Qualified immunity shields government officials from damages liability—even if they have violated plaintiffs’ constitutional rights—so long as they have not violated “clearly established law.” The Supreme Court has explained that watershed cases describing legal requirements—like Graham v. Connor and Tennessee v. Garner—are alone insufficient to clearly establish the law. Instead, the plaintiff must find prior cases applying Graham and Garner to cases with facts virtually identical to their own case, explaining that such factually analogous cases are necessary to put officers on notice of the illegality of their conduct. But do officers actually know about the facts and holdings of these cases, and rely on them when taking action? Courts and commentators have been skeptical of this assumption, but it has never been tested.

This Article reports the findings of a study, the first of its kind, examining the role that circuit decisions applying Graham and Garner play in police officers’ policies, trainings, and briefings. Having viewed hundreds of police policies, training outlines, and other briefing materials provided to California law enforcement officers, I describe unequivocal proof that officers are not notified of the facts and holdings of cases that clearly establish the law for qualified immunity purposes. Instead, officers are taught the general principles of Graham and Garner and then are trained to apply those principles in the widely varying circumstances that come their way.

Moreover, even if law enforcement agencies made more of an effort to educate their officers about court decisions analyzing the constitutional limits of force, the expectations of notice and reliance baked into qualified immunity doctrine would be obviously unrealistic. There could never be sufficient time to train officers about all the court cases that might clearly establish the law. And even if officers were trained about the facts and holdings of some portion of these cases, there is no reason to believe that officers would analogize or distinguish situations rapidly unfolding before them to the court decisions they once studied.

There is a growing consensus among courts, scholars, and advocates across the ideological spectrum that qualified immunity doctrine is legally unsound, unnecessary to shield government officials from the costs and burdens of litigation, and destructive to police accountability efforts. This Article reveals another reason to reconsider the doctrine and, especially, its requirement that plaintiffs find clearly established law.

只要政府官员没有违反“明确确立的法律”，合格的豁免权就可以保护政府官员免于承担损害赔偿责任——即使他们侵犯了原告的宪法权利。最高法院解释说，描述法律要求的分水岭案例——如格雷厄姆诉康纳案和田纳西诉加纳案——不足以明确确立法律。相反，原告必须找到将 Graham 和 Garner 应用于事实与他们自己的案件几乎相同的案件的先前案件，并解释说这种事实相似的案件对于让官员意识到他们的行为的非法性是必要的。但是，官员们是否真的了解这些案件的事实和掌握情况，并在采取行动时依赖它们呢？法院和评论员一直对这一假设持怀疑态度，但从未经过检验。

本文报告了一项研究的结果，该研究是同类研究中的第一项，该研究考察了应用 Graham 和 Garner 的巡回决策在警察政策、培训和简报中所起的作用。在查看了提供给加州执法人员的数百份警察政策、培训大纲和其他简报材料后，我描述了明确的证据，证明警察没有被告知事实和案件的持有情况，这些事实和案件清楚地确立了合法豁免目的。相反，军官们被教导格雷厄姆和加纳的一般原则，然后接受培训，以将这些原则应用于他们遇到的广泛变化的情况。

此外，即使执法机构更加努力地教育其官员了解分析武力宪法限制的法院判决，但将通知和依赖纳入限定豁免原则的期望显然是不切实际的。永远没有足够的时间就所有可能明确确立法律的法庭案件对官员进行培训。即使警官接受过有关这些案件的某些部分的事实和控诉的培训，也没有理由相信警官会将他们面前迅速展开的情况与他们曾经研究过的法院判决进行类比或区分。

法院、学者和意识形态领域的倡导者越来越一致认为，合格豁免原则在法律上是不合理的，没有必要保护政府官员免受诉讼的成本和负担，并且对警察问责工作具有破坏性。本条揭示了重新考虑该学说的另一个原因，尤其是其要求原告找到明确确立的法律。