Qualified Immunity is a type of legal immunity that “protects a government official from lawsuits alleging that the official violated a plaintiff’s rights, only allowing suits where officials violated a clearly established statutory or constitutional right.” With the recent case of Derek Chauvin, the topic of qualified immunity has become quite a hot topic. Whether or not officers of the law, and those who work for any sort of government position, deserve immunity to some things is a difficult question. A survey conducted in 2021 by the Pew Research Center found 84% of Democrats strongly believe that civilians need to hold the power to sue police officers and other federal employees in case of abuse of power, while 53% of Republicans believe that Police Officers require some sort of safeguard in order to protect them against lawsuits accusing them of excessive force/conduct. In totality, including both Democrats and Republicans, a majority of people (66%) believe it paramount that Police Officers and other law enforcement officials are not immune from suit. In short, qualified immunity is favored slightly by Republicans (53%), and Democrats strongly oppose it (84%).
Qualified immunity refers to the doctrine that protects government officials from individual liability. Recently, qualified immunity has centered around cases of police brutality.