Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

An Editorial Opinion of The Demopolis Times

The bill dubbed the “Back the Blue” bill is making its way through the state legislature. 

Last week, the Alabama House of Representatives passed HB 202, which will make it more difficult to sue or bring charges against law enforcement officers who are active on duty. The bill in essence says that law enforcement officers and other support personnel such as firefighter paramedics and emergency medical technicians are immune from civil and criminal liability as long as they did not act recklessly without law enforcement justification or that they violated a “clearly established” state constitutional or statutory right.

“In determining whether governmental conduct was performed within a law enforcement officer’s discretionary authority, a court must temporarily put aside that the conduct may have been committed for an improper or unconstitutional purpose, in an improper or unconstitutional manner, to an improper or unconstitutional extent, or under improper or constitutionally inappropriate circumstances. The court must determine whether, if done for a proper purpose, the conduct was within, or reasonably related to, the outer perimeter of a law enforcement officer’s governmental discretion in performing his or her official duties.”

That means law enforcement officers would have a wide latitude of discretion in the use of force without the fear of prosecution or being sued. 

The definition of “recklessly without law enforcement justification” is also extremely vague. Here is the bill’s definition of this: “A law enforcement officer acts without law enforcement justification when the law enforcement officer harms the plaintiff by failing, in an objectively unreasonable manner, to comply with written policies of the law enforcement officer’s employer or appointing authority or when the law enforcement officer harms the plaintiff through conduct premised on the law enforcement officer’s objectively unreasonable interpretation of such a policy.”

The question would be what happens in a situation where there is no such policy written? Also, does this encourage an agency from having specific policies so that they could not be sued? And what is the definition of reasonable in this instance?

The way the law is in Alabama right now, the threshold for civil liability, much less criminal liability, is already extremely high. This would almost give law enforcement blanket immunity, which would not allow the public any legal recourse to challenge whether an officer’s actions were justified or excessive. 

We feel that this law is unnecessary at this time, and we hope that the Senate will consider making significant changes or letting it die during this session.