Originally Posted by
jd950
I have to admit that I read the inquiry as "how often invoked" and overlooked the "successfully" component, but nevertheless, I think that professor Schwartz' well-known and oft-cited journal article does not reflect some of the realities of the situation.
In a recent survey of federal court cases by Reuters, court decisions for both the district and appellate courts over a 14 year period were analyzed. In the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, the appellate court granted 64% of police requests for immunity in excessive force cases from 2005 to 2019.
In the 9th Circuit, appellate judges there granted 42% of police requests for immunity in excessive force cases over the same years. At the district court level, 435 federal district court rulings in excessive force cases from 2014 to 2018 in California and Texas were analyzed and judges in Texas granted immunity to police in 59% of cases, compared to 34% in California.
The thing is, although the legal theory is pretty straightforward on its face, the results vary across the many districts and circuits. Additionally, the doctrine pertains to a wide variety of cases, from suits against correction officers to city cops to federal officers. The anti-police folks like to portray the situation as one in which it is "nearly impossible" to successfully sue cops, due to immunity. But we need to realize that many of the suits brought are just shy of absolutely frivolous, and granting qualified immunity protects the courts and the cities, counties and states from being tied up for months in an expensive and time-consuming civil suit that is marginal at best.
Like with so much in the legal world, it is the facts that matter and bare statistics don't mean much. When Mary sues the cops because her son Jimmy was shot and killed by police as Jimmy was shooting at them, the city or county that those cops work for will likely raise qualified immunity in the hope of killing the case off quickly (no pun intended). They would probably an immunity defense when their cops shoot an unarmed person under circumstances that are questionable at best. Assuming immunity is granted in the first case and denied in the second, the statistics alone suggest a 50-50 chance of success on an immunity defense, but that would be misleading.
In the words of the Supreme Court "qualified immunity balances two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably."
So,I guess a better answer to the original question is that QI is raised fairly often and in appropriate cases, in some jurisdictions, is successful fairly often, while in cases involving unreasonable police behavior, the success rate drops considerably.