-You should not have some kind of blanket immunity.
-When law-enforcement officers break the law,
they should be held accountable.
-To the extent that qualified immunity fosters a sense of,
"It's really not my problem," let's take a look at it.
-Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine
that was developed through court precedent
rather than through congressional legislation.
The purpose of qualified immunity
is to protect government employees
from frivolous litigation.
However, it's become an increasingly effective
shield in thousands of lawsuits
that are seeking to hold cops accountable
when they're accused of excessive force.
-When a black man is brutally beaten, his family goes to court
and tries to hold the officer accountable.
Now, the law as written says that the family can do that --
it says that the victim of civil-rights abuses can do that.
Congress passed an act that dates back to Reconstruction.
It was called the Ku Klux Klan Act,
and it says very clearly that victims of state violence,
civil-rights abuses have the right
to hold government officials accountable.
The Civil Rights Act that Congress passed in 1871
created the illegal violation, really, the right to sue.
Qualified immunity is something that courts invented,
and it says, "Think again."
It says, "We don't care about any of that.
We are going to make him immune,
unless you happen to be able to point to a case
that involved the same conduct and the same context,
where a court told some other officer that it was wrong."
-So, when granting qualified immunity,
judges are looking at a kind of a two-part test.
First, was there a civil-rights violation?
And secondly, was it clearly established?
But a more recent Supreme Court decision in 2009
allowed judges to skip the first part of the test
and only answer,
was this violation clearly established as a violation?
If a certain excessive force conduct
is brought before the court
and dismissed from qualified immunity
because it wasn't established,
that also prevents it from being established for future cases.
-The degree of specificity that the court has required
of victims and their families to get any sort of relief
or accountability in the courts is quite extraordinary.
For anyone else -- For anyone else --
If you're talking about a doctor,
if you're talking about a construction worker
who you want to hold accountable,
showing that they violated the law, you can come into court,
"We'll hear you, we'll give you a trial,"
but when it comes to police officers,
when it comes to state officials, don't even try that.
"You'd better be able to show to --
show us a case where we said
this specific conduct was wrong."
The degree of specificity that the court has required
of victims and their families to get any sort of relief
or accountability in the courts is quite extraordinary.
There's a case that went up to the Supreme Court
recently that the Supreme Court declined to hear,
and it involved siccing an attack dog on an individual.
And in that case, there actually was a prior case --
a man had already surrendered and an officer, nonetheless,
sicced the attack dog on that man, and the court said,
"That is a constitutional violation."
And what the lawyers for the police argued in this case was,
"Well, but in that case,
the man was laying facedown when he had surrendered,
and in this new case, he was sitting with his arms up,"
and that distinction is sufficiently relevant to say
that this officer should get immunity.
-Our team of reporters read through hundreds
and hundreds of lawsuits,
and we found that not only is qualified immunity
a very common outcome,
but that it's been getting easier and easier for police
to have lawsuits thrown out because of qualified immunity.
And we're seeing that this is especially true in cases
where the judge rules that the rights were violated,
but they're still granting qualified immunity.
From 2005 to 2007, we were looking at cases
where defense raises a qualified immunity defense,
and in those cases, there was a qualified immunity
ruling that favored the police in only 44 percent of cases,
but in the more recent years, from 2017 to 2019,
the ruling on qualified immunity favored police 57%,
more than half the time.
And there have been a number of Supreme
Court rulings in that --
in between that made it much more difficult for plaintiffs
to overcome qualified immunity.
It's a pretty growingly controversial doctrine,
even within the Supreme Court itself.
For example, Sotomayor in particular has been outspoken
in some of her dissents, writing, for example,
in one, it's telling police that they can, quote,
"shoot first and think later, and it tells the public
that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished."
-This bill also removes qualified immunity
for police officers.
That means any police officer can be dragged into civil court
by any disgruntled person they ever come in contact with.
Now, we all agree bad cops shouldn't be able to hide
behind qualified immunity.
-A year ago, I would have said,
"The Supreme Court is the only audience
that is really paying attention here,"
but that's not true today.
-There's been a lot more attention
at the congressional level in discussing
what could happen to the doctrine next,
whether to reform it or abolish it.
-The House has passed a bill
that would end qualified immunity.
-The resolution is adopted.
-And it's sitting in the Senate, waiting for action.
Everyone would agree that Congress has the ability
to say that, "Look, we passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871,
the Ku Klux Klan Act, and we said you can sue
police officers and other state officials
when they violate your rights, and we meant it.
We didn't write qualified immunity
because we didn't intend for there
to be any qualified immunity in that law."