Judge Carleton Reeves issues tremendous qualified immunity decision

Judge Carleton Reeves of the Southern District of Mississippi is one of the most eloquent and powerful critics of qualified immunity doctrine on the bench. His 2020 decision in Jameson v. McClendon was breathtaking. It's power and beauty has been matched by a decision Judge Reeves issued May 20 in Green v. Thomas. Judge Reeves denies defendants qualified immunity, concluding that they violated clearly established law. Yet he goes further, demonstrating why qualified immunity is unsupportable as a matter of history, text, and policy. He additionally argues that any concerns about overturning settled law--referred to as stare decisis--ring hollow after the Court's decision in Dobbs, overturning Roe v. Wade. I'm honored that Judge Reeves has relied upon my research about the lack of convincing policy justifications for qualified immunity in his decision.

You can read the entire decision here:

Green v. Thomas

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Shielded reviewed in the Harvard Law Review

Brandon Hasbrouck has published an exceedingly generous and thought-provoking review of Shielded in the Harvard Law Review. Brandon is an extraordinary writer and thinker - I am so appreciative that he directed those considerable talents to my book. Check it out!

The whole review can be found here: https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-137/unshielded-how-the-police-can-become-touchable/

Shielded reviewed by Linda Greenhouse in New York Review of Books!

Linda Greenhouse penned a fabulous review of Shielded and The Fear of Too Much Justice, a terrific book written by my mentor and friend Stephen Bright and James Kwak. Greenhouse writes:

"Schwartz maintains that while the concern that ‘public safety will be imperiled by too much oversight’ has always accompanied the desire to hold the police accountable, it is now nearly an unquestioned assumption that lawsuits against the police exact too high a price. . . . But this assumption, Schwartz contends, is a myth that has distorted the civil justice system by persuading judges of the need to insulate the police from accountability."

Check out the full review here: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/09/21/why-arent-cops-held-to-account-shielded-joanna-schwartz/