Plaintiff-Appellee seeks the disclosure of materials related to law enforcement’s actions surrounding a police shooting death under the Public Records Law. The specific disclosures Plaintiff-Appellee seeks bear a direct relation to the perceived legitimacy of the investigation surrounding the death and, ultimately, to the transparency and trust that lie at the heart of the Public Records Law and its recent amendments.
Claimant-Respondent seeks the upholding of the Court of Appeals' affirmation of the Yamhill County Circuit Court's finding that civil forfeiture in Oregon constitutes criminal punishment for the purposes of Double Jeopardy under the Fifth Amendment due to its punitive nature.
Gervin v. Florence et. al. addresses the case of DeShawn Gervin, whose probation was improperly revoked for violating a probation condition that the judge did not impose. Mr. Gervin spent 104 days in jail because of this error, and this brief supports the argument that Mr. Gervin should be able to sue the probation officer for malicious prosecution. Our brief argues that the 4th Amendment protects people against having to spend time in jail for wrongful probation revocations.
The issue on appeal in Smith v. Agdeppa et. al. is whether the duty to provide a warning before using deadly force was clearly established in the 9th Circuit. This brief discusses the flawed foundations of Qualified Immunity in relation to this question.
Petitioners are seeking an adjustment to the current standards federal courts use to assess civil claims for civil rights violations. Under Section 1983, courts analyze excessive force claims arising out of arrests, stops, and other seizures of individuals at liberty under the Fourth Amendment.
Petitioners are seeking to amend Section 1983 to eliminate qualified immunity as a defense and make the Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard less burdensome. Currently, in cases where an officer claims they used force because an individual was holding a weapon, the plaintiff has to prove that a reasonable officer could not have concluded that the weapon posed a risk. Unfortunately, courts often allow officers to justify deadly shootings on the basis of hypothetical possibilities even when there is no supporting evidence.
An out of uniform detective in an unmarked car decided DeJuan Hopson was planning to commit an armed robbery of a gas station after watching him sit in a car talking with his friend in the parking lot. The detective was baselessly convinced that Mr. Hopson was preparing to the rob the store even though he had watched Mr. Hopson and his friend for over 15 minutes and did not see them engage in any conduct that would suggest they were preparing to commit a robbery. Following his lengthy observation, the detective and several other officers violently extracted Mr.
To establish a conspiracy between defendants to violate a plaintiff's constitutional rights, a plaintiff need only show that the defendants shared a conspiratorial objective to engage in the conduct that caused the deprivation of rights. Our brief argues that the lower court erroneously applied an additional intent requirement in its analysis of Plaintiff-Appellant's civil conspiracy claim.
Fourth Amendment principles dating back centuries support liability for an officer’s mistaken execution of a warrant. These principles emphasize the importance of a person’s right to safety in her home; a well-specified warrant; and notice prior to entry. Along these lines, several circuits have held that executing a warrant at the incorrect home amounts to a warrantless search and presumptively violates the Fourth Amendment.
This appeal squarely presents the question of whether private entities performing government functions are exempt from vicarious liability under § 1983, a question this Court has yet to decide. The structure, history and rationale underlying § 1983 all indicate that Congress had no intention to eliminate respondeat superior liability for private entities.