Justly Prudent challenges constitutionality of qualified immunity

WASHINGTON, DC – Justly Prudent announced today that it has filed a significant opposition brief in the federal civil rights case of Bromeland v. District of Columbia, challenging qualified immunity as an unconstitutional error and urging the judiciary to right the egregious wrong. Since its inception in 1967, qualified immunity has allowed government officials, partially law enforcement officers, to avoid liability for egregious civil rights violations, including unjustified killings of unarmed or incapacitated civilians across the country.

In Bromeland, our client was wrongfully arrested after calling 911 to seek emergency medical treatment for his teenage daughter who was experiencing a severe mental health crisis after returning home from a party at 1:00 a.m. Our client and his wife attempted to calm the daughter, but after more than two hours, it became very clear that the daughter needed immediate psychiatric treatment—following persistent suicidal threats and threats to harm our client.

An officer with the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) responded to the 911 call at 3:30 a.m. After speaking with our client and his daughter, the officer decided that the daughter did not need medical assistance and that he had to identify a primary aggressor and make an arrest. So, the officer chose to arrest our client after instructing the ambulance that the family requested to depart the scene.

In the lawsuit, the MPD officer invoked the defense of qualified immunity, arguing that he had probable cause to arrest our client. Alternatively, the MPD officer contends that he is entitled to qualified immunity even if it’s determined he did not have probable cause because the right that he violated was not clearly established at the time.

You may now be wondering what exactly is qualified immunity and where did it come from?

Background on the Ku Klux Klan Act

Often referred today as simply “Section 1983,” the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (the “KKK Act”) imposes liability upon any person who, acting under color of state law, deprives another of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution or federal law. Congress passed the KKK Act during the (short-lived) Reconstruction Era that immediately followed the end of the Civil War, specifically to address the thousands of beatings, lynchings, and incidents of torture and mutilation that were being carried out by groups like the Ku Klux Klan throughout the former Confederate States. These atrocities were inflicted with impunity because judges, politicians, and law enforcement officers were fellow Klansmen and loyal sympathizers.

The very purpose of the KKK Act was to interpose the federal courts between the States and the people, as guardians of the people’s federal rights—to protect the people from unconstitutional action under color of state law, whether that action be executive, legislative, or judicial. To that end, the Supreme Court has counseled that the KKK Act should be broadly construed, since its plain text makes clear Congress’s intent of protecting against all forms of official violation of federally protected rights.

Invention of Qualified Immunity Defense

Unlike other federal statutes, the KKK Act does not contain any exceptions for government officials who violate federal law in purported good faith. In fact, in the decades following the KKK Act’s passage in 1871, the Supreme Court did not recognize any good-faith immunities as a defense to a claim brought under the Act. That all changed in 1967—during the height of the Civil Rights Movement—when the Supreme Court first announced the qualified immunity doctrine in the case of Pearson v. Ray. For the sake of brevity, we’ll spare the details of the interesting case, but we highly encourage readers to review the facts of Pearson v. Ray.

Traditionally, in the context of tort law (i.e., a civil wrong), when the Supreme Court first announces that an immunity applies to the specific category of people, the justices usually perform a historical review to determine whether the specific category of people were afforded immunity under the common law in similar situations at the time the relevant statute was passed. No such analysis will be performed, however, if the statute provides some reason to think that Congress did not intend on preserving an immunity or defense. With respect to the KKK Act, or Section 1983, the Supreme Court has never performed the requisite historical analysis; instead, the High Court simply extended the immunity to any officer who conduct “did not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”

We again encourage readers to review our opposition brief to learn more about the “clearly established” rule, which today has evolved into a largely impenetrable barrier that prohibits victims of egregious civil rights violations from holding law enforcement officials accountable. We also encourage readers to review the landmark opinion authored on June 18, 2024 by Judge Carlton W. Reeves, from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, in which Judge Reeves surgically challenges the constitutional soundness of the qualified immunity doctrine. Judge Reeves also highlights new research proffered by the plaintiff in the underlying case that suggests key language was inadvertently omitted from the first publication of the KKK Act in 1874, which, if true, makes clear Congress did not intend any defenses or immunities to apply to those who violated the statute.

Final Thoughts

In sum, qualified immunity exists nowhere in the text of the KKK Act (codified as 42 U.S.C. § 1983). The Supreme Court invented the patchwork doctrine out of thin air in 1967—nearly 100 years after the passage of the Reconstruction Era statute. It’s high time for the Frankenstein-of-a-doctrine to be laid to rest, and the Supreme Court has already dug the trenches for the casket in its recent decisions.

This case is Bromeland v. District of Columbia, et al. (Case No. 1:24-cv-01566), filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Source Disclaimer: Source citations to the information contained in this article can be found on pages 23 through 27 in our opposition brief.