Legal experts Alexander A. Reinert, Joanna C. Schwartz, and James E. Pfander discuss how states can protect public safety by abolishing qualified immunity. As they write, “Today’s crisis in the criminal legal system…provides an opportunity for a new kind of civil rights federalism—one that begins with state legislative action.”
In recent years, business leaders, pro athletes, and creative artists have all spoken out against qualified immunity. Now, we can add another group to the list: faith leaders. Jim Wallis, founding director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice, examines the unjust doctrine through an ethical lens.
State Senator Robert Jackson, sponsor of NY’s QI-busting bill S 1991, has penned an op-ed slamming the unjust doctrine. “The battle to end qualified immunity can’t wait,” he writes in the New York Daily News.
Stephen Levin, the former NYC council member who helped limit qualified immunity in the Big Apple, says New York and other states must now “step up to protect their residents.”
Vermont State Senator Dick Sears, who’s sponsoring a bill to end qualified immunity, explains how abolishing the doctrine will improve public safety in the Green Mountain State.
Musician, activist, and CTEQI coalition partner Aloe Blacc slams qualified immunity in a recent USA Today op-ed. The doctrine, he writes, “tramples our basic right to a fair trial” when bad government officials abuse their authority.
Good cop Dave Myers, a retired officer running for sheriff in San Diego County, denounces qualified immunity in a recent op-ed for USA Today. Abolishing the rule, he writes, is “an investment in restoring the trust between our law enforcement agencies and our communities.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the School of Law at the University of Berkeley, discusses how states can “rein in the police” after both Congress and the Supreme Court failed to act.
In a “stunning” reversal, a federal judge overturned a lower court’s decision to grant qualified immunity to the bad cops who killed Tony Timpa in 2016.