintiff's constitutional rights, even if the law governing those rights is not yet clearly established? And should a court take into account the nature of the defendant's governmental responsibilities and other circumstances surrounding her conduct in determining whether the right she violated …
Habeas Corpus, Qualified Immunity, And Crystal Balls: Predicting The Course Of Constitutional Law, Kit Kinports
Habeas Corpus, Qualified Immunity, And Crystal Balls: Predicting The Course Of Constitutional Law, Kit Kinports
Kit Kinports
After describing the basic legal and policy issues surrounding the qualified immunity defense and the use of novelty to explain procedural defaults in habeas cases, Part I of this article advocates a standard for both types of cases that asks whether a person exercising reasonable diligence in the same circumstances would have been aware of the relevant constitutional principles. With this standard in mind, Part II examines the qualified immunity defense in detail, concluding that in many cases public officials are given immunity even though they unreasonably failed to recognize the constitutional implications of their conduct. Part III compares the …