Feb 25, 2025
How do you hold the government accountable when the government creates statutes, laws, and doctrines exclusively aimed at avoiding accountability for their own actions? Qualified immunity has sparked significant public discourse in recent years, particularly surrounding violent and deadly interactions with law enforcement.
What is Qualified Immunity?
Qualified immunity serves as a legal defense for government officials, shielding them from personal liability when they violate an individual's constitutional rights while performing official duties. Under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the United States Code, this judicially-created doctrine effectively blocks lawsuits unless the plaintiff can show that the official violated "clearly established" law—requiring a prior court ruling with nearly identical facts.
This doctrine has a controversial history. It was not part of the original intent of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which Congress passed shortly after the Civil War to combat state-sanctioned violence and ensure civil rights protections. Nearly 100 years later, in the 1960s, qualified immunity emerged through judicial interpretation rather than legislative action, seemingly coinciding with backlash against the Civil Rights Movement.
Read the entire blog post at: https://www.justlyprudent.com/post/what-is-qualified-immunity-and-where-did-it-come-from
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