zlacker

>>mnm1+(OP)
I'm curious - it's obvious what abuses of qualified immunity are driving this, but the law must have been originally put in place for a reason. Are there any examples where a police officer was shielded from prosecution for something that, if you or I did it would definitely be a crime, but that a reasonable person would say, "yes, this is a good application of qualified immunity"?

>>comman+9m
The idea behind qualified immunity is to protect government employees from nuisance suits over discretionary actions performed in their official capacity, excepting actions that violated local laws or civil rights. (Basically, it lets a human government employee make reasonable mistakes.)

The original laws of this country did not permit lawsuits against government employees acting in an official capacity. After the Civil War, the Civil Right Act of 1871 was passed allowing citizens and residents to sue government officials for civil rights violations suffered under color of law. The qualified immunity doctrine was created by the courts after that to shield public officials from nuisance suits for discretionary actions (generally meaning bureaucratic actions) by people angry over actions that went against them (i.e., for denials of licenses, judgments, etc.).

Unfortunately, due to the volume of nuisance suits, this doctrine got stronger and stronger over time. At some point, the courts began applying this strengthened doctrine intended for bureaucratic actions to police actions.

>>gamblo+qp
The idea that law enforcement and government officials should be treated less strictly under the law is, to me, completely preposterous. If anything, they should explicitly not be given the benefit of the doubt and should be treated much more strictly under the law.

I realize that a huge number of people completely disagree with that, and I don't really know how to persuade any of them other than to urge them to examine history and note the consequences of authoritarianism.

>>baddox+9w
Well, i mostly agree with you but want to point out one fine distinction which is that you can still sue the government for your rights being violated, but you can't sue the individual bureaucrat.

Put another way, if your local DMV agent is acting funny, you can still sue the DMV, even if you can't sue the agent directly, FWIU

Anyway, hopefully the SC will throw this all out in the coming weeks.

>>tathou+Cx
If a DMV agent is depriving you of your rights or mistreating you in some tortious way, why shouldn't you be able to sue that DMV agent? I'm not necessarily against government offices providing legal services to help defend their employees (AFAIK that's common for public school teachers and employees), but why shouldn't you be able to sue the person who is committing the tortious act?

>>baddox+GB
As a taxpayer, I'd much prefer individual DMV agents being sued and having to defend themselves, compared to the DMV itself being sued and my tax money being used in its defense.

>>nerdpo+oE
Your position is really contrary to your interests.

DMV agents are probably not very wealthy. By suing them you would simply drive an underpaid worker into bankruptcy and probably never get much money back.

Meanwhile, the DMV can easily scapegoat it's employee and never reform or make any systematic changes. Furthermore you would have no recourse to sue them directly since they can just keep hiring more poor workers to be thrown under the bus.

Ultimately the tax payers (or voters) need to keep the DMV accountable. There is no alternative. Democracy doesn't have shortcuts. The tax payers have to pay when the government screws up. More to the point - the tax payer ALWAYS ends up paying when the government screws up, without exception, 100% of the time. Either they pay by having a corrupt DMV that hurts society and everyone at large, or they pay through lawsuits and higher costs at the DMV.