Columbia police officer claims qualified immunity in appeal over high school student’s lawsuit
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Columbia police officer is appealing a court's decision not to dismiss her from a lawsuit over the basis of qualified immunity.
Attorney David Baker said the city of Columbia would appeal Judge Nanette Laughrey's decision to leave Officer Keisha Edwards in a lawsuit over a Rock Bridge High School student's claims she was unlawfully seized by police at school. Judge Laughrey denied Edwards' request to dismiss her based on qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that's received scrutiny as protests persist over police accountability.
ABC 17 News reported on the federal lawsuit in October. A Rock Bridge High School student claimed Edwards, the school resource officer, told her to report to the main office during her final exams in 2019, where she was then questioned by two detectives about an off-campus sexual assault. The student's attorney said she had no information about the incident, but that officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they closed the door behind her for questioning, making her feel like she was not free to leave.
The lawsuit also claims Columbia Public Schools violated a school policy of not having an administrator in the room during questioning.
Government employees, like law enforcement, are protected from lawsuits "unless their conduct violated a clearly established constitutional or statutory right of which a reasonable official would have known."
Laughrey said that the lawsuit laid out enough evidence to show that a violation of the Fourth Amendment may have happened and that Edwards should have reasonably known it applied to students at school.
"[The student] has alleged that she did not feel free to leave, and it is reasonable to infer that a minor student who was directed not to attend class so that she could be questioned by police officers, and who was then left alone with those two officers, would not have felt free to ignore Edward’s directions," Laughrey wrote.
Andy Hirth, the attorney representing the student, said qualified immunity is an important protection, but has recently made it more difficult to hold people accountable in court.
"The purpose behind it is a valid one, that we have grave concerns that people would not go into law enforcement, would not take state jobs if they were worried that they'd be subjected to a lawsuit and have to defend themselves if they made a mistake," Hirth said. "I think over the years the doctrine has shifted more and more to finding in favor of qualified immunity."
A police department spokesman declined to comment on the decision to appeal.
Laughrey did dismiss Edwards from the lawsuit in her official capacity, and also dismissed Hirth's request for injunctive relief, which would have created a court order for CPS and CPD to stop questioning students without an administrator present.
Federal lawmakers have recently introduced a bill that prohibits law enforcement from using qualified immunity as a defense in lawsuits. More than 1,000 professional athletes wrote a letter to Congress supporting it, saying the U.S. Supreme Court's use of qualified immunity has "caused irreparable harm to public trust."
