Ending Qualified Immunity Act


The Ending Qualified Immunity Act is legislation, introduced by Justin Amash and Ayanna Pressley to end qualified immunity in the United States. Qualified immunity shields police officers and other government officials from legal actions by victims and families, even if their civil rights were violated.
When announcing the bill on June 2, 2020, Amash explained:
This week, I am introducing the Ending Qualified Immunity Act to eliminate qualified immunity and restore Americans’ ability to obtain relief when police officers violate their constitutionally secured rights. The brutal killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police is merely the latest in a long line of incidents of egregious police misconduct. This pattern continues because police are legally, politically, and culturally insulated from consequences for violating the rights of the people whom they have sworn to serve. That must change so that these incidents of brutality stop happening.

, the Ending Qualified Immunity Act has 64 cosponsors, all but one of whom are Democrats. This is the first legislation introduced by Amash since he joined the Libertarian Party to become the party's first member of Congress. The bill's sponsorship by members of the Libertarian, Republican, and Democratic parties makes it the first bill to have tripartisan support from members of all three parties.
Representative Pressley has served as the primary sponsor of 32 pieces of legislation since assuming office in 2019.

Background

Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine in United States federal law which shields government officials from being held personally liable for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity, unless their actions violate "clearly established" federal law even if their victim's civil rights were violated. The U.S. Supreme Court first introduced the qualified immunity doctrine in 1967, originally with the rationale of protecting law enforcement officials from frivolous lawsuits and financial liability in cases where they acted in good faith in unclear legal situations. Starting around 2005, courts increasingly applied the doctrine to cases involving the use of excessive or deadly force by police, leading to widespread criticism that it, in the words of a 2020 Reuters report, "has become a nearly failsafe tool to let police brutality go unpunished and deny victims their constitutional rights".