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Qualified immunity ruling raises hurdles for plaintiffs.

Article Excerpt
Qualified immunity is often an issue in civil rights litigation. A government officer sued for money damages for violating the Constitution may claim either absolute or qualified immunity as a defense. The Supreme Court has recognized absolute immunity for relatively few officials: judges acting in a judicial capacity, (1) legislators acting in a legislative role, (2) prosecutors acting in a prosecutorial (as opposed to an investigative or administrative) capacity, (3) police officers testifying as witnesses, (4) and the president of the United States for conduct in office. (5)

All other government officers are entitled only to qualified immunity. According to the Court, an officer can be held liable if he or she violates clearly established law that a reasonable officer should have known. (6)

In 2001, in Saucier v. Katz, the Court prescribed a two-step inquiry for lower courts to use in qualified immunity cases: First, taking the facts most favorable to the plaintiff, do they show that the defendant violated a constitutional right? Second, is the right so clearly established that a reasonable officer would know that the conduct was unlawful in the situation that he or she confronted? (7)

The Court addressed the second part of this inquiry the next year in Hope v. Pelzer. (8) On two occasions, prison guards tied a prisoner to a hitching post; in one instance, they left him in the hot sun for more than seven hours with one or two water breaks but...

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