Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The St. Louis County Police Department (“SLCPD”) in Missouri utilizes what it calls a “Wanteds System.” This system allows officers to issue electronic notices (“Wanteds”) authorizing any other officer to seize a person and take him into custody for questioning without any review by a neutral magistrate before issuance. The Wanteds may pend for days, months, or, in some cases, indefinitely.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to Officers and its dismissal of the municipal liability claim and Count Three. The court reversed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to the Detective. The court explained that the Wanteds System is broad enough to encompass situations that do not violate the Constitution, including those involving an arrest immediately after an officer has entered a wanted. The court wrote that Plaintiffs’ facial challenge to the Wanteds System fails. Further, the court explained that the SLCPD Wanteds System, although fraught with the risk of violating the Constitution in certain circumstances and/or the danger of evidence being suppressed due to an invalid arrest, is not facially unconstitutional. The burden is then on Plaintiffs to show a persistent pattern of unconstitutional misconduct. The court concluded that the evidence in the record does not show a persistent pattern of unconstitutional arrests so pervasive that it can be said to constitute custom or usage with the force of law. Nor do the proposed classes describe a group of individuals who demonstrate that such a custom or practice exists. The district court did not err in dismissing the Plaintiffs’ municipal liability claim. View "Dwayne Furlow v. Jon Belmar" on Justia Law

Appellants, two police officers, arrested Plaintiff, a student, at a school basketball game. The district court denied summary judgment based on qualified immunity, finding a dispute of material fact regarding the events surrounding Plaintiff's arrest. The officers filed an interlocutory appeal challenging the district court’s decision.The Fifth Circuit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The issues raised by Plaintiff create factual disputes that meet the required threshold to overcome Appellant's qualified immunity defense at this stage. View "Byrd v. Cornelius" on Justia Law

Before her retirement, Plaintiff was employed by the Oregon Health Authority, and SEIU was the exclusive representative for her bargaining unit. Plaintiff never joined SEIU, but the State deducted union dues from her salary and remitted the dues to SEIU. Plaintiff alleged that SEIU forged her signature on a union membership agreement. Plaintiff demanded that the State and SEIU stop the dues deductions and return the withheld payments. After she retired, Plaintiff filed this action against State defendants and SEIU, alleging several constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s claims for prospective relief against all defendants for lack of jurisdiction and her claims for retrospective relief against Service Employees International Union Local 503 (“SEIU”) for failure to allege state action under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. Because jurisdiction is a threshold issue, the panel first considered whether it could entertain Plaintiff’s claims for prospective declaratory and injunctive relief against all defendants. As to Plaintiff’s claims for prospective relief for violation of her First Amendment rights, the panel concluded that her fear of future harm was based on a series of interferences that were too speculative to establish a “case or controversy” for the prospective relief she sought.   Plaintiff’s theory that potential future unauthorized dues deductions chilled the exercise of her First Amendment rights was also too speculative to establish standing. The panel concluded that she lacked any concrete interest in her future wages or her right to be free from compelled union speech that were threatened by the alleged lack of procedural safeguards. View "JODEE WRIGHT V. SEIU LOCAL 503, ET AL" on Justia Law

After the district court entered default against Defendant on Plaintiff’s claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Unruh Act, it ordered Vo to show cause why it should not decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim. After considering Vo’s response, the district court elected to decline supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Section 1367(c)(4). The district court determined that there were exceptional circumstances and compelling reasons justifying this exercise of its discretion.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s California Unruh Civil Rights Act claim against Defendant. The panel held that under Arroyo v. Rosas, 19 F.4th 1202 (9th Cir. 2021), in order to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction in a joint ADA and Unruh Act suit, the district court must properly articulate why the circumstances of the case are exceptional.   The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion. First, there were exceptional circumstances regarding comity and fairness in allowing Plaintiff to evade California’s heightened procedural requirements for Unruh Act claims by bringing her claims in federal court. Second, unlike in Arroyo, the district court declined supplemental jurisdiction well before it ruled on the merits of the ADA claim, meaning that the Gibbs values could be effectuated. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that there were compelling reasons to decline jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim. The panel rejected Plaintiff’s argument that the district court’s order was not sufficiently case-specific. View "THANH VO V. JOHN CHOI" on Justia Law

Five deputies responded to a 911 call reporting that P.M. was acting erratically and threatening someone with a firearm. The deputies asserted that P.M. ignored their warnings, picked up a gun, and began raising it toward them. Two of the deputies shot and killed P.M. His wife claimed that eyewitness testimony and ballistics analysis proved that P.M. was not moving toward the gun, never touched the gun, and did not pose an immediate threat to himself or others. Plaintiff brought this action asserting that the deputies violated P.M.’s Fourth Amendment rights and her own Fourteenth Amendment right to a familial relationship.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s denial of Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. On the excessive-force claim, the panel concluded that the deputies who shot P.M. were not entitled to qualified immunity. The panel concluded a jury could conclude that Defendants fired at an unarmed man who, although in the presence of a gun, never picked it up and in fact was moving away from it when he was shot. Officers may not kill suspects simply because they are behaving erratically, nor may they kill suspects who do not pose an immediate threat to their safety or to the safety of others simply because they are armed. Nevertheless, even under this court’s case law relating to familial-association claims asserted by parents and children, Plaintiff’s claim failed because no showing of a purpose to harm had been made or even attempted. View "SUSAN PECK, ET AL V. ANTHONY MONTOYA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought a putative class action under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 alleging that tire chalking violated the Fourth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment for Defendants and held that municipalities are not required to obtain warrants before chalking tires as part of enforcing time limits on city parking spots. The panel held that even assuming the temporary dusting of chalk on a tire constitutes a Fourth Amendment “search,” it falls within the administrative search exception to the warrant requirement. Complementing a broader program of traffic control, tire chalking is reasonable in its scope and manner of execution. It is not used for general crime control purposes. And its intrusion on personal liberty is de minimis at most. View "ANDRE VERDUN, ET AL V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO, ET AL" on Justia Law

Atkins pleaded guilty to drug crimes in 2014. After unsuccessfully challenging his conviction, he sued, claiming that the district and magistrate judges committed errors, the prosecutor did not identify herself when talking to Atkins during the case and did not respond to his compassionate release motion, the court reporter “invaded” his transcripts, and his court-appointed attorneys were ineffective. Atkins also sued the United States but did not state any allegations against it. The district judge dismissed the complaint with prejudice as frivolous, stating that he would alternatively dismiss all claims under the Supreme Court’s “Heck” decision because Atkins’s criminal conviction is intact.The Seventh Circuit affirmed. All the acts that Atkins attributes to the judges and prosecutor occurred in the criminal case, within their roles as judge or prosecutor, so they are absolutely immune from suit. The Supreme Court has not implied a Bivens-style constitutional claim against federal officials for transcription errors and an alternate remedy to cure transcript inaccuracies is available. The federal defense attorneys cannot be defendants in a Bivens suit because they did not act under color of law. The United States is not subject to suit in a Bivens action. The court affirmed that Atkins incurred a “strike” under 28 U.S.C. 1915(g) for filing a frivolous suit and another “strike” for filing this frivolous appeal. View "Atkins v. Gilbert" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court denied a writ of mandamus compelling Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to allow Relator to appoint election observers to inspect the counting of votes and compelling LaRose to provide election observers with copies of all software, hardware, and source codes installed on any automatic vote-tabulating machine, holding that Relator was not entitled to the writ.Relator, an independent candidate for Ohio Secretary of State on the November 8, 2022 general-election ballot, brought this expedited election case (1) asserting that Ohio Rev. Code 3505.21, which governs the appointment of election observers, violates constitutional equal protection guarantees because it restricts certified independent candidates' ability to appoint election observers; and (2) asking that tabulating-machine software be "open or unlocked" so that observers "may inspect [the machines] to the source code level[.]" The Supreme Court denied the writ, holding that there was no basis for a writ of mandamus to issue. View "State ex rel. Maras v. LaRose" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court upheld Defendant's convictions and sentences for several drug offenses and other misdemeanors, holding that the trial court did not err in denying Defendant's motion to suppress or in denying Defendant's retained attorney's requests to enter limited appearances.On appeal, Defendant argued, among other things, that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress because the arresting officer's recollection that Defendant had a driving status of "barred" as of several months before did not amount to a reasonable suspicion to justify a traffic stop. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) while the officer's information about Defendant's driver's license status was several months old, it gave the officer reasonable suspicion to justify stopping Defendant's vehicle; and (2) if a constitutional right to have a retained attorney enter a limited appearance exists, it is subject to reasonable regulation by the district court, and the district court in this case did not abuse its discretion in denying Defendant's requested limited appearances. View "State v. Sallis" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed from an order denying their motion to dismiss in part and rejecting their qualified immunity defense against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA") claims of Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs are practicing Muslims whose religion requires them to perform daily congregational prayers with as many other Muslims as are available. According to the allegations in their complaint, while Plaintiffs were incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, Defendants enforced a policy that restricted group prayer to the prison's chapel, despite that facility's frequent unavailability. As a result, Plaintiffs were forced to forgo their religious exercise of group prayer to avoid disciplinary action.   The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s order. The court concluded that the wardens are not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage of the proceedings because the pleadings do not establish that their enforcement of the policy against Plaintiffs was in service of a compelling interest, and it was clearly established at the time of the violation that substantially burdening an inmate's religious exercise without justification violates RFRA. View "Sabir v. Williams" on Justia Law