QI IS ANTI-REPUBLICAN:

[I]n an important sense, Rep. Jordan is wrong. Laws may not stop a particular crime, but they can change the broader incentives in the justice system. Right now, many police reforms fail because there is rarely a strong incentive to enforce them. This, in turn, is because of the Supreme Court doctrine of "qualified immunity," which in a majority of cases protects police who've abused their power from the consequences of their actions, leaves victims without restitution and removes the pressure on departments to police themselves. Following George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police, Congress considered ending qualified immunity, but failed to act. It should do so now.

Consider what would happen if this tragedy had not garnered national attention--as most cases do not. The federal Department of Justice doesn't have the resources to regularly prosecute state and county police whose transgressions, unlike those against Nichols, escape the spotlight of a State of the Union address. Would local prosecutors go after Memphis police, on whom they regularly rely for court testimony, to prosecute the men who killed Tyre Nichols? That's unlikely, too. Police prosecutions remain incredibly rare, because without enormous public pressure, the political will for our government to police itself just isn't there.

Yet police violence always leaves behind a victim or a victim's family, and they have every reason to take officers to court. But in determining whether Memphis must make amends to Nichols' mother for its officers' killing her son, a court could completely ignore whether the police transgressed department guidelines or fresh edicts from Congress. The court's primary inquiry would be whether the police have qualified immunity: a judicial doctrine that protects police (and other public officials) from legal liability if they haven't violated "clearly established law."

Tweet   @brothersjudd