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Notes -
Nevertheless, a 30-40% rate is a far cry from "worthless." And this Reuters data looking at appellate court decisions on excessive force shows them letting cops off on QI in a minority of cases, though 1) it varies by circuit; and 2) it is nevertheless too high, probably.
That's more accurate, though I'd still nitpick that the Reuters data is looking solely at excessive force claims against law enforcement. Reasonable for Reuters since that's what most people care about, but going to necessarily involve a very constrained set of cases compared to the behavior here.
It's a relevant and useful link in the sense that there are cases where this "clearly established rights" are legitimately found, and I appreciate you providing it. At the same time, looking through a handful of these denials of QI show a lot of places where there were very long-established federal court cases precisely on-point with the police behavior in the case at hand, rather than many counterparts to cases like Baxter, which is probably closer to what cjet's thinking about.
Yes, QI is certainly granted too often, esp because of a lack of clarity re what it means for a right to be clearly established. Of course that is particularly problematic re police misconduct, since those cases my their nature are so fact-specific.
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