29 Organizations Urge Congress to Reject Proposal That Would Codify Qualified Immunity and Limit Employer Liability

Washington, D.C.—Twenty-nine organizations sent a letter to Senators Cory Booker, Tim Scott, and Lindsey Graham, and Representatives Karen Bass and Jim Clyburn, condemning reported policing reform legislation that would codify qualified immunity for law enforcement. The groups also condemned one Senator’s proposal that only law enforcement agencies be held liable—not officers—for the acts of their officers, and only in cases involving death and the most serious bodily injury. As stated in the letter, both proposals would threaten to “permanently close the courthouse doors for victims of many of the most common forms of police abuse rather than provide a meaningful remedy.”

The coalition letter’s organizational signatories include: American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Center for Disability Rights, Church World Service

Coalition of Labor Union Women, AFL-CIO, Constitutional Accountability Center, The Daniel Initiative, D.C. Democratic Caucus for Returning Citizens, Drug Policy Alliance, Hispanic Federation, Human Rights Campaign, Innocence Project, Japanese American Citizens League, the Justice Roundtable, Justice Strategies, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, National Association of Social Workers, National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), Open Society Policy Center, Project On Government Oversight, Sikh Coalition, The Taifa Group, V-Day, and Protect Democracy. 

You can view the letter here.

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Protect Democracy is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing American democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.