Here are statements concurring with the op-ed in the November issue of Community Word by Professor Joanna Schwartz, “Ending qualified immunity won’t ruin cops’ finances. It will better protect the public.” That piece was reprinted with permission from USA Today.

Don Jackson, attorney, Peoria:

I believe qualified immunity shields bad cops far too often from liability for their bad acts. By extending that protection to the offending employee, the employing unit (say a police department) also avoids liability. Unfortunately, the aggrieved employee or victim is left with no remedy. In addition, too often the courts give deference to the one claiming qualified immunity.

Jim Lewis, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, retired:

Qualified immunity takes a decent idea much too far. Yes we shouldn’t surprise people by deciding after the fact that they were somehow wrong but we surely should be able to expect people to know right from wrong and to do what’s obviously right instead of what’s obviously wrong.

Rev. Marvin Hightower, president, Peoria NAACP:

Several days ago, Chief Eric Echevarria, Sheriff Brian Asbell who was unable to attend but was represented by Supt. Rhonda Guyton, and I signed the 10 Shared Principles which were developed and adopted by the Illinois Association Chiefs of Police and the NAACP State Conference. The 10 Shared Principles were created to build trust between the police and the community.

Chief Echevarria and the Peoria Police Department took it a step further in that it is now part of the General Orders in the Department. In addition, every officer signed and received a copy of the principles.

The bottom line of the principles is that every life is valued in the community.

These principles have been signed by over 260 law enforcement agencies across the state of Illinois.

Although the signing of the principles was and is significant, it’s just the start of long overdue and much needed police reform.

One of the most important things that needs to be addressed regarding police reform is qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity is a court doctrine granting protection for law enforcement officers and other government officials from certain lawsuits seeking monetary damages for civil rights violations that occurred during the course of their regular duties.

Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO, said in an interview, “We have to address qualified immunity, there must be a publicly facing data base of a policeman’s conduct. We have to address the standard of review to hold police officers criminally liable when they cross the line.”

Police officers are part of the community not a separate entity and must be held accountable for their actions.

Responsibility and accountability will drive behavior, therefore, I believe like President Johnson that qualified immunity must be addressed.

ACLU-Illinois:

Police occupy a special role in our society and hold unrivaled power over individual lives. Qualified immunity insulates that power, ensuring that even when police act in ways that undermine our most sacred constitutional rights, they cannot be held to account by the public they serve. What is qualified immunity? In short, it is a judge-made doctrine that ensures police are virtually never held accountable in civil court for constitutional harms they inflict on a member of the public. Given that police are rarely fired for gross constitutional violations, and rarely held accountable in criminal court at all, the continued existence of qualified immunity ensures police usually can evade accountability completely.

Yet when the issue of ending qualified immunity for police comes up, law enforcement officers repeat the same tired and demonstrably false claims about what they want the public to think qualified immunity actually does. As Professor Joanna Schwartz noted in her recent op-ed, the “dire predictions” about ending qualified immunity are, to put it mildly, “unsupported by facts.” No, qualified immunity does not protect police from paying a penny out of their own pocket for unconstitutional actions (that is police indemnification, which is required by Illinois law and has nothing to do with qualified immunity); no, qualified immunity is not what allows police officers to make split-second decisions (police can thank the Fourth Amendment for that, and the Supreme Court decision in Graham v. Connor, which has nothing to do with qualified immunity); and no, qualified immunity has nothing to do with criminal liability at all. As Professor Schwartz correctly noted in her piece, “arguments used to preserve qualified immunity . . . have no basis in reality.”

There is a clear path to beginning to fix the bad apple problem: make police accountable when they violate a person’s constitutional rights. It really is that simple. The Illinois Assembly can create meaningful police accountability by passing House Bill 1727. But in order for HB 1727 to become law, our lawmakers need to hear from the public in large enough numbers and look beyond the baseless arguments for maintaining qualified immunity.

It is long past time to look through these baseless arguments and focus on reality itself: police largely are unaccountable to the public, even when they commit egregious constitutional violations that shock our collective conscience. Police leaders may acknowledge “a few bad apples,” but they fight tooth and nail to oppose even the mildest attempts to allow people to hold “bad apples” accountable. We can no longer accept the presence of bad apples in our police as a simple fact of life, particularly when police kill, on average, more than 1,000 people in America every year.

Some states have already taken action on qualified immunity – notably, both Colorado and New Mexico have taken measures to eliminate qualified immunity, and many other states hopefully shall follow. In Illinois, there is a legislative proposal similar to the one adopted into law in Colorado: HB 1727, the Bad Apples in Law Enforcement Accountability Act. HB 1727 would allow people who are injured by a police officer’s unconstitutional actions to bring a lawsuit for damages against that officer in civil court. The bill would provide a remedy, albeit a narrow one, to ensure victims of egregious police misconduct get justice and begin to create meaningful accountability among our police officers, which in turn will improve the toxic culture of policing and begin to engender greater community trust. HB 1727 does not disturb police indemnification in any way, does not limit police’s ability to make “split-second decisions,” does not create any criminal liability, and even allows courts to dismiss frivolous claims (and sanction individuals who would bring such claims).

Editor’s Note: HB 1727, Officer Accountability, the Bad Apples in Law Enforcement Accountability Act of 2021:
Creates the Bad Apples in Law Enforcement Accountability Act of 2021. Provides that a peace officer subjecting another person to the deprivation of individual rights is liable to the person for appropriate relief.