@RJ "Deke" Dieken what do you think the everyday citizen can do to help end qualified immunity ?

@Wa'il Ashshowwaf, IMHO -- It's so messed up that i think just spreading knowledge will lead the kind of people who DO bother to talk to their representatives to do so. Explanations of the circular nature of requiring clearly established law to overcome QI and how QI keeps the judiciary from creating clearly established law seems really repugnant to the assumption the law is even remotely fair. It's pretty easy to see how QI actually incentivizes outrageous behavior...the more wacky the situation, the more likely it is that there is no clearly established case law. If someone was going to engage with an academic in some kind of a debate or something i'd be all over anything written by Prof Joanna Schwartz (Author Page for Joanna C. Schwartz :: SSRN). The major counterpoint that most people opposing ending QI use is about how costs of lawsuits might get out of hand. That was where my early "grey area" thought processes were. Joanna does a good job of talking about how deferential juries and judges are even when QI is waived/not raised. I'll be honest, i think the BLM protests are also helping. Sometimes when no one is listening, you just have to start making everyone uncomfortable until it's easier for them to deal with the problems they create than it is to deal with you and all your friends. It's sad we have to start burning things down to get to that level, but we've tried everything from kneeling to engaging our representatives, "they" aren't leaving us a lot of choices. For the lawyers, i think that might mean going all out defending protesters, and suing even if you might not win, maybe working with the National Lawyers guild legal observers to introduce into evidence their documented police abuses in response to protests about police abuse. The cops are doing a good job proving they can't be trusted, now we just need to get that info into court. It might be advantageous to get more white folks out to stand with our brothers and sisters of color, cops sometimes seem to run right past white protesters so they can arrest the ones with more melanin. Get a few big ol rednecks to lock arms with some minority folks, present a united front. (i say big ol rednecks, as a big ol redneck).

The Supreme Court [SCOTUS] at the end of last session rejected all QI petitions for the 2020 session (ongoing at this time). They made a sharp turn when the 2020 term opened and granted a few petitions. They wouldn't do this unless they felt some social pressure to mitigate the damage they have created with this policy they made up. They used the word "REASONABLE" in Taylor v Riojas (Qualified Immunity) (which is a new-ish development). They also just ruled in UZUEGBUNAM v. PRECZEWSKI That nominal damages are allowed for completed civil rights violations. Both Uzuegbunam and Taylor reduce some of the ridiculousness, but neither is anywhere near the relief we need to be seeing for things to even remotely approach the dictionary definition of reasonable vs. SCOTUS' definition of "Reasonable." I'm not a big fan of the rules that came out of NC v. Heien and UT v Strieff and how they interact with QI, but now i'm getting a little far afield.

@RJ "Deke" Dieken 👍