THE FACTS ABOUT QUALIFIED IMMUNITY

Chen examines the recent decisions addressing the procedures under which lower courts adjudicate qualified immunity claims and demonstrates how they fit into the Court's pattern of structuring qualified immunity doctrine in ways that ignore or deliberately bypass the complexity of factual disputes. He then argues that the Court treats the reasonableness inquiry in qualified immunity claims as a pure legal analysis because of its desires that judges rather than juries, resolve such claims. He contends that the Court assigns decision-making power to judges because it is extremely uncomfortable with the idea that qualified immunity is just that--qualified.