Qualified Immunity

After months of negotiation, Republicans and Democrats in the US Senate say their efforts to agree on a police reform bill have failed. The negotiations got stuck on the issue of qualified immunity, which protects officers from being sued for things they do on the job. Senate Democrats hoped to limit qualified immunity nationwide. Back in the summer of 2020, as racial justice protesters began criticizing qualified immunity for police, we asked University of Kansas law professor Lou Mulligan to explain it to us. (Originally aired 22 June 2020)