Qualified immunity is a doctrine in U.S. federal law that arises
in cases brought against state officials under 42 U.S.C Section
1983 and against federal officials under Bivens v. Six Unknown
Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). Qualified immunity, when
applicable, shields government officials from liability for the
violation of an individual's federal constitutional rights. This
grant of immunity is available to state or federal employees
performing discretionary functions where their actions, even if
later found to be unlawful, did not violate "clearly established
law." The defense of qualified immunity was created by the U.S.
Supreme Court, replacing a court's inquiry into a defendant's
subjective state of mind with an inquiry into the objective
reasonableness of the contested action. A government agent's
liability in a federal civil rights lawsuit now no longer turns
upon whether the defendant acted with "malice," but on whether a
hypothetical reasonable person in the defendant's position would
have known t