Qualifying the Debate Over Qualified Immunity | Opinion James R. Copland
, Senior fellow and director of legal policy, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research On 4/28/21 at 11:00 AM EDT
Last week, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) suggested he was seeking a compromise designed to unstick bipartisan negotiations over federal police reform. Scott s proposal relates to qualified immunity, a legal doctrine cabining federal liability against individuals, including police officers, acting under color of state law. Both progressive and libertarian policy advocates have been pushing to abolish this doctrine, but to date, congressional partisans have broadlysplit on the issue.
My colleague Rafael Mangual and I have argued that Congress