Is there an affirmative defense of qualified immunity?

Defendants also assert the affirmative defense of qualified immunity. Qualified immunity entitles government officials to "an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial." Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985) (emphasis in original). Qualified immunity shields government officials "from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly

Page 22

established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982) (citations omitted). Generally, qualified immunity doctrine must "'give [] ample room for mistaken judgments' by protecting 'all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.'" Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 229 (1991).