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Not really. A Reuters study found that, in excessive force cases against police, appellate courts granted qualified immunity in 44% of cases in 2005-2007 and 57% of cases in 2017-2019. Another study found lower numbers. And Short Circuit's weekly case summary usually includes a fair number of denials, as well as grants.
The grants of immunity are nevertheless too frequent, IMHO. But it is hardly automatic.
In how many of the cases where they did not grant qualified immunity, was it because they dismissed the case on other grounds first?
I believe the second link includes relevant data on that IIRC.
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These are great resources and it's a big omission on my end that I neglected to find them on my own. Had I been asked to estimate how often QI is granted, I probably would've said 70-80%, which is clearly erroneous on my part. I'm guessing my mistake was probably borne out of the availability heuristic combined with never thinking to conduct a systemic research (something I regularly excoriate others for not doing). QI is still prevalent, and I do wonder how much it discourages marginal cases from ever being filed. Either way, I was wrong with my comparison so thanks for bringing this to my attention, I will edit my post above.
That's a good question, though there do seem to be plenty of plaintiff's attorneys who make a living filing these types of suits. But maybe less so in, eg, the Fifth Circuit, which one of the links indicates has a high level of QI grants.
It's true that there are plenty of attorneys who make a good living off of §1983 (see Benjamin Crump) but that's not really indicative of anything on its own. Lawyers are able to shift between practice areas fairly easily, and so each practice area has a self-correction mechanism in place in case any particular market gets too saturated. Ideally we'd compare the number of attorneys pursuing §1983 claims to some sort of baseline expectation, but I admit I don't have a good suggestion.
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