NAACP Legal Defense Fund: This is the first step to end police violence. But not the last. – USA TODAY

Courts routinely grant qualified immunity to officers who shoot first and think later. That's a serious barrier to police accountability and fairness.There are others.

Chris Kemmitt and Kevin Jason| Opinion contributors

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From chokehold bans to qualified immunity, here are some of the biggest changes happening in police departments across the country.

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For decades, qualified immunity has provided a safe harbor for police malfeasance. The court-developed doctrine says police officers and other government officials generally cannot be sued for damages, even when they unconstitutionally kill or injure people, unless a previous court decision has ruled that nearly identical conduct violated the Constitution.

In this way, qualified immunity denies the victims of police violence the opportunity to seek justice through civil damages in court and removes an important mechanism for police accountability. Unsurprisingly, it has led to a series of grotesque injustices, with officers escaping liability for setting a man on fire, allegedlystealing hundreds of thousands of dollarsand shooting a driver for slowly rolling his car forward with nobody in the vehicles path.Yet as bad as qualified immunity is, eliminating it is only the first step towardreining in discriminatory and violent police behavior.

The Supreme Court and lower federal courts have long allowed the police to get away with discriminatory conduct and unnecessary violence by ruling that the Constitution permits it. Eliminating qualified immunity will only hold police accountable for violent and discriminatory conduct that courts already view as unconstitutional.

Considerthe Supreme Courts approach to police violence, which is governed by the Fourth Amendmentprohibition on the use of excessive force.

The court has not imposed on officers a dutyto deescalate encounters when possible. It has not requiredofficers to use the minimum force needed to accomplish their work. It has, however, ruledpolice may constitutionally use deadly force even when death or serious injury could be readilyavoided.

Qualified Immunity: Police recruitment was already tough. Attacks on qualified immunity make matters worse.

Rather than provide officers with concrete guidance regarding the use of force, the court has adopted an ambiguous reasonableness standard that does little to constrain officerdiscretion.

To make matters worse, the Supreme Court has said that lower courts must take into account "the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.

The Supreme Courts description of split-second judgments mischaracterizes nearly all police encounters with the public.Forcing lower courts to review an officers actions through that false frame leads courts to effectively defer to the officer'sjudgment regarding the need for force.

The result is that courts routinely excuse officers who shoot first and think later. Andsuch actions have led to the deaths of Black community members armed with nothing more than a wallet,a cellphoneor a Snickers bar.

The Supreme Courts malign influence on police conduct is not limited to its permissive approach to police violence. It has also created doctrines that enable discriminatory police practices and over-policing of communities of color.

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One example is the courts approach to police stops of vehicles and pedestrians. Notoriously, in 1996, the Supreme Court decided an officers intentions, even when improperly based on race, play no role in examining the reasonableness of a seizure.

Effectively, the court ruled the Fourth Amendment allows an officer to pull over a Black driver for being Black so long as the officer can identify a potential legal infraction a broken taillight, a failure to signal when switching lanesor any other such minor traffic violation to justify the stop.

The courts view of the Fourth Amendment facilitates over-policing in another way, too:by ignoring the lived experiences of the Black community.

Under court precedent, a police encounter does not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny unless the interaction would be nonconsensual or coercive to a hypothetical reasonable person. But the standard for what is unreasonablehas long been divorced from reality.

In determining whether a reasonable person would feel free to leave or refuse consent to search, the overwhelmingly white members on the federal judiciary have routinely discounted how communities of color have a palpable and understandable fear of police. As a result, officers expecting little resistance are essentially permitted to intrude in the lives of Black individuals while white individuals experience stronger Fourth Amendment protection.

These are just a few examplesthatprove a larger point: Qualifiedimmunityis one of manyseriousbarriers to accountability andfairness in policingin a court system that otherwise allows police to act with nearimpunity, to the unique detriment of communities of color.

In evaluating how individualsinteract withlaw enforcementin Fourth Amendment cases, federalcourts shouldmore squarely center race and thecheckered history of policing.State and localcourts andlegislatures canlimit the circumstancesthat may trigger apoliceencounter, shiftthestandardof officer-imposedforce from what is "reasonable" to what is "necessary," and make it easier to demonstrate that discriminatory policing has occurred.

Advocates must continue the fight to end qualified immunity, but they must simultaneously pursue law reform that tackles these other doctrines thattransform obviously bad and discriminatory policinginto lawful policing.

Chris Kemmitt is deputy director of litigation for theNAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Kevin Jason is assistant counselfor theNAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

This column is part ofa seriesby the USA TODAY Opinion team examining the issue of qualified immunity. The project is made possible in part by a grant fromStand Together. Stand Together does not provide editorial input.

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NAACP Legal Defense Fund: This is the first step to end police violence. But not the last. - USA TODAY