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Comment by eYrKEC2 | Hacker News Reader

It's better than that. They can even NOT BE A POLICE OFFICER, then act like a police officer, and then get qualified immunity.

https://ij.org/press-release/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-c...

Out. Of. Control.

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I don't see anything in this article that indicates that the government official in question received qualified immunity because they acted like a police officer. It seems they already had it as part of their own job. Correct if wrong.

That is correct, but qualified immunity is supposed to apply to government officials acting withing the scope of their official responsibilities.

    We emphasize that our decision applies only to suits for civil damages arising from actions within the scope of an official's duties and in "objective" good faith. - Harlow v. Fitzgerald [1]

For the courts to uphold that impersonating a police officer (which is a felony!) is with the scope of an engineer's duties is absurd.

[1]https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/800/#F34

Part of that is that we're being misled by this whole 'impersonated a police officer' spin. He didn't pull the trucks over and say, "I'm a cop! You're under arrest." Rather, he claimed (and presumably believed) that he possessed, as a highway engineer, the authority to detain trucks that were violating a statute.

Consider, in carrying out his official dutues, he has some degree of discretion in doing so. For example, some engineers might decide the best tool for their job that day is a slide rule. Others might decide on a given day to use an autoleveling level. And some, particularly Mr. Large, might decide on exercising the "detain trucks that are interfering with road work" provision. It turned out there was no such provision, and Large's job didn't have the authority to detain vehicles. But the absence of a statute specifically forbidding state employees (other than police officers) to detain trucks meant that he was entitled to qualified immunity.

Keep in mind that QI doesn't mean that the injured party isn't entitled to damages at all, it just means they have to sue the state and not individual officers/officials. Of course, suing the state has its own hurdles. Some government bodies have very short statutes of limitations for filing lawsuits against them, and they must receive advance notice before the claim can even commence. And the claim might need to be filed in a special court. And the state may be protected from liability if it had no advance knowledge of a condition, or by a statute limiting the amount of damages.

> "And some, particularly Mr. Large, might decide on exercising the "detain trucks that are interfering with road work" provision. It turned out there was no such provision"

If I make that mistake as an ordinary Joe, how much time would I spend in jail?

Why do you believe that qualified immunity only applies to police officers?

I won't pretend to be an expert---today being the first day I've read about it---but, the very first Wikipedia article I read about the topic discusses qualified immunity w.r.t. "government officials", not "officers", which is a much bigger category of people. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity

QI typically comes up in the context of police officers, so people don't understand the QI was extended from legislators, etc to police officers despite no legislative basis for such.

Teachers and school administrators also have qualified immmunity. They just tend to get fired when they egregiously screw up!

I think this is part of it, police officers have the double-whammy of QI and the police unions protecting them from any consequence.

It's interesting that teacher unions dont seem to have the same degree of absolute power.

People are scared of crime, they usually aren't scared of students (unless the students are black, they put cops in those schools to arrest kids ofc)

Police unions are the only unions that conservatives have NOT spent 50 years screaming about and demonizing. It's only natural for them to be the only unions with any power or sway.

> Why do you believe that qualified immunity only applies to police officers?

Because it's useful to have the enforcers of state power to be above the law.

It's a bigger problem for police officers than the clerk at the DMV, because one of them walks around with a gun, a nightstick, and a pair of handcuffs, and extremely broad discretion for their use.

I guess in many cases it makes sense. If the IRS messes up your tax return, you should sue the IRS and not the clerk that created it. For many government officials it's important to be protected by their organization.

Police officers just stand out because their actions can have much bigger consequences and they often act as individuals. But I don't think it should mean QI cannot exist, just that there should definitely be a different standard when it comes to life and death (or freedom in case of arrests).

Okay, that's absurd even to cynical me. Pretend to be a cop and have qualified immunity?

Does this mean I get qualified immunity too? I'm not pretending to be a cop but I think I should get it. This court will probably agree with me. Maybe all Americans should have qualified immunity!

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