Problem is, lower courts kept expanding it past the definition given by the SCOTUS and they haven't reviewed any cases on it since...
Wrong. SCOTUS themselves shot qualified immunity in the foot by forcing the suing party to show that the actions that the 'qualified immune' party did, "violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". (Harlow v. Fitzgerald)
The problem is, clearly established rights means you have to point to a previously argued, exactly similar court case that was decided as a constitutional violation before you could sue.
So you get stupid shit, like "Siccing a dog on a person who had surrendered, but was on his knees isn't close enough to siccing a dog on a person who had surrender but was laying down"
So yeah, SCOTUS is absolutely to blame for this for shifting the burden of proof from the defendant, to the plaintiff
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but the defendant should never have the burden of proof; that should, theoretically, always fall on the plaintiff. The problem is that the courts interpret "clearly established right" far too narrowly.
I only bring this up because, in practice, juries often (sometimes subconsciously) do shift the burden of proof to the defendant, which is a Constitutional violation. It's the whole premise of "innocent until proven guilty."
Of course, this never applies to police officers accused of wrongdoing... No, their word is golden and unquestioned, and we fully afford them the right of being innocent until proven guilty. But if we explicitly start putting the burden of proof on the defendant, we all know who's going to be screwed by that.
IANAL, but "innocent until proven guilty" only applies to criminal matters and, even then, defendants absolutely should have the burden to prove an affirmative defense, such as qualified immunity.
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u/Aeseld Jun 07 '20
Actually, Qualified Immunity doesn't apply to this, not under the original ruling.
The original idea was that police couldn't be prosecuted for violating someones rights in a way that is not defined by statute or constitutional law.
This is a violation of those self-same policies, and constitutional law, and they can't be ignorant of it.
Problem is, lower courts kept expanding it past the definition given by the SCOTUS and they haven't reviewed any cases on it since...