Qualified Immunity

Observation 1: Pro does not provide a plan for under what conditions victims can sue QI police men. The extent to which he limits QI determines the extent to which charities will compensate victims in my plan. Leaving it ambiguous makes it impossible to negate my argument. Observation 2: The burdens of the debate are equal. I have to provide argumentation that the US ought to have absolute QI, and Pro for limited QI. I can provide a plan to negate the resolution as long as under my plan absolute QI exists and is unique to my side. Observation 3: This debate is about which side best upholds justice. Pro’s argument that QI increases police abuse is a utilitarian one regarding social welfare rather than legal philosophy. This is has no impact. Catch22The problem that Pro presents with QI standards is that courts are allowed to dismiss suits based on the fact that constitutional rights in certain cases had not been clearly established. Pro’s plan overrides the “clearly established law” check by forcing courts to rather evaluate constitutionality of officers' conduct. This argument does not work because it violates the definition of QI. QI is a standard, a constant, defined in R1 clearly as,“[in cases] where officials violated a 'clearly established' statutory or constitutional right.” Changing the qualification standards for immunity changes what we are debating. The resolution says to debate whether to limit X and Pro just changed the resolution to whether to limit Y. They are two different things. Plans do not allow for changing the definitions in R1, this argument cannot be allowed. The problem thus exists in both sides of the debate (limited QI would not change this), and thus is irrelevent. This argument also has no impact because his only solution to it is in his plan, which is not unique to the resolution. I can adopt his plan as well and still affirm absolute QI. Morality v JusticePro is right in arguing that the resolution concerns what is morally desirable for the US to do, but is wrong in arguing that this negates my framework of justice. Morality is commonly understood as something that autonomous beings use to decide what is just. I successfully evaluated what a government can justly do in a concern such as qualified immunity in my last round. I will reiterate it here: qualified immunity is an entirely judicial concern. All judiciaries in the world act based on the one paramount value: justice. A just government thus would evaluate this topic based on a value of justice. Pro’s role morality theory—the argument that governments ought to act in the best interest of citizens—does not hold up under scrutiny. We can accept that a utilitarian entity such as a legislature should structure policy in accordance to social well-being, but this is not the same for a judicial branch of government. The judiciary does not and should not consider policy from a perspective of acting in the interest of citizens, but rather from a value of justice.An example would be that it could be in the interest of citizens that X criminal be beaten and hung for his heinous crime. A judiciary should not approach this problem from would benefit the citizens; but rather from the justice of it. Beating and hanging someone is a cruel and unusual punishment, and thus the judiciary should rule against the interest of citizens. Any just government would evaluate qualified immunity—a judicial matter—under the value of justice. Thus my value wins out.QI Definition IssuesI do not want to contend definitions either, but in this case it is necessary. The resolution does not state “limit the qualifications for immunity for police officers.” Pro specifically advocates for this when he says, “[T]here may be police in Hayd's world which would've qualified for QI which do not qualify for QI in mine.”It says limit “qualified immunity.” Saying *limit* X constitutes X as a constant. Qualified immunity is a constant because it is clearly established in Supreme Court cases what constitutes qualified immunity for police officers. Thus, the resolution cannot mean to limit the qualification standards for which police officers qualify for immunity. Even if you accept that is what it means, it is irrational when applied to the debate. What does it mean to “limit” the qualifications? If we use the R1 definition of limit—reducing in content or extent—then we are reducing in content and extent the qualifications for immunity. This means that in Pro’s world there is a relaxation on the qualifications, allowing more police officers to qualify. This results in a contradiction for Pro because he argues specifically that, “[T]here may be police in Hayd's world which would've qualified for QI which do not qualify for QI in mine.” Contradictions cannot exist; Pro’s premise must be wrong. Immunizing the GovernmentPro argues that if it is proven to be unfair to sue police departments for damages, for the reason it punishes the taxpayers, then it would be unfair to sue any government agency for wrongdoing because they all get money from taxpayers. This line of argumentation ignores the fact that qualified immunity only regards civil suits, not criminal ones. Citizens still maintain full civil rights as they are allowed to bring criminal charges against any wrongdoing. They just cannot sue in order to get compensation from the government. Compensation to the victim has nothing to do with punishing or deterring criminal wrongdoing in the government (especially since it *only* punishes taxpayers.) Thus any citizen can still justly sue any department for wrongdoing.Inflated ImpactsPro argues that the police officers would not indemnify the police department and thus the taxpayers would not end up spending that much money. It does not matter the extent to which the taxpayers are paying money. The fact that they are paying any money at all violates justice. Simply, I do not need the taxpayers to pay any large sum of money in order to win this argument; the fact that they pay money at all affirms my value. ImpunityPro argues that police officer misconduct will continue unabated if charities face the monetary burden rather than the police department. This is wrong because the police departments do not face monetary burden because any loss is replenished by the taxpayers. The taxpayers are the ones who are punished, not the police departments. By introducing charities I am transferring the punishment from taxpayers to charities that *voluntarily* undertake it. Taxation vs. CharityPro argues that one can only raise enough money to cover compensations through taxation, not through private charities. I cover why charities will be able to raise enough funds for the small amount of cases that they will have to cover under the next topic. Pro also argues here that there is a chance that some victims will not receive compensation because a court cannot compel a third party to pay out. This is not true because if the public discovered that a charity did not give compensation to a victim then the public would not donate to that charity. You can tell from charity advertising that effectiveness is one of the most important deciding factors for a donator on which charity to donate. Skipping over a victim would be fatal to a charity and thus wouldn’t happen. Feasibility and FramingPro argues that it is not reasonable to believe that enough people would donate to compensation charities to cover all the victims that are in need of compensation. He argues that, “Police officers who are convicted of abuse and face civil damages are hardly going to generate [sympathy.]” Pro further asserts that charities would have to cover $1.4 billion (based off of my source.)Responding to the first argument, the public is extremely compassionate and sympathetic to victims of police violence. For example, 7 in 10 millennials are “very concerned about the safety of police officers doing their jobs in the current political environment.” [quoted in 1]The public at large is also concerned with police brutality after the publicity of police violence against unarmed black men. For example, tens of thousands of people marched in New York to protest the killing of Michael Brown [2]. The immense national attention towards the victims of police brutality will result in mass amounts of donations to charities compensating families. The $1.4 billion figure is of the officers that did not qualify for immunity and thus allowed civilians to sue for damages. In the world that I argue for, officers that do not qualify for immunity can still be sued for damages. The $1.4 billion would exist in both of our worlds, and in both of the worlds it would be payed by the government. Private charities only have to cover an extremely small percentage of $1.4 billion. This percentage is out of the victims that Pro still allows to sue for damages against qualifying policemen, and then of those, the ones that win their cases. If the need for private charities to fill a gap in the criminal justice system arose is enough to raise the money necessary. Because police brutality is a *national issue* it will raise substantial amounts of money. For an example of a national issue see the ALS ice bucket challenge. The ALS ice bucket challenge was a national phenomena and it raised $115 million in one year [5]. Private charitable donations could possibly be enough to cover all compensation to victims of police brutality when police officers don’t qualify; it most likely could cover half. But all I need to prove is that it can cover the cases in which Pro allows suits for damage against qualifying police officers. This only a handful of cases, and thus is only a fraction of the total amount of compensation money. It is an inarguable truism that private charitable donations could cover the compensation for these people.Sources in comments