[mandevil]

Not the legislature: the Supreme Court. Qualified Immunity was created out of whole cloth by the Supreme Court back in the 1960's when a police officer arrested- and then a judge convicted- a group of black and white Episcopal priests for "making a disturbance of the peace"- that is, having black and white people out in public together as equals. This was Pierson v. Ray, decided by the Supreme Court in 1967.

The current implementation of it- where you need to have "clearly establish" a Constitutional right with a prior case in this region- is based on Pearson v. Callahan from 2009, and it takes a terrible Supreme Court precedent and makes it even worse. This has created the patchwork "no case in the circuit has clearly established that a police officer must not make a warrantless search on a Tuesday in May" sort of quibbling.

The work of legislatures has been to roll back qualified immunity. Colorado, New Mexico, and California have removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level. LEO's can still claim qualified immunity for suits under federal law, but they cannot for some suits brought under state law or the state constitution in those states.

The Supreme Court has also, at the same time they've made it harder to hold police to account, made it harder to hold politicians to account, gutting bribery laws and expanding "free speech" to include paying politicians. And the recent idea that a President can't be prosecuted for any "official acts" is also nonsense created by the Supreme Court. This isn't Congress fault, there were laws that prevented it. The Supreme Court just decided that they didn't want to enforce those laws.

The Supreme Court at the root of a lot of the dysfunction in American politics, and somehow still has more respect than they deserve.

[sidewndr46]

Isn't it way more narrow than what you're saying? For New Mexico's cases it only applies to civil rights violations. If the police officer just for example kills someone in the line of duty, he still has qualified immunity

[mandevil]

Civil Rights law is how these sorts of things are enforced by individuals who were harmed, in your example a Law Enforcement Officer violated someone's civil rights by killing them in the line of duty and their family can sue for violation of the deceased's civil right to life. Qualified Immunity short-circuits that entire process for the individual LEO's (it does not protect the organization, just individual officers).

If the prosecutor thinks they can get a criminal conviction for murder (or whatever) that is a totally separate process that is between the People (whom the prosecutor represents) and the defendant (in this case, the LEO who killed the guy in the line of duty). Qualified Immunity never applied to criminal cases(1). But criminal cases will not provide any money or anything like that to the victim (or their family)- that comes from civil suits alleging that the LEO violated someone's civil rights. And that is what removing Qualified Immunity encourages, individuals who were harmed can sue individual officers and receive payments from those individual officers (Colorado's police reform bill holds individual officers responsible with their own money up to certain limits where the organization becomes responsible; I don't know about other states).

1: Which are rare against LEO's because prosecutor's don't want to anger the LEO's that they work with regularly. This is why civil suits are generally the main avenue for people to get justice from over-zealous LEO's.

[sidewndr46]

How can I have a civil right to life? I'm aware I have a civil right to things like voting, a jury trial (for certain charges), legal representation. Those are all things the civic institutions provide to me. Civic institutions don't provide me life.

[mandevil]

The US Constitution is an amazing document, I suggest you read it if you are an American. It's pretty short and has a lot of stuff that is useful to know, even if you aren't a lawyer (I am not). Because I am not a lawyer, I didn't word it exactly correctly.

The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution says, in its entirety:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The key in this context is "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." If a government agent takes that from you without due process that is a civil right of yours being abridged, at least in the US. I can't speak for other countries.

[sidewndr46]

Those are constitutional rights, by definition.

[pseudalopex]

You meant what? The civil rights you identified were constitutional rights.

[throwworhtthrow]

What's your source for:

> California [has] removed qualified immunity for their law enforcement officers at the state level.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity#State_law, it's Connecticut, not California, as the third state which limited qualified immunity.

[mandevil]

California SB 2, signed by Gavin Newsome in 2021, removed Qualified Immunity as a defense for all lawsuits brought under the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act.

I'm not a lawyer, and I have never lived in California so I don't know how much that covers. The QI removal I knew best was Colorado (CO's law also made individual LEO's have to pay with their own money, up to certain limits), and was doing some googling which listed California and New Mexico.