Shielded

Starred review from December 5, 2022
An intricate web of laws, policies, and customs protects U.S. police officers even when they abuse their power, according to this searing indictment. UCLA law professor Schwartz (coauthor, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) casts a harsh light on nearly every aspect of the justice system, from Supreme Court decisions to federal juries that “disproportionately exclude people of color, poor people, people with criminal records, and people who have had negative experiences with the police.” According to Schwartz, the strongest police protection is qualified immunity, which shields officers from being sued for monetary damages even if they’ve violated the Constitution. Debunking the claim that if officers faced threats of litigation and bankruptcy for split-second mistakes, no one would serve in law enforcement, Schwartz notes that in 44 of America’s largest police jurisdictions, taxpayers carried the financial burden for 99.98% of settlements and judgments awarded to victims of police misconduct. (The city of Chicago paid almost half a billion dollars in such lawsuits between 2010 and 2020.) The author’s solutions include requiring officers to pay a portion of settlements entered against them, and better educating the public about the failures of the criminal justice system. Rigorous research, in-depth analysis, and poignant case studies make this a must-read study of an urgent social issue.

January 1, 2023
A legal scholar examines how American police forces protect themselves from accountability in instances of abuse or misconduct. Because police officers must make instant life-and-death decisions in the name of protecting the public from harm, mistakes are inevitable. However, police are rarely prosecuted as harshly, or even fairly, as everyday citizens. As UCLA law professor Schwartz shows in this accessible study, when police officers make decisions that lead to avoidable harm, "there should be meaningful accountability for law enforcement officers and officials, and justice for their victims." Indeed, she adds, while those cases illustrate police overreach and undeniable abuse of power, it is qualified immunity--the ability to evade punishment through legal protections of any action committed in the line of duty--that "has come to represent all that is wrong with our system of police accountability." An irony, perhaps, is that the policies and shields enacted by local governments--and there are thousands of them across the country--effectively keep those governments from controlling the police they employ. Those who resist calls for an end to qualified community, Schwartz notes, often claim that opening the police to lawsuits over misconduct or abuse would bankrupt communities. Yet, she adds, "it is indemnification rules, not qualified immunity, that shield officers' bank accounts." In this astute, well-researched account, the author establishes that such lawsuits account for less than 1% of the budgets of local governments, even as maintaining police forces accounts for 30%-40% of those budgets. Moreover, she adds, there are already safeguards against the misuse of the courts in such lawsuits, including established law that holds that "officers do not violate the Constitution if they act reasonably from the perspective of an officer on the scene," which certainly would not have been the case in the matters of Trayvon Martin or Michael Floyd or George Floyd or Breonna Taylor or countless others. A well-reasoned case for reforms to create a better system of police accountability.

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January 1, 2023
Although public opinion differs about what constitutes ""egregious misconduct"" by police departments and/or individual officers, it is difficult to deny the near-impossibility of finding justice for victims of such misconduct. Shielded describes, in grimly matter-of-fact detail, the challenges that face those who seek financial restitution, policy changes, or consequences for police officers who commit unwarranted acts of violence. Laws, government policies, and court rulings have chipped away at the available remedies for Americans mistreated by the police, while judges and juries maintain heavy biases in favor of law enforcement. Even when the facts in a case are clear cut, plaintiffs and their lawyers face contradictory and Byzantine legal requirements at every turn. Law professor Schwartz draws a discouraging picture of a system that goes to great lengths to shield police officers from the consequences of even their most abusive actions. Yet this system, weighted as it is against regular citizens, is far from immutable, and Schwartz proposes a series of short- and long-term solutions to improve accountability in police departments, courts, and government at every level.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.