Schwartz on Qualified Immunity & Decisions Not to Sue Police

Joanna C. Schwartz (University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) – School of Law) has posted Qualified Immunity Selection Effects on SSRN.  Here is the abstract: Available evidence suggests that only 1% of people who believe they have been wronged by the police ultimately sue. This Article asks what role qualified immunity plays in decisions to forgo litigation by the remaining 99%. The answer to this question is critically important not only for a more complete understanding of the role qualified immunity plays in constitutional litigation, but also for a better understanding of the extent to which the doctrine achieves its goal of shielding government officials from the burdens of discovery and trial in insubstantial cases. Based on the most extensive empirical study to date of the role qualified immunity plays in attorneys’ decisions to file civil rights suits—combining the results of an original docket dataset of almost 1200 federal civil rights…

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