[jMyles]

I think I have a good understanding of our legal system. I have a pre-law degree, and I have studied this particular topic extensively.

> Qualified immunity is what allows members of the government to do things that would otherwise be illegal for regular people

Holy shit. Are you serious? That's your summary of qualified immunity?

You are just completely, absurdly, absolutely incorrect here. The "qualified" in qualified immunity means that the conduct in question doesn't violate clearly established law. So you have it exactly backwards.

And even if you were right, qualified immunity is a civil concept. It is wholly unrelated to the matter of the amount of force that otherwise constitutes a criminal violation when effecting an arrest.

It is also not "a law" (you have said it's "the law" that I'm looking for), it's a legal doctrine regarding the confines of liability under section 1983.

> I am not sure what specifically you want

It's exceedingly simple. I want an example of a state which, on a statutory basis, permits different levels of force for the purpose of effecting an arrest for police in contrast to other citizens. That's what GP said existed. I don't think it does exist. So that's what I'm asking for.

[Retric]

You just described Cops having legal protection beyond ordinary citizens which is exactly what you asked for. At no point did you separate civil and criminal protection.

In practice prosecutors don't try cops for using reasonable force in arrests. So they don't need protection for that.

What they need protection from is everyone and their brother suing them out of malice for arresting them. And they get that from qualified immunity.

PS: You can think of civil and criminal law as independent, but that's really not how are system operates.

[jMyles]

Well, now it seems like we agree in full.

My point all along was that police don't have any statutory authority to use force in any greater measure than anyone else, and yet they seem to get away with it - as you point out, free from both criminal and civil liability.

Shit man, I don't support qualified immunity at all. It has always been a bit of charlatan law IMO.

I understood (and still understand) the original comment as taking the position that this discrimination is somehow based in statute, when, as far as I can tell, it isn't.