US Supreme Court declines to hear ‘qualified immunity’ case

‘Qualified immunity’, which shields police officers from some lawsuits, is under increasing scrutiny.

The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a case over whether to make it easier to hold municipalities liable for civil rights violations committed by their police, rejecting an appeal involving a man fatally shot by an officer in Ohio. The justices turned away the appeal filed by the mother of a 23-year-old man named Luke Stewart of a lower court ruling that threw out her claims made under federal law in a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Euclid and an officer involved in the 2017 incident. Matthew Rhodes, the officer who shot Stewart in the chest and neck at close range, avoided liability for those claims through a legal defence called qualified immunity, even though the lower court determined that a jury might find that he unlawfully used excessive force.