June 4, 2020–As tens of thousands of people take to the streets to demand justice and police accountability after the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, we are reminded once again of the repeated failures of our criminal legal system to protect its own people—particularly black Americans. The people are demanding justice from their government. Congress can answer by increasing police accountability through the bipartisan Ending Qualified Immunity Act introduced yesterday.
Qualified immunity has seriously weakened a civil rights protection that was specifically enacted to protect black Americans from governmental abuses of power. Of course, regardless of the history behind its enactment, that law protects us all, and the doctrine of qualified immunity takes away that right from victims irrespective of our race. But the reality is that because our police focus so much of their most aggressive tactics and policies in black neighborhoods, and that black people are more likely to come into police-initiated contact than others, qualified immunity serves as one of many systemic injustices that currently disproportionately burden black Americans. Our Founder and President Shana O’Toole has written a blog explaining further why Due Process Institute supported the introduction of the bill and the reason why this civil rights protection needs to be immediately restored.
With the understanding that this is only one of many needed structural changes necessary, we strongly endorse this Act to restore remedies under federal civil rights law to victims who have suffered constitutional violations by law enforcement and other government agents.
We commend Representatives Justin Amash and Ayanna Pressley for looking past their many differences to lead this important bipartisan bill forward in an effort to undo the court-created injustice of qualified immunity.