Zorn v. Linton · ¶42

In the past, I have noted the “troubling asymmetry” in this Court's “unfinching willingness `to summarily reverse courts for wrongly denying officers the protection of qualified immunity' but `rarely interven[ing] where courts wrongly afford officers the benefit of qualified immunity.' ” Kisela, 584 U. S., at 121 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting). This case unfortunately represents a resurgence and perpetuation of this “one-sided approach to qualified immunity” that “transforms the doctrine into an absolute shield for law enforcement officers, gutting the deterrent effect of the Fourth Amendment.” Ibid. The majority today gives officers license to infict gratuitous pain on a nonviolent protestor even where there is no threat to officer safety or any other reason to do so. That is plainly inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment's fundamental guarantee that officers may only use “the amount of…

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