All to say, the Supreme Court’s original justification for qualified
immunity—that Congress wouldn’t have abrogated common-law
immunities absent explicit language—is faulty because the 1871 Civil Rights Act expressly included such language. Those sixteen lost words, by presumably encompassing state common-law principles, undermine the doctrine’s long professed foundation and underscore that what the 1871 Congress meant for state actors who violate Americans’ federal rights is not immunity, but liability—indeed, liability notwithstanding any state law to the contrary. [More]
So the whole scam is exactly that, and it’s within the power of the Supreme Court to end it…?
[Via Michael G]
