The impact of qualified immunity is greatly exaggerated. All it means is that an officer can't be sued for performing their duties. They can still be sued for acts outside their authority. And more importantly, qualified immunity has nothing to say about criminal prosecution.

The real problem isn't the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, but the informal doctrine of "police don't get prosecuted for crimes, and if they are, they don't get convicted."

You're half right but missing the point.

Police probably shouldn't be sued for performing their duties. But the issue is that with a few choice words (I feared for my safety/life) their "duties" cover a wide array of actions that a lot of citizens would argue it shouldn't.

Example: There are many cases of Cops stepping in front of a moving vehicle when confronting a suspect, which then is used as a reason to shoot and kill the suspect because "their life was in danger". But it's very easy to argue that the Cop put their own life in danger by stepping in front of the vehicle. IMO, that should not be covered by qualified immunity, and yet it usually is.

My point is that qualified immunity is not the problem. In your example, the cop should be prosecuted. Qualified immunity doesn't cover criminal prosecution, and a lack of prosecution has nothing to do with qualified immunity. Being able to sue that cop would be a nice bonus, but what you really need is for the cop to be criminally prosecuted for their crime.

Getting rid of qualified immunity wouldn't do jack squat to change that. The problem is an informal culture where police are not prosecuted (or if prosecuted, not convicted) for crimes.

Just like "Stand Your Ground" and "Castle Doctrine", people learned a new legal buzzword and think it applies to every story in the news.

In this very article the police department argued that taking a laptop and not entering it into evidence is protected by qualified immunity. People think that qualified immunity applies to every story in the news because the police argue that it does and the courts typically agree. I will be interested to see the outcome of this case - my expectation is that the court will rule that the police officer cannot be personally sued in this case, because of qualified immunity.

Normal people are prosecuted for theft when they steal things like that. Qualified immunity doesn't cover that. This officer probably won't be prosecuted, but it's nothing to do with qualified immunity.

Theft is a criminal offense as well. The officer can be prosecuted for that.

Qualified immunity also applies to the officer who individually. The department can be sued still.

My point is simply that you suggested that qualified immunity doesn't apply to this case, and I agree that it should not in principle but my understanding of the case law is that it typically does.

People talk about qualified immunity like it means a police officer is above the law. That's not true at all. When qualified immunity is working correctly, all it does is shift the liability from the individual to a higher authority (the department/city/state/etc).

In this case, it doesn't apply because theft isn't part of an officer's regular duties. You can't sue an officer for taking your laptop and putting it in evidence. You can sue an officer for taking your laptop home.

And it only shifts civil liability. The officer is still (according to the law if not actual practice) criminally culpable for illegal acts they perform.

> You can sue an officer for taking your laptop home.

Again, I agree with you that this should be true in principle, but I don't have faith that it will apply in this case, and this is contrary to the stated position of the police department.

> When qualified immunity is working correctly…

When is this exactly? 52 years on this planet and am yet to witness this event… :)

They don't write news stories about dogs biting men.