Name: Ayanna Pressley Revives Justin Amash’s Bill To End Qualified Immunity
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Ayanna Pressley Revives Justin Amash’s Bill To End Qualified Immunity

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Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D–Mass.) has reintroduced a bill to end qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that makes it difficult for the public to hold government officials accountable for alleged misconduct.Former Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.) originally the Ending Qualified Immunity Act in June 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd. Pressley signed on as cosponsor a few days after, though the bill died without ever receiving a vote.The Ending Qualified Immunity Act of 2021, which Sens. Ed Markey (D–Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) are cosponsoring in the Senate, to do the exact same thing as its predecessor: abolish qualified immunity for all state actors.The American public maintains the right to sue civil servants who violate their rights under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code. But the Supreme Court has radically limited that right over the years. First, there was the decision in &nbsp;(1967), which held that public officials may avoid civil suits if constitutional violations were made in "good faith." In &nbsp;(1982), the high court took that a step further: Victims may not sue state actors for misbehavior unless that misbehavior was "clearly established" in previous case law.In other words, in order to have the right to bring a case before a jury, a plaintiff must be able to point to a court precedent that explicitly describes the situation in question to a tee. Qualified immunity has protected two cops who while executing a search warrant, a cop who damaged a man's eye after allegedly after he had been subdued, a prison guard who while an inmate raped a nurse, two cops who for standing outside of his house, a cop who during a bogus drug search, a cop who , and a cop who .In all of those cases, the victims were left with no avenue for recompense."It is the sense of the Congress that we must correct the erroneous interpretation" of Section 1983, the bill says, "and reiterate the standard found on the face of the statute, which does not limit liability on the basis of a defendant's good faith beliefs or on the basis that the right was not 'clearly established' at the time of the violation."The Supreme Court has at the to fundamentally reevaluate the doctrine. But it has started to send messages to the lower courts that the current application of qualified immunity no longer cuts it. In November, it an appeals court decision that awarded qualified immunity to a group of correctional officers who into two deplorable cells, one teeming with sewage and the other with "massive amounts" of human feces. And just last month, it reversed another appeals court decision that gave qualified immunity to a prison guard who had without provocation.Lawmakers are poised to vote soon on the Justice in Policing Act, a reform bill that would end qualified immunity for cops. Pressley's bill eliminates it for all public officials—a relevant tidbit, when considering that the last two SCOTUS decisions on the issue pertained to correctional officers, not police officers. Moderate Democrats have from that provision, however, in some cases because they face tough re-election challenges and want support from police unions.Meanwhile, the GOP has largely resisted such reforms. Sen. Mike Braun (R–Ind.) did a bill last summer that would have effectively paralyzed qualified immunity, but he abandoned it after with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Amash's bill only one Republican cosponsor, Rep. Tom McClintock (R–Calif.).But the American public is on board. The majority of the country reform, with high-profile attempts gaining steam. Citing&nbsp;Reason's reporting on the issue, players from the NFL, MLB, and NBA to support Amash's bill last June.One big hurdle at the time was then-President Donald Trump, who that qualified immunity reform would merit an automatic veto. Will President Joe Biden, who has that he isn't ready to end the doctrine, be any better? His national press secretary me during the campaign that he wants to see it "severely reined in." He did not provide details as to what that meant.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D–Mass.) has reintroduced a bill to end qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that makes it difficult for the public to hold government officials accountable for alleged misconduct.Former Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.) originally the Ending Qualified Immunity Act in June 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd. Pressley signed on as cosponsor a few days after, though the bill died without ever receiving a vote.The Ending Qualified Immunity Act of 2021, which Sens. Ed Markey (D–Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) are cosponsoring in the Senate, to do the exact same...

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Billy Binion

Reason is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 50,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune. Reason was founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander (1947–2011), a student at Boston University, as a more-or-less monthly mimeographed publication. In 1970 it was purchased by Robert W. Poole Jr., Manuel S. Klausner, and Tibor R. Machan, who set it on a more regular publishing schedule.

Ayanna Pressley Revives Justin Amash’s Bill To End Qualified Immunity

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