Milwaukee City Wire

Rep. Jonathan Brostoff (D-WI) continues to advocate for the elimination of police officers' qualified immunity in Wisconsin.

Brostoff detailed the dangers of qualified immunity in an op-ed piece for USA Today, claiming that the doctrine has been exploited as a "shield" to shelter government workers from the consequences of their actions.

“We must end qualified immunity for law enforcement in Wisconsin," Brostoff stated on Twitter. "It’s time to pass AB 186!”

Brostoff and State Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) proposed Assembly Bill 186 in February 2021, according to a press release from WisPolitics.

The legislation would repeal qualified immunity for police officers in Wisconsin.

"Time and again we’ve read stories of law enforcement destroying property, unnecessarily harming citizens, or even killing people and time and time again, we read that those officials end up protected from liability because of qualified immunity," Brostoff stated in the press release.

Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine adopted by the courts that protects government employees from personal liability for constitutional violations.

This means police officers are protected from liability for the use of "excessive force."

While qualified immunity may be used as a defense in certain situations, it cannot be utilized in criminal prosecutions against police officers, according to an Up North News report.

The U.S. Supreme Court established the legal doctrine in 1967 with the intention of safeguarding individual government employees from civil litigation if they behaved in "good faith" and did not intend to violate an individual's rights.

Citizen protests to eliminate qualified immunity for police officers gained momentum following the 2020 deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Jacob Blake in Kenosha.

“It’s not just that this doctrine exists,” Ed Fallone, a law professor at Marquette University and former Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate told Up North News. “It’s that the police officers and the lawyers for the police unions know how to use the doctrine to cut off any potential liability.”

Protesters argue that eliminating qualified immunity for police officers will hold them more accountable for abusing their position.