2 Investigates: Why suing a police officer is harder in GA

ATLANTA — It took the loss of one local mother’s son for her to truly understand the meaning of the word immunity.

Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Erica Byfield investigated immunity for law enforcement officers being sued for alleged civil rights violations, and why some say courts in Georgia frequently side with law enforcement.

“I didn’t know police officers weren’t held accountable for their actions,” explained Monesia Johnson.

Johnson lost her son, 18-year-old Corey Ward, back in 2002 after he was shot by Atlanta Police Officer Raymond Bunn. Bunn, who was responding to a car break in, said Ward tried to run him over in his SUV, and he feared for his life.

When Ward’s family tried to sue the officer, his attorneys said the case should be barred from court because of qualified immunity, often called “good faith” immunity. Qualified immunity protects public employees, like police, from civil suit. Nearly 12 years after her son’s death Johnson and her legal team proved Bunn did not qualify for this type of police immunity.

“The physical evidence showed that the officer was standing to the left of Corey’s vehicle, out of the clear path of the vehicle when he shot Corey,” said Johnson’s attorney Shean Williams.

Williams said the civil suit against Bunn is the exception rather than the rule. Getting over the qualified immunity bar takes physical evidence, resources and a long time.

“I didn’t know that it would take so long to get justice when to me it seemed like an open and shut case,” Johnson said.

A public employee can use qualified Immunity to keep a lawsuit against them from ever going to trial. If the citizen bringing suit can’t prove the employee knowingly violated a person’s civil rights the case is tossed out of court.

“Immunity is actually in the best interest of the people in the county,” Dale Mann explained to Byfield. “It preserves independent decision making by police.”

Mann teaches a course on immunity at the Georgia law enforcement command college. He said immunity laws are designed to protect an officer who is trying to do the right thing in a tough situation, even if the outcome is tragic.

“The officer is thrown, in the words of the supreme court, into situations that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving,” Mann said. “If you do what the policy, procedure, and rules says— we're there with you.”

Not everyone sees it that way.

Civil rights attorney Brian Spears has more than three decades of experience with cases involving qualified immunity. He said the federal appeals court for Georgia has a very narrow interpretation of these laws.

“Their civil rights can be violated, a judge can agree with them and no one be held accountable,” Spears said. “It’s devastating for their loss when they realize there is no avenue open to them to get justice.”

Spears said one fix would be to hold governments responsible for their employees’ actions, much like private businesses are liable for their employees. Sovereign immunity, a different type of immunity, protects government agencies from civil suits.

He also said qualified immunity laws keep police departments from improving their own standards.

“Because the courts continue to allow officers to not be held accountable for constitutional violations, I believe that the net effect, despite all the good training, officers learn the lesson that they can not only get away with violating the constitution, but their department's own rules,” Spears said.

Mann said he believes immunity has a place, and officers who knowingly break the law will lose that protection and their jobs.

“Just because you're a peace officer doesn’t mean you get a free pass on committing crimes,” Mann said.

Raymond Bunn quit the Atlanta Police Department in 2004, but it would take another decade for the civil case against him to settle. Although a Fulton County Grand Jury indicted Bunn for felony murder the Georgia Supreme Court threw out the case, saying Bunn acted in self-defense.

Johnson received a $200,000 settlement from the city of Atlanta in the fall of 2014, but said it was never about the money.

“You never think about giving up because if you give up you're giving up on Corey,” Johnson said. “Even though it took this long it was worth it, we finally got justice.”

WSBTV