Abstract
State and local officials sued for civil rights violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 frequently seek to avoid monetary liability by asserting the defense of qualified immunity. The availability of the defense depends upon whether the plaintiff can establish that the defendant's conduct violated federal rights which were "clearly established" at the time that the defendant acted. This determination requires analysis of the legal precedents which existed at that time. In this Article, Professor Saphire examines the role that state decisional law plays in qualified immunity analysis. He identifies important theoretical and practical issues and consequences associated with the failure of many federal and state courts, to take state court precedents seriously. He then proposes a framework for qualified immunity decision making which accords the state court decisions the status required by prevailing conceptions of judicial federalism and which minimizes the potentially outcome determinative effect of choosing between state and federal courts in section 1983 litigation.
How to Cite
35 Ariz. L. Rev. 621 (1993)
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