Our primary federal civil rights statute, colloquially called “Section 1983,” says that any state actor who violates someone’s constitutional rights may be sued in federal court. This remedy is crucial not just to secure relief for individuals whose rights are violated, but also to ensure accountability for government agents. Yet the Supreme Court has crippled the functioning of this statute through the judge-made doctrine of “qualified immunity.” This doctrine, invented by the Court out of whole cloth, immunizes public officials even when they commit illegal misconduct unless they violated “clearly established law.” That standard is incredibly difficult for civil rights plaintiffs to overcome because the courts have required not just a clear legal rule, but a prior case on the books with functionally identical facts.
In Pauly v. White, 874 F.3d 1197 (10th Cir. 2017), the Tenth Circuit used qualified immunity to shield three police officers who brutally killed an innocent man in his home. The officers had no probable cause to think Samuel Pauly had committed any crime, but they stormed his home with guns drawn and shouted that they had him surrounded—yet failed to identify themselves as police. Mr. Pauly and his brother reasonably believed they were in danger and retrieved two guns to defend themselves. After his brother Daniel fired two warning shots to scare away the unidentified attackers, Samuel was shot dead by one of the officers—Ray White—through the front window of his home.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/qualified-immunity-supreme-courts-unlawful-assault-civil-rights-police-accountability
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