This may sound ridiculous (I first saw the headline on r/NotTheOnion) but it’s actually quite nefarious: qualified immunity protects police from anything that wasn’t explicitly verboten thanks to exactly identical previous court rulings. It doesn’t matter how insane or outrageous, if it wasn’t previously adjudicated, then qualified immunity kicks in. Any deviations from precedent basically nullify the precedent and allow QI to apply: a cop was previously found guilty for battering a person with a baton but the cop today used the butt of a rifle? Qualified immunity.
That's a really interesting point that I didn't realize. Does anyone have a good history of how QI came to be like this? I can't imagine that it was the intention when this started.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 23.9 ms ] threadhttps://www.vox.com/2020/6/3/21277104/qualified-immunity-cop...
https://www.ocregister.com/2020/09/25/oc-sheriffs-deputies-w...