Will Police Pay? Qualified Immunity, Rich Lawyers

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Someone will pay lots of money; it won’t be the cops

It seems like an outrage that victims can’t sue police officers for damages. Activists cry for justice and victims scream in frustration. Politicians line up one either side. It doesn’t matter; widespread accountability through civil suits is fantasy.

Breathless headlines screech that police officers “…act like laws don’t apply to them…They’re right.” News reports on qualified immunity dwell on lack of recourse but skip over important points:

1. Qualified immunity applies only to civil lawsuits. Criminal statutes clearly apply. Derek Chauvin faces second-degree murder charges. Garrett Rolfe faces felony murder charges in Atlanta with the potential for the death penalty. Concerns plague both cases, and many officers avoid charges, but the mechanisms exist.
2. Even with qualified immunity, victims recover damages from police agencies, just not from the individual officer. Rodney King famously settled a civil suit with the city of Los Angeles for $3.8 million. In 2018, Chicago alone paid out $85M in settlements and paid lawyers an additional $28M for police misconduct cases. In its best recent year, 2015, the city still paid out $31M and $13M in settlements and lawyers.