Wrongfully Convicted Man who was Imprisoned for 23 Years Sues Prosecutor

 A recently exonerated man who spent 23 years in prison has filed a complaint against a longtime Mississippi district attorney alleging various violations of the U.S. and Mississippi state constitutions.  The plaintiff was tried six times for the 1996 murders of four people.  The defendant prosecuted all six trials, none of which resulted in a legally valid conviction.  Four of those murder trials resulted in convictions and death sentences but all convictions were vacated due to prosecutorial misconduct.  One of the opinions reversing one of those convictions was written by now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh who wrote that “The state’s relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the state wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury.” 

The background story is very compelling but the case will be an uphill battle.  I expect that the prosecutor will argue qualified immunity and will cite Supreme Court precedent which makes it very difficult if not almost impossible for exonerated plaintiffs to win claims against former prosecutors.  For this reason, cases like this often settle out of court, which provides some level of compensation.

For more information on the case go to Law&Crime, NPR, and Courthouse News Service.

Iowa Senate approves bill to recognize qualified immunity

 At a time when some courts and states are eliminating qualified immunity (see here, here, here and here, for example), Iowa has decided this is a good time to do the opposite.  

TechDirt has the story here.

New Mexico abolishes qualified immunity in state claims

Last week, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico signed a law which eliminates the defense of qualified immunity for public officials in state claims.  New Mexico is now the third state to have eliminated the defense.

The new law provides: "In any claim for damages or relief under the New Mexico Civil Rights Act, no public body or person acting on behalf of, under color of or within the course and scope of the authority of a public body shall enjoy the defense of qualified immunity for causing the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the bill of rights of the constitution of New Mexico."

It is important to note that the new state does not relate to claims brought under federal law, which still recognizes qualified immunity as a defense.

Reason.com has more on the story here; Jurist has more information here.

Article and program on settlements in police misconduct cases

  Yesterday I posted a video on data related to how much money is spent on settling cases of police misconduct.  Today, I am posting another conversation on the subject.  In this one, Benjamin Wittes sat down on Lawfare Live with Rashawn Ray, the David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, to talk about civil settlements. Rashawn is the author of a recent Lawfare article about how to reform the civil settlement system to make it more effective in deterring police misconduct, and they discussed the series of reforms that Rashawn recommends.  You may want to read the article first (here) and then listen to the conversation (by clicking on the play button below or by going here.)

Study on how much money cities' pay to settle police misconduct cases

As you probably know, police misconduct trials are rare, often because the defendants are granted qualified immunity.  However, those claims are claims brought against individuals.  The situation in cases brought against cities or other government entities is different.  In those cases, cities often pay high amounts of money to settle misconduct claims.  

Over at the website FiveThirtyEight, their quantitative editor Laura Bronner recently spoke with Galen Druke about FiveThirtyEight and The Marshall Project’s investigation into the amount of money cities have spent on police misconduct settlements — in the range of $3 billion over the last decade. What’s less clear is whether the situation has improved within that time period.

You can watch the conversation by clicking on the play button below or by going here.

Podcast on qualified immunity

 A few minutes ago, I reported that New York City has abolished qualified immunity.  Meanwhile, below you will find a podcast in which Prof. Alexander Reinert (Cardozo School of Law) discusses an empirical assessment and comprehensive study on the actual way that courts of appeals have handled qualified immunity cases.  You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the play button below or by going to the podcast website here.

New York City Council abolishes qualified immunity

Yesterday, the New York City Council passed legislation that will effectively end qualified immunity for police officers; thus removing one of the largest impediments to holding officers personally liable for violating citizens’ civil rights, several local news outlets reported.  In doing so, New York became the first city in the country to abolish the defense.  Law & Crime has more information here.

Courts find that police officers do not have immunity in two recent cases

As you probably know, police officers often escape possible tort liability because they claim to have qualified immunity.  According to the doctrine of qualified immunity, officials performing discretionary functions have immunity as long as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights or which a reasonable person would have known.

The use of qualified immunity in cases involving alleged police misconduct has been increasingly criticized of late, and two courts recently decided that the officers involved did not have immunity for their actions.

In one case, the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit unanimously ruled that an Alabama police officer is not entitled to immunity for an incident in which he repeatedly deployed a Taser on an innocent teenager who was having seizures at a concert.  You can read about that case here.

In the other case, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that the defendant did not have immunity in a case in which the plaintiff alleged that the officer punched a suspect in the face, whipped him with a chain, and released a police dog on him.  Evidently, the Court felt that a reasonable officer should know that that type of conduct violates someone's rights.  You can read about that case here.

Eighth Circuit Strips Qualified Immunity From Cop Who Pulled Over A Driver For Flipping Her Off

As reported in TechDirt, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest to add to a body of case law that holds that "engaging in any law enforcement response to a flipped bird is unwise, at best."  This decision reminds police officers that being rude towards them isn't a crime.  

In this case a police officer conducted a traffic stop after the driver extended his middle finger at her as he drove past her.  Other officers arrived later to assist the first officer and the driver was handcuffed and detained for a short period of time. The driver later sued the officers and the City under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights. 

The district court granted summary judgment to the officers and the City, finding that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because the original officer had probable cause to conduct the traffic stop.  In support of the argument regarding probable cause, the officer claimed she had probable cause because of the plaintiff’s “disorderly conduct.”  However, the court declined to grant qualified immunity to the officer on the disorderly conduct violation, and she did not challenge the district court’s conclusion on appeal.  On the other claims, the Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part.  The case is called Garcia v. City of New Hope, and you can read it here.

Go here for the full story and some commentary.

Man misidentified by facial recognition software sues for false imprisonment and violation of civil rights

Man who was misidentified by facial recognition software and subjected to police interrogation sues a city in New Jersey, its police department, and a prosecutor for false arrest, false imprisonment and violation of his civil rights.  Go here for the story.

Article on a way to argue cases to avoid qualified immunity issues

I just read an interesting article on an alternative way to argue cases seeking compensation against the government.  The article begins, 

Recent officer-involved shootings and public allegations of police misconduct have sparked legal discussion around accountability for law enforcement. Much of this discussion has come to focus on reforming qualified immunity, a complicated legal doctrine that can shield officers from liability in police misconduct lawsuits. However, plaintiffs may have another option for recourse that does not require grappling with qualified immunity . . .  

 

Third Circuit issues opinion on whether prosecutor can be sued for conduct that resulted in wrongful conviction

Prosecutors are usually protected from possible civil liability because they can claim immunity.  However, immunity only applies to their conduct as litigators, not as investigators and defining the line between one and the other is a matter of much debate.  

There are many cases out there that discuss the issue and now the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has added a new one.  In a case Weimer v. County of Fayette, Pennsylvania, the court examines the claim of plaintiff Crystal Dawn Weimer who spent more than eleven years in prison, and then, after her convictions were vacated, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the County of Fayette, Pennsylvania; its former District Attorney, Nancy Vernon; the City of Connellsville; and several city and state police officers violated her rights under the U.S. Constitution and Pennsylvania law. 

The Court found that certain aspects of the prosecutors conduct were protected by immunity, but many others were not and remanded the case for further  proceedings.

You can read more about the case here, where you can also find an embedded copy of the opinion. 

Supreme Court holds plaintiffs can't sue in American courts to recover damages caused by cross border shooting

In one of several cases related to cross-border shootings, a 5-4 majority of the justices of the Supreme Court recently held against the right of the plaintiffs to sue in American courts.

In 2010, an on-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who was at the border in El Paso, Texas, shot a boy at least twice. At the time, the boy, a Mexican national, was on the southern side of the border in Ciudad Juarez.  The boy's parents, who are Mexican nationals, sued for damages raising the issue of whether the parents have a legal standing to sue for a death that occurred outside of U.S. territory.

The parents argued that the federal agent's unreasonable use of excessive force violated the teenager's Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, which protect a person from unreasonable search and seizure and assure due process protections.

On Tuesday the Supreme Court announced its decision holding that the plaintiffs do not have the right to sue.  You can read the opinion here.

The SCOTUS blog has analysis of the opinion here.

You can find articles and court documents on the case here.

NPR has some analysis of the opinion here.