Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, today presided at the first in a series of hearings on reforming civil rights litigation by reviewing the doctrine of qualified immunity.
The doctrine shields defendants in constitutional tort cases from liability even when they have violated a person’s constitutional rights if a court finds that their conduct, though unconstitutional, did not violate “clearly established” law.
In his opening statement, Chairman Cohen noted that Congress in 1871 created a federal cause of action for a person to seek money damages from a state or local official who, acting under color of state law, violates that person’s constitutional or other federal rights. The Reconstruction-era Congress took action because, Chairman Cohen noted, “state and local government officials, including police officers, not only acquiesced in, but perpetrated racial violence and other forms of racial discrimination against Black Americans.”
Chairman Cohen also said in part:
“By providing a cause of action, Congress intended for victims to receive some measure of justice for the violation of their federal rights by state and local government officers. And, as the Constitutional Accountability Center noted in its written submission to the Subcommittee, Congress also intended for private litigation to be a means of deterring constitutional violations by imposing financial liability on the offenders.
“The qualified immunity defense, as applied over the last several decades, subverts Congress’s intent in passing Section 1983 by effectively making it impossible in all but a handful of cases for victims of constitutional or civil rights violations to obtain a remedy or even just to have their day in court.”
Original source can be found here.
