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Which circuit is the worst on qualified immunity?

You may have thought it was the 11th... but it?s the 5th actually.  We aren?t far behind, according to this interesting Reuters report.  And the best is the 9th Circuit. But the disparities is a good reason to abolish the doctrine altogether.  Here?s a small portion from Reuters:

For years, the words ?qualified immunity? were seldom heard outside of legal and academic circles, where critics have long contended that the doctrine is unjust. But outrage over the killing of George Floyd and incidents like it have made this 50-year-old legal doctrine ? created by the U.S. Supreme Court itself ? a target of broad public demands for comprehensive reform to rein in police behavior.
The criticism that qualified immunity denies justice to victims of police brutality is well-founded. As Reuters reported just two weeks before Floyd?s death, the immunity defense has been making it easier for cops to kill or injure civilians with impunity. Based on federal appellate court records, the report showed, courts have been granting cops immunity at increasing rates in recent years ? even when judges found the behavior so egregious that it violated a plaintiff?s civil rights ? thanks largely to continual Supreme Court guidance that has favored police.
The regional differences Reuters has found in how qualified immunity is granted only add to arguments that the doctrine is unfair. ?It?s essential to our system of government that access to justice should be the same in Dallas and Houston as in Phoenix and Las Vegas,? said Paul Hughes, a prominent civil rights attorney who frequently argues before the U.S. Supreme Court. ?It shouldn?t turn on the happenstance of geography as to whether or not they (plaintiffs) have a remedy.?
The ?happenstance of geography? shows up in a comparison of Collie?s case to the one Benny Herrera?s family filed after a cop killed him in 2011. Police in Tustin, California, were looking for the 31-year-old father of four after a former girlfriend reported that he had assaulted her. They found him walking along a lightly trafficked road, behaving erratically. As in Collie?s case, a cop opened fire when he thought Herrera was about to shoot him. Like Collie, Herrera did not have a gun.

Full post as published by Southern District of Florida on August 25, 2020 (boomark / email).