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47 Seton Hall L. Rev. 543 (2016-2017)
No Man Is Above the Law and No Man Is Below It: How Qualified Immunity Reform Could Create Accountability and Curb Widespread Police Misconduct

handle is hein.journals/shlr47 and id is 555 raw text is: No MAN Is ABOVE THE LAW AND No MAN Is BELOW IT: How QUALIFIED IMMUNITY REFORM COULD CREATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND CURB WIDESPREAD POLICE MISCONDUCT Lindsey de Stefan* I. INTRODUCTION In recent months, it has been difficult to ignore the overwhelming presence of police violence in the media.' Hardly a month has gone by without headlines asserting use of excessive force, brutality, or other misconduct in some corner of the United States.! It seems that no region of the nation has been unaffected by the violence, with civilian deaths at the hands of law enforcement cropping up from San Francisco3 to New York City' to South Carolina,' and almost everywhere in between. And with public confidence in law enforcement at a *J.D. Candidate, 2017, Seton Hall University School of Law; B.A., Ramapo College of NewJersey. Special thanks to Professor Alice Ristroph and Katheryn Pereyra-Caldwell for their support and guidance throughout the writing process. Commentary and criticism about American police has spanned various forms of media and traversed many genres. See, e.g., The Daily Show withJon Stewart (Comedy Central television broadcast Dec. 3, 2014) (discussing the grand jury's decision not to indict the officer who killed Eric Gardner, explaining: I think what is so utterly depressing is that none of the ambiguities that existed in the Ferguson case exist in the Staten Island Case, and yet the outcome is exactly the same: No crime, no trial. All harm, no foul.). 2 See, e.g., Unarmed Black Mo. Teen Shot After Altercation, Police Say, CBS NEWS (Aug. 10, 2014, 1:30 PM), http://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-brown-shooting- unarmed-black-missouri-teen-shot-after-altercation-police-say/; Josh Sanburn, Behind the Video of Eric Garner's Deadly Confrontation with New York Police, TIME (July 23, 2014), http://time.com/3016326/eric-garner-video-police-chokehold-death/. See Timothy Williams, San Francisco Police Officers to Be Dismissed over Racist Texts, N.Y. TIMES (Apr. 3, 2015), http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/us/san-francisco- police-officers-to-be-dismissed-over-racist-texts.html?_r=0. See Christopher Mathias, Video Shows NYPD Officers Beating Brooklyn Man After He Appears to Surrender, HUFFINGTON POST (July 23, 2015, 1:11 PM), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nypd-beating-thomas- jennings_55bOff8fe4bO7af29d57alcO. See Michael S. Schmidt & Matt Apuzzo, South Carolina Officer Is Charged with Murder of Walter Scott, N.Y. TIMES (Apr. 7, 2015), http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/ 08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html? r=0. 543

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