End qualified immunity for police
It is a difficult time to be a police officer in the state of New York. In recent years, there has been an erosion of trust between community members and the police, a trust that is crucial for cooperation and strong relationships between us and the people we serve.
As a retired police chief who served for 23 years in the Albany Police Department, I know that ending qualified immunity by passing the End Qualified Immunity Act (S1991) is key to restoring this trust and building public safety in our state.
Simply put, qualified immunity prevents people’s access to court and due process so that an officer, and the department they are employed by, can be held accountable to determine if the officer’s actions violated a person’s civil rights. The doctrine, as it currently exists, holds officers and their agencies harmless unless the officer’s action has already been clearly established as a constitutional violation in that court’s jurisdiction.
For example, in Jessop v. City of Fresno, the court held that police officers stole money from the plaintiffs, and the victims sued. However, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the lawsuit on qualified immunity grounds, because no previous Ninth Circuit case specifically said that police stealing from plaintiffs is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
When such cases are dismissed, the subsequent media firestorm has a devastating impact on public trust in the justice system.
Having served as a police chief, I understand firsthand why police are concerned about losing the qualified immunity defense, and I want to be clear that this concern is not warranted. This bill will not leave officers vulnerable to a flood of frivolous lawsuits. Studies show that judges dismiss cases on qualified immunity grounds in less than 4 percent of civil rights cases involving law enforcement. When cases are without merit, judges dismiss them based on other tools in the federal rules of civil procedure. Yet this 4 percent takes on great importance because when cases are dismissed despite having merit, it creates the perception that officers are above the law.
The amendment also ensures that police would not be personally held financially responsible.
In practice, officers are never bankrupted by these lawsuits. When officers’ actions lead to settlements or judgments against them, research shows that 99.98 percent of the bills get paid by cities. The proposed bill explicitly states that agencies would bear the financial burden.
It should be further noted that when a case makes it into court, officers are still provided their own protections by the Fourth Amendment and the reasonableness standards as outlined in previous case law.
Although the qualified immunity doctrine originated in federal court, and New York cannot fix a federal issue, we cannot wait for the federal government to right this wrong. State lawmakers have proposed legislation that would protect New Yorkers’ constitutional rights through state court. The End Qualified Immunity Act would allow civil courts to hear cases when an officer violates a citizen’s constitutional rights. Officers would not be able to use the qualified immunity defense to keep justified claims cases out of court.
When there is a lack of police accountability, we lose legitimacy in the eyes of those we serve, making community members less likely to cooperate with us. To restore this trust and strengthen relationships with the communities, we need to prioritize police accountability.
That’s why qualified immunity is deeply unpopular. Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of Americans say civilians need to have the power to sue police officers in order to hold them accountable for misconduct and excessive use of force, even if that makes police work more difficult. In fact, we believe it will make police work easier by helping us rebuild community trust.
To prevent and solve crime, police need community members to cooperate and provide information about what they have witnessed. Folks will only cooperate if they trust us. Trust-building is not an optional, feel-good extracurricular activity for police. It is a core responsibility with a direct link to public safety.
The bottom line is that passing New York’s End Qualified Immunity Act would not endanger the protections law enforcement already enjoys. It would simply allow judges to hear the facts of the most egregious cases, so that police can be held accountable and the public will see that the rule of law applies equally to everyone.
By doing so, it would strengthen the ties between police and the people we swore an oath to protect and serve.