Qualified Immunity Essay

725 Words3 Pages

Qualified immunity is a concept used in court that protects government workers from being civilly liable for damaged caused while doing their job as long as they did not violate anyone’s constitutional rights. This allows government workers to do their jobs without the fear of being charged just because someone feels like they had their rights violated. The government workers with qualified immunity can still face punishments outside of the courts though. Some do not agree with the idea of qualified immunity as they believe that holding the individuals help victims and allow the government workers to be held more accountable for what they do (Mukherj). On the other hand, there are people like me who agree with qualified immunity. I believe …show more content…

It makes it clear that a accidents and injuries caused during a high speed pursue due to the offender’s own fault does not break the fourteenth amendment. It also shows how qualified immunity can help law enforcement. Qualified immunity was able to help Smith get out of being sued due to the accident caused by the high speed pursue that he was involved in. It causes a positive impact on law enforcement as it allows law enforcement to be free of the fear of being sued for events that they never thought of or thought would ever happen. In this case, Smith was involved in a accident that he could not see coming at the time. If it was not for qualified immunity, Smith would have gotten into trouble for something he could not foresee. It causes a more negative impact on the general public. This is because the general public might feel like they are not getting justice if they cannot get the person who they believe violated they rights in any trouble for what they did. The general public might not like qualified immunity but it is needed to protect government workers from aimlessly being sued for any claim that they violated anyone’s rights. Qualified immunity will cause positive impacts on future cases. Future cases using qualified immunity will allow the courts to waste less time with cases where there are no clear violation of somebody’s constitutional rights and move on to other cases. Even if somebody gets qualified immunity, they can be punished in their jobs if they broke the rules and they can still get sued for other