Florida SB 234 - removal of officer requirement to act in good faith when deciding to use force

This one is a doozy, and appears poised to pass.

It will lower the bar for law enforcement with respect to acting in good faith when using force and remove the ability for citizens to resist unlawful use of force, all in the name of “officer safety”, or rather protecting bad cops from retribution.

SB234 will remove citizens rights to defend themselves from unlawful use of force, removes the requirement that officers act in good faith when deciding whether or not to use force, and makes standing your ground against an officer knowingly using unlawful force a crime punishable by life in prison so long as the officer is known or could reasonably be known to be a law enforcement officer.

The justification seems to be “you need to comply and let the courts sort it out” even if the officer is unlawfully beating your brains out in bad faith. Dangerous given the state of qualified immunity these days.

Senate Bill 234 (2025) - The Florida Senate

 

We aren’t talking about just complying with orders. We are talking about when an officer makes a decision to use force. This law would remove the requirement that officers act in good faith and within the law to do so and remove the ability for a citizen who is being subjected to unlawful force to just take it without fighting back, even at the cost of grievous injury or death.

note that this does nothing about the lawful use of force (e.g. subject who is non-compliant requires force to control). That has always been protected. This speaks specifically to unlawful use of force, and thus will only protect bad cops.

should this pass, a citizen would have to sue the officer in civil court for a remedy, which would require they overcome qualified immunity. Current two step test for QI requires that the cop must be acting unlawfully and should have known (generally through established case law/precedent) they were acting unlawfully. If both steps aren’t met, QI is upheld and no knew precedent is set. With this we are lowering the bar on what it means for an officer to act lawfully when violating the rights of an individual, thus also raising the burden to successfully pierce the QI shield.

this is bad law, plain and simple.