zlacker

The cases would still be evaluated as per the state of the law as it stood at the time the questionable acts occurred. If police were operating under QI and QI is later repealed, changing the law's interpretation of their behavior after-the-fact to find them liable is ex post facto law.

Sucks and is unfair, but it's the same principle that stops the government from, for example, jailing people who used to drink if Prohibition were put back in the Constitution.(1)

(1) There's a carve-out in jurisprudence that if something was illegal in the past, and you're jailed for it, and it is later made legal, your continued incarceration can be re-considered. But that's handled on, generally, a case-by-case basis.

>>shadow+(OP)
Section 1983 is civil, not criminal. The Klan act does have criminal provisions as well.

>>shadow+(OP)
> The cases would still be evaluated as per the state of the law as it stood at the time the questionable acts occurred. If police were operating under QI and QI is later repealed, changing the law's interpretation of their behavior after-the-fact to find them liable is ex post facto law.

No, it's not: ex post facto is a term of art for retroactive criminalization; QI applies only to civil liability. Retrospective enhancements to civil liability are not Constitutionally prohibited.

>>dragon+O
Interesting. You're right about the gap between civil and criminal law, but I can't think of any examples of someone going after civil liability for something that happened in the past under the legal reasoning that a law passed after the act makes the act one a person can be liable for. Can you give an example?

>>shadow+oj
Not exactly the same, but the legislature retroactively extended the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits. Not a case of a newly illegal act, but a case where someone who was in the clear for a past act became liable again.

>>shadow+oj
A good example is the post-9/11 lawsuits filed against foreign governments that were enabled by passage of JASTA or liability for asbestos which was broadly enabled by legislation.

>>shadow+oj
https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/01/new-civil-fost...

Several examples here.