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Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Five years after George Floyd's death, calls to reform qualified immunity mostly fall silent
WASHINGTON — The death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in May 2020 gave momentum to a cross-ideological effort to reform the legal defense known as "qualified immunity," which can protect cops even when they have violated the Constitution. Bills were introduced in Congress calling to abolish the defense. Multiple cases piled up at the Supreme Court urging the justices to intervene. Much ink was spilled. And then, nothing happened. With the fifth anniversary of Floyd's death approaching this weekend, Congress still has not passed any legislation seeking to even reform, let alone abolish, qualified immunity. The Supreme Court has rejected dozens of cases asking it to do the same. What minor changes have occurred, via court rulings or state legislative actions, have had little practical impact on a nationwide basis. For Karen Blum, a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and a long-term critic of qualified immunity, the situation is nothing short of depressing. "After George Floyd, it was the first time I was actually optimistic and very positive that something would be done, no matter how little," she said. "But nothing, I mean nothing, has happened." The doctrine, first adopted by the Supreme Court in 1967, gives government officials the benefit of the doubt when they violate the Constitution. When a plaintiff files a federal civil rights claim, the defendant — including police officers facing excessive force claims under the Constitution's 4th Amendment — can get off the hook by arguing that it was not "clearly established" at the time of the alleged violation that its actions were unconstitutional. If qualified immunity is granted, the lawsuit is dismissed and the plaintiffs never get a chance to either negotiate a settlement or go to trial. In 2020, a Reuters investigation found that judges were increasingly granting qualified immunity at the direction of the Supreme Court. The law enforcement community strongly defends the concept, saying it is needed to give officers acting in good faith the confidence to make split-second decisions, often in extremely dangerous circumstances. The Fraternal Order of Police, a national group representing law enforcement officers, did not respond to requests for comment. Floyd's killing by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, triggered an immediate national debate over police violence, especially against Black men. But there had already been a quiet cross-ideological effort before then to reform qualified immunity, backed by such strange bedfellows as the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute. They had filed briefs at the Supreme Court hoping to persuade the justices to take a new look at the doctrine and consider amending it — or maybe ditching it altogether. For a few weeks in the summer of 2020, as racial justice protests raged, both the Supreme Court and Congress considered whether to take action. The court quickly sidestepped the issue, declining in June 2020 to hear a series of cases asking for reconsideration of qualified immunity. Ten days later, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, including a number of police reform measures on qualified immunity and other issues. But it ran into headwinds in the Republican-controlled Senate and lost momentum. "Republican intransigence was the real explanation there, and I don't see any reason to think that has changed for the better," said Clark Neily, a lawyer at the Cato Institute. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., who was a co-sponsor of the George Floyd legislation, said that there were plans to reintroduce it during the current Congress but that he has "no confidence" it would get any traction with Republicans controlling both chambers. "We will get to a time in this country where we will pass that legislation," he said. In the meantime, courts have continued to grant cops and other government officials qualified immunity in cases involving shocking claims: Police officers assisting a paramedic in Fresno, California, held a man in a prone position until he died, even after he told them he could not breathe. Police officers in Pineville, North Carolina, fired multiple shots at a man who was complying with their orders to drop a firearm. Prison officers at a facility in Columbia, South Carolina, failed to intervene when two men murdered four of their fellow inmates. However, there have been small signs of incremental change. Some judges have criticized the way qualified immunity has been applied, joining a handful who had done the same before 2020. That approach has seeped into some recent rulings, those following the case law say. Chris Balch, a lawyer in Georgia who represents police departments in such cases, said the thumb on the scale in favor of officers "has lessened in the last five years," meaning defense lawyers need to be ready to go to trial. He cited a January 2024 ruling by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that denied qualified immunity to a jail intake officer after a Black inmate who had disclosed he stabbed a white man for racially motivated reasons then murdered his white cellmate. There was also a glimmer of hope for reform advocates at the Supreme Court, which in November 2020 ruled in favor of a Texas prison inmate who had been held in filthy conditions. The justices overturned a lower court that said qualified immunity protected prison officials. After reform efforts failed in Congress, there was briefly a concerted effort to enact state-level legislation that would create an alternative way to sue officers under those states' laws, making qualified immunity unavailable as a defense. Although a handful of states enacted such laws, the campaign met with considerable resistance elsewhere. More recently, President Donald Trump's re-election has in some ways sent the pendulum swinging in the other direction in the national political arena. When Trump signed a pro-law enforcement executive order last month, he stressed the importance of ensuring officers are not held legally accountable for their actions. The order says the Trump administration will take action to 'provide legal resources and indemnification to law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities' and calls on officials to 'strengthen and expand legal protections' for officers. Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said Trump's policing plan shows he is "fulfilling his campaign promise to Make America Safe Again." The administration is committed to reversing "failed policies" backed by Democrats, he added. With that political environment in mind, Blum, the qualified immunity critic, remains pessimistic there will be any major change any time soon. "Qualified immunity is here to stay," she said. This article was originally published on
NBC News
20-05-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Five years after George Floyd's death, calls to reform qualified immunity mostly fall silent
WASHINGTON — The death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in May 2020 gave momentum to a cross-ideological effort to reform the legal defense known as "qualified immunity," which can protect cops even when they have violated the Constitution. Bills were introduced in Congress calling to abolish the defense. Multiple cases piled up at the Supreme Court urging the justices to intervene. Much ink was spilled. And then, nothing happened. With the fifth anniversary of Floyd's death approaching this weekend, Congress still has not passed any legislation seeking to even reform, let alone abolish, qualified immunity. The Supreme Court has rejected dozens of cases asking it to do the same. What minor changes have occurred, via court rulings or state legislative actions, have had little practical impact on a nationwide basis. For Karen Blum, a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and a long-term critic of qualified immunity, the situation is nothing short of depressing. "After George Floyd, it was the first time I was actually optimistic and very positive that something would be done, no matter how little," she said. "But nothing, I mean nothing, has happened." The doctrine, first adopted by the Supreme Court in 1967, gives government officials the benefit of the doubt when they violate the Constitution. When a plaintiff files a federal civil rights claim, the defendant — including police officers facing excessive force claims under the Constitution's 4th Amendment — can get off the hook by arguing that it was not "clearly established" at the time of the alleged violation that its actions were unconstitutional. If qualified immunity is granted, the lawsuit is dismissed and the plaintiffs never get a chance to either negotiate a settlement or go to trial. In 2020, a Reuters investigation found that judges were increasingly granting qualified immunity at the direction of the Supreme Court. The law enforcement community strongly defends the concept, saying it is needed to give officers acting in good faith the confidence to make split-second decisions, often in extremely dangerous circumstances. The Fraternal Order of Police, a national group representing law enforcement officers, did not respond to requests for comment. Egregious cases Floyd's killing by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, triggered an immediate national debate over police violence, especially against Black men. But there had already been a quiet cross-ideological effort before then to reform qualified immunity, backed by such strange bedfellows as the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute. They had filed briefs at the Supreme Court hoping to persuade the justices to take a new look at the doctrine and consider amending it — or maybe ditching it altogether. For a few weeks in the summer of 2020, as racial justice protests raged, both the Supreme Court and Congress considered whether to take action. The court quickly sidestepped the issue, declining in June 2020 to hear a series of cases asking for reconsideration of qualified immunity. Ten days later, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, including a number of police reform measures on qualified immunity and other issues. But it ran into headwinds in the Republican-controlled Senate and lost momentum. "Republican intransigence was the real explanation there, and I don't see any reason to think that has changed for the better," said Clark Neily, a lawyer at the Cato Institute. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., who was a co-sponsor of the George Floyd legislation, said that there were plans to reintroduce it during the current Congress but that he has "no confidence" it would get any traction with Republicans controlling both chambers. "We will get to a time in this country where we will pass that legislation," he said. In the meantime, courts have continued to grant cops and other government officials qualified immunity in cases involving shocking claims: Police officers assisting a paramedic in Fresno, California, held a man in a prone position until he died, even after he told them he could not breathe. Police officers in Pineville, North Carolina, fired multiple shots at a man who was complying with their orders to drop a firearm. Prison officers at a facility in Columbia, South Carolina, failed to intervene when two men murdered four of their fellow inmates. However, there have been small signs of incremental change. Some judges have criticized the way qualified immunity has been applied, joining a handful who had done the same before 2020. That approach has seeped into some recent rulings, those following the case law say. Chris Balch, a lawyer in Georgia who represents police departments in such cases, said the thumb on the scale in favor of officers "has lessened in the last five years," meaning defense lawyers need to be ready to go to trial. He cited a January 2024 ruling by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that denied qualified immunity to a jail intake officer after a Black inmate who had disclosed he stabbed a white man for racially motivated reasons then murdered his white cellmate. There was also a glimmer of hope for reform advocates at the Supreme Court, which in November 2020 ruled in favor of a Texas prison inmate who had been held in filthy conditions. The justices overturned a lower court that said qualified immunity protected prison officials. After reform efforts failed in Congress, there was briefly a concerted effort to enact state-level legislation that would create an alternative way to sue officers under those states' laws, making qualified immunity unavailable as a defense. Although a handful of states enacted such laws, the campaign met with considerable resistance elsewhere. More recently, President Donald Trump's re-election has in some ways sent the pendulum swinging in the other direction in the national political arena. When Trump signed a pro-law enforcement executive order last month, he stressed the importance of ensuring officers are not held legally accountable for their actions. The order says the Trump administration will take action to 'provide legal resources and indemnification to law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities' and calls on officials to 'strengthen and expand legal protections' for officers. Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said Trump's policing plan shows he is "fulfilling his campaign promise to Make America Safe Again." The administration is committed to reversing "failed policies" backed by Democrats, he added. With that political environment in mind, Blum, the qualified immunity critic, remains pessimistic there will be any major change any time soon. "Qualified immunity is here to stay," she said.
Boston Globe
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
For visa and green card holders, immigration lawyers offer advice: Don't travel outside of the US right now
Arnoldo Benitez, an immigration lawyer licensed in Massachusetts who has offices in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, said clients have been alarmed by news reports about Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up Immigrants and advocates have also been shaken by the recent seizure and detention of Advertisement Tufts graduate student detained by immigration authorities Share Immigration authorities detained Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national in the US on a student visa, on March 25 in Somerville. 'I've been practicing for eight years now and it wasn't even a real question during the first Trump administration,' Benitez said. 'They're scared that they're not going to be let back in.' Matthew Maiona, an immigration attorney based in Boston and an adjunct professor who teaches business immigration law at Suffolk University Law School, said he's seen an uptick in inquiries from corporate clients as well. Companies have been changing in-person reunions to remote zoom meetings, he said, and clients that have had travel pending for a long time have cancelled their plans to leave the country. 'There's a huge concern about the unknown,' Maiona said. 'On both sides, from the companies and from the employees themselves, there's been a lot of concern about traveling.' Advertisement 'We've provided advice and counsel to those clients that really, unless they absolutely have to go to something, they shouldn't do so,' he added. Mahsa Khanbabai, an immigration attorney in North Easton, Mass., who is representing Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student, said that she tells clients that the way the Trump administration is approaching immigration is meant to 'cause mass confusion and uncertainty.' 'Normally, there are guardrails related to what the government can do to individuals who are here on visas and on green cards. But those guardrails have basically just been shattered,' Khanbabai said. 'The impact on immigrants is dramatic,' she added. 'I can't overstate that. And it's like nothing I've ever seen in my 25 years of practice.' Related : Omar Bah, a founder of A former refugee who had a green card before becoming a US citizen, Bah said he faced additional questions after he told agents that he had been visiting family in Gambia, where he grew up. 'They kept going on and on, asking the same questions over and over,' he said. 'They asked me what work I do. I said refugee resettlement… maybe that prompted more questioning.' Bah said he knew of green card holders who are choosing not to travel. Advertisement 'I support them in that, because they don't know whether they will be allowed to come back to the country,' he said. 'I don't think it's worth risking it.' Related : Pamela, who asked only her first name be used for fear of retaliation, is a legal permanent resident of the US who is married to an American citizen. When trying to renew her green card a year ago, she said, her application was initially rejected because of an error before the renewal was granted. The mix-up was enough to make her decide not to travel internationally, in case the incident is seen as a red flag by immigration officials. She is even nervous about taking domestic flights. 'My lawyer advised me not to travel because of this issue with the error. It will come up again,' she said. She said she plans on applying for citizenship so she can get the protections that come with it. 'I just have my husband. If something happens to my husband, what is happening with me?,' she said. 'That's my only [security] because I don't see that this administration respects anyone.' Maria, who also asked that only her first name be used, said that She first came to the US in 2018. She and her husband applied for green cards in 2023, and she recently had to renew her visa. She was supposed to travel to promote a documentary she has been working on for years, but her immigration attorney recommended that people suspend their travel plans. Advertisement 'I have my life here. I have my work here. I have everything here,' she said. It's too great a risk to travel and not be allowed back into the US. 'So I cannot let that happen.' There are other worries swirling around in her head as well. 'You hope that nothing happens to your family and that you have to fly back for an emergency,' she said. 'If I can have my parents come here with no issues, I'd rather do that.' Immigrants from countries targeted by the Trump administration's Raghu Mulukutla, a machine learning engineer, lives in Framingham and holds an H-1b visa. 'Obviously I'm worried about Trump's policies, but he didn't have anything specific on H-1b holders,' he said. But, he said, he is worried that the Trump administration could try revoke H4 EAD visas, a program created under the Obama administration that allows spouses of H-1b visa holders to seek employment. That would affect his wife. 'She doesn't feel safe leaving the country because she's from China,' he said. 'This was a problem for her even before the Trump administration.' On a 2022 visit to China she was questioned for three hours. The experience reduced her to tears. Advertisement 'After that, we were, like, 'Oh yeah, we are never leaving the country,'' he said. Even small customs infractions have led to detention instead of fines. Ellen Sullivan, immigration attorney and founder of Cambridge Immigration Law, notes that immigrants with legal status in Massachusetts 'do practically every job possible.' 'They lead departments at universities. They are the founders of cutting edge laboratories and creators of life changing advances in science,' Sullivan said. 'They are people who clean our homes and our businesses, people who clean our streets, people who care for our elders and special needs relatives.' And, if they choose to leave the US right now, they could all be at risk. 'Things are changing so quickly, things are so unpredictable, that I'm telling people the only way to not have problems with international travel is to not travel internationally,' she said. Hiawatha Bray of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Omar Mohammed can be reached at
