Public Affairs Quarterly Volume 32, Number 4, October 2018 305 RESTRICTING POLICE IMMUNITY Keagan Potts Police use force in high-stakes situations: as state agents, they are obligated to balance the suspect’s right to security against the community mem- bers’ right to safety. Currently , the doctrine of qualifed immunity (DQI) overprotects police offcers, which facilitates the use of illegitimate force. In section I, I survey the theoretical concerns motivating my inquiry into police authority. Section II develops these moral concerns by analyzing two deleterious effects of the DQI. Then, in section III, I show a proper conception of authority to be essential to balancing the two aforementioned rights and argue that the doctrine breeds excessive use of force because it fails to ensure police legitimacy. I fnish by suggesting how we should restrict police immunity. I. Introduction T he state must establish substantial justifcation to use its coercive powers. The same should be true of the state’s agents. The current controversy in the United States surrounding police brutality can be attributed to failures of the doctrine of qualifed immunity (DQI), which states that “a court must decide (1) whether the facts alleged or shown by the plaintiff make out a violation of a constitutional right, and (2) if so, whether that right was ‘clearly established’ at the time of the defendant’s alleged misconduct.” 1 The DQI excuses offcers, preventing them from being held individually liable for violating constitutional rights. In order to appropriately limit police immunity, while protecting their abil- ity to effectively maintain public order, we must look at the offcers’ justifcation for applying force. In arguing for the restriction of the DQI, I identify two competing rights: (1) the suspect’s right to security, and (2) the community members’ right to safety. In this paper, I focus on the Fourth Amendment’s contribution to this broader right to security in its establishment of the suspect’s right against unreasonable search and seizure. Currently, the DQI gives too much leeway to police when Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/paq/article-pdf/32/4/305/1091164/26910002.pdf by guest on 05 February 2022