This year’s guest lecturer was Sarah Ricks, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, delivering a lecture titled, “Suppressing Constitutional Law: Qualified Immunity and Non-precedential Opinions.”
Federal appellate courts label most opinions as “non-precedent.” The label is supposed to have no doctrinal impact. But in the context of qualified immunity, the non-precedential label dramatically impacts doctrine. This Article first examines the tension between qualified immunity doctrine and core common law values of predictability, consistency, and perceived integrity of the judicial process.
