Qualified Immunity

Qualified Immunity in the Supreme Court and Congress

Qualified immunity is a key doctrine protecting state and local officials from individual liability, unless the official violated a clearly established constitutional right. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court recognized qualified immunity as a defense to constitutional violations. Lisa Soronen, executive director of the State & Local Legal Center, which works closely with NLC, prepared this quick summary for us to share with NLC-RISC pools about qualified immunity cases.

On June 15, the Supreme Court denied nine petitions involving qualified immunity. In the last few years, qualified immunity has been criticized by academics, think tanks and judges. Since George Floyd’s death, qualified immunity has faced increased scrutiny. In a number of the qualified immunity petitions, a party and/or amicus filing a brief in support of a petition asked the Court to modify or overrule qualified immunity. When the Court kept allowing more and more petitions to pile up, speculation grew that the Court would take a number of petitions at once and somehow alter, if not eliminate, the doctrine. On June 15th, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in all of the petitions. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion in one of the cases. Justice Thomas reiterated his “doubts about our qualified immunity jurisprudence,” noting qualified immunity is not included in the text of the statute, which allows state and local government officials to be sued for violating the constitution.

Even though the Supreme Court has denied each of the nine petitions, Congress may take up this issue. There are two bills that would eliminate qualified immunity defenses for public entity employees (primarily focused on law enforcement and corrections officers): Justice in Policing Act and the Ending Qualified Immunity Act.

Supreme Court Review Webinar

Even though the Supreme Court decided fewer cases than usual, the 2019-20 term didn’t disappoint. Join Elbert Lin, Hunton Andrews Kurth (who argued the most significant water case in over a decade), Jeff Harris, Consovoy McCarthy (who argued an employment case), and Adam Liptak from the New York Times in a discussion of the term’s most interesting and relevant cases to states and local governments. Topics of some of the other cases covered in the webinar include DACA, abortion and “faithless electors.”

You are invited to this free webinar on Wednesday, July 29, at 1pm ET. Register here.