Judge Don Willett of the Fifth Circuit has long been one of the foremost judicial critics of qualified immunity and a leading voice urging the Supreme Court to reconsider this unjust and unlawful doctrine. In 2018, he wrote a separate opinion “concurring dubitante” in a decision granting immunity to register his concern with “the kudzu‐like creep of the modern immunity regime” and explaining how the doctrine “smacks of unqualified impunity, letting public officials duck consequences for bad behavior—no matter how palpably unreasonable—as long as they were the first to behave badly.”
Over the last few years, Judge Willett has written several additional opinions elaborating on various concerns with the doctrine, both in terms of its underlying justifications and practical application. And last week, in a case called Rogers v. Jarrett, he added to this judicial anthology, with a concurring opinion highlighting Professor Alex Reinert’s recent scholarship, which explains how the legal justifications for qualified immunity are even weaker than previously believed.
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