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Qualified Immunity Accountability Act
To amend title 18, United States Code, to revise the applicable standards regarding death resulting from a deprivation of rights under color of law.
Summary
This bill makes two changes to federal law regarding law enforcement conduct. First, it amends the federal criminal statute for deaths resulting from deprivation of rights under color of law by lowering the mental state requirement from "willfully" to "knowingly or recklessly", removing the death penalty as a possible sentence, and expanding what counts as "causing death" to include situations where conduct was a substantial contributing factor. Second, it eliminates qualified immunity as a legal defense in civil rights lawsuits against local and federal law enforcement officers. Under this change, officers cannot claim good faith, reasonable belief that their conduct was lawful, or that constitutional rights were not clearly established at the time as defenses in such lawsuits.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
Actions (3)
- Feb 4, 2026 Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR H1989)
- Jan 30, 2026 Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. · house
- Jan 30, 2026 Introduced in House
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Full text
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 30, 2026
Ms. Johnson of Texas introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To amend title 18, United States Code, to revise the applicable standards regarding death resulting from a deprivation of rights under color of law.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Qualified Immunity Accountability Act”.
SEC. 2. DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW.
Section 242 of title 18, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by striking “willfully” and inserting “knowingly or recklessly”;
(2) by striking “, or may be sentenced to death”; and
(3) by adding at the end the following: “For purposes of this section, an act shall be considered to have resulted in death if the act was a substantial factor contributing to the death of the person.”.
SEC. 3. QUALIFIED IMMUNITY REFORM.
Section 1979 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1983) is amended by adding at the end the following: “It shall not be a defense or immunity in any action brought under this section against a local law enforcement officer (as such term is defined in section 2 of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2025), or in any action under any source of law against a Federal investigative or law enforcement officer (as such term is defined in section 2680(h) of title 28, United States Code), that—
“(1) the defendant was acting in good faith, or that the defendant believed, reasonably or otherwise, that his or her conduct was lawful at the time when the conduct was committed; or
“(2) the rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws were not clearly established at the time of their deprivation by the defendant, or that at such time, the state of the law was otherwise such that the defendant could not reasonably have been expected to know whether his or her conduct was lawful.”. <all>
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