CRJU 7370 Coursework -- §1983 Action

Carolanne Hines

CRJU 7370

Week 8 Assignments

6 October 2013

Explain how the US Supreme Court defines “person” under §1983.

Since the §1983was passed in 1866, the definition of “person” has undergone change. At first, it was defined as an “individual officers”. This means that liability rests with the government employee and they can be liable while performing their duty as “individual officers”. However, because of the Eleventh Amendment, the government cannot be sued (Ross, 2013).

However, Will v. Mischigan Department of Sate Police (1989) ruled that government employees cannot be sued if they are acting in an official capacity. But still, “person” was defined to not include government or state agencies. But, with Kentucky v. Graham (1985), people can still sue the state for conjunctive relief (Ross, 2013).

The definition of “person” later evolved in Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York (1978). “Person” now included local governments. This decision, in accordance with other legislation, changed the definition of “person” to include political bodies, municipalities, and other local governments (Ross, 2013).

Describe and explain the four essential elements the plaintiff must prove in order to prevail in a § 1983 action.

The four essential elements for a plaintiff to prevail in a § 1983 action :

1. the person must be a “protected person within the meaning of the act” – essentially, the person can be anyone in U.S. jurisdiction. As described above, a “person” can include government employees, political parties, local governments, municipalities, etc.
2. “the defendant must be acting under the color of law” – acting within the scope of their authority. This includes employees who are acting under the “color of state law” and are “state actors”. These laws include local ordinances, state laws, and federal laws as well as agency rules. However, federal employees are exempt from this.
3. the idea that “every individual public official and governmental entity may be liable for constitutional deprivations”.
4. there must be a violation of a constitutional right. This does not include negligence. There must be some sort of constitutional right violated by an employee and it has to fall under § 1983 legislation (Ross, 2013).

Fully review Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961) and explain the significance of this U.S. Supreme Court decision as it applies to §1983 litigation.

In Monroe v. Pape (1961), Chicago City police officers searched the house of Mr. And Mrs. Monroe in the middle of the night without warrant or following any of the other procedural guidelines for search and seizure. Mr. Monroe was taken to the police station and interrogated for several hours about a two-day-old murder. He did not have phone privileges, but was later released without charges. The family brought charges against the City of Chicago and 13 police officers under §1979, the “Ku Klux Act”. The Supreme Court held “The City of Chicago is not liable under § 1979, because Congress did not intend to bring municipal corporations within the ambit of that section.”

This type of suit, being §1979, exempts the City of Chicago from civil suit. However, had the petitioners filed the suit under § 1983, the City of Chicago may have been held liable because of their newly formed status as a “person”.

Describe and discuss examples of acting “under color of law” in policing and corrections.

Acting under “color of law” generally means that the defendant must have been acting in an official capacity, in accordance with their job and position.

In West v. Atkins (1988), the Supreme Court held that “A physician who is under contract with the State to provide medical services to inmates at a state prison hospital on a part-time basis acts "under color of state law," within the meaning of § 1983, when he treats an inmate.” This decision came after a prisoner was treated by a part-time physician, who was a private contractor not on government payroll, providing orthopedic services was accused of not providing adequate services to a prison inmate. The inmate felt he had the right to file suit under § 1983 because of his incarceration status, he did not have the right to choose his own physician.

In another example, Ousley v. Town of Lincoln (2004), the petitioner, Ousley, had an altercation with a Lincoln, Rhode Island police officer which left him injured. Ousley had appeared in front of the officer's police car, and the details between when he appeared and when he was brought in to have his injuries tended are murky. However, he he filed charges against the police officer and the town of Lincoln including one under § 1983 stating the officer had violated his civil rights in that Officer Hardy violated his civil rights, the town of Lincoln violated his civil rights, conspiracy to violate his civil rights, and supervisory liability. He also filed other charges: failure to train, assault and battery, malicious prosecution, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Describe and fully explain the purpose and the essential components of discovery and provide examples.

Discovery is how one party gains information held by another party. Discovery is made up of five basic tools:

1. Interrogatories – Written questions which is meant to garner a response from the other party. By federal law, one party allowed to pose 30 questions to the other party. The individuals involved in the lawsuit sit down, with their attorneys in tow, and answer the questions while under oath.
2. Requests for production – this allows one party go get evidence from another party, specifically in the form of documents, rules, incident reports, photos, videos, medical and autopsy reports, and investigative reports.
3. Requests for admission – This is a document that is aimed at to the opposing party for them to admit or deny a specific statement. This allows for a case to be sorted out without having to go to trial.
4. Depositions – this is a testimony given out of court, while under oath. Both parties in a civil suit will take depositions of the opposing side. Although the depositions are performed out of court, they are still recorded and transcribed by the court reporter. This can also include a written affidavit.
5. Examination of physical evidence – this includes medical records of the injured party (Ross, 2013).

Based on case law, explain the differences among sovereign, absolute, and qualified immunity.

Sovereign immunity was established in that it seemed illogical to file suit against the entity who is governing and upholding the laws. In essence, it protects the government from being sued by citizenry. The Eleventh Amendment protects the government from being sued. In United States v. Clarke (1934), the Supreme Court held that the government was protected from civil suit due to sovereign immunity (Ross, 2013).

Absolute immunity is derived solely from the responsibility of the individual. It is generally given to judges, legislators, prosecutors, and members of a parole board (Ross, 2013). In Pierson v. Ray (1967), an interracial group of religious individuals on a “pilgrimage” were attempting to board a segregated bus in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961. The group was arrested and tried under municipal regulations. The petitioners filed a § 1983 action – “which makes liable "every person" who under color of law deprives another person of his civil rights” and “at common law for false arrest and imprisonment”. The Supreme Court held “The settled common law principle that a judge is immune from liability for damages for his judicial acts was not abolished by § 1983”.

Qualified immunity is a doctrine that states certain government employees have a type of immunity that comes into play when the employee reasonably did not know that they were violating another person's civil rights. It is solely based on discretion; without qualified immunity, police officers would not be able to legally utilize their discretion. In Malley v. Briggs (1986), a § 1983 action was filed after a few individuals were arrested due to possession of marijuana, evidence which was gained through a wire tap. The arrestees argued that the wiretap violated their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Supreme Court held that the officers who performed the wire tap, and the judge who signed the warrant were “not entitled to absolute immunity, but only to qualified immunity from liability for damages.” Also, in their decision, the Supreme Court stated “Neither the common law nor public policy affords any support for absolute immunity. Such immunity cannot be permitted on the basis that petitioner's function in seeking the arrest warrants was similar to that of a complaining witness, since complaining witnesses were not absolutely immune at common law. As a matter of public policy, qualified immunity provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”

Based on the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Cleavinger v. Saxner (1985) explain why

criminal justice personnel do not possess absolute immunity.

In Cleavinger v. Saxner (1985), several federal inmates were tried by the prison's discipline committee and found guilty of work stoppage and other charges, and were required to forfeit a specified number of “good days” and put into administrative hold. Later, after the inmates petitioned the warden, the charges were dropped and expunged and the inmates were released on parole. They filed suit against the petitioners and the case was dropped by the Federal District Court in that the petitioners have absolute immunity. Later, the Federal District Court reinstated the suit and found the petitioners guilty of violating the inmates Fifth Amendment Rights and rejected their rights to absolute immunity. When the case reached the Supreme Court, they held the “Petitioners are entitled to only qualified immunity.”

In this case, the Supreme Court set forth the criteria for absolute and qualified immunity. In his opinion, Justice Blackmon, stated “It is the business of prison officials, of course, to maintain order within their institutions. But this fact does not support a claim that every step taken to protect constitutional rights of prisoners will lead to a breakdown in institutional discipline and security.” Blackmon also put forth “the line between absolute immunity and qualified immunity often is not an easy one to perceive and structure. That determination in this case, however, is not difficult, and we readily conclude that these committee members fall on the qualified immunity side of the line .”

Based on this case, and the opinion delivered by Justice Blackmon, it can be said that criminal justice personnel do not possess absolute immunity because of safeguards put into place, along with a long line of prescience and tort law protecting the absolute immunity of judges and prosecutors and the qualified immunity of criminal justice personnel.

Describe how a job assessment and developing workable policies and procedures may assist in

developing risk management strategies (attach appropriate case decisions to support your response).

Risk management is composed of risk financing and risk control. Risk financing involves ways agencies can pay for losses. Risk control is something that falls back on administrators and other managerial personnel. Risk control involves job assessment and developing workable policies – “it seeks to promote a proactive approach to efficient organizational operations and to decrease risk of exposure” (Ross, 2013).

There are several ways of doing this:

1. “Identifying potential risk exposures of the organization” – Job assessment, in essence, does just that. Job assessment examines the functions of line officers and managers and how often “occurrences” happen. By doing this, the seriousness of the risk can be identified.
2. “Examining the alternatives available to either eliminating potential risks or mitigating the effects of those that cannot be eliminated” – By creating workable policies, this assists in eliminating these risks and mitigating these factors.
3. “Selecting the best alternative or combination of alternatives to deal with each exposure” – this also deals with policy development. Management can look upon past cases such as Monell v. Department of Social Services (1978), to create new and alternative policy to deal with each exposure.
4. “Implementing the chose techniques” – Managers and supervisors use the policy and the alternatives created to deal with occurrences.
5. “Monitoring the process in order to alter or improve the program based on observed results” – Again, using the policies and procedures developed, administrators can follow the progress of their employees and officers to see what works and what does not. Not every single situation will have a definitive policy to lay out guidelines for how officers should act, however these guidelines should follow regulations (Ross, 2013)

Using several risk control strategies, describe methods in which a police or correctional agency may reduce its liability risk in one of the following areas (Select Only One): police pursuits; responding to the mentally ill (in the community or in a confinement facility); use of force (in the community or in a confinement facility); reducing assaults in correctional facilities; or reducing suicides in jails.

Using the example of dealing with a mentally ill individual, there are several risk control strategies that would assist officers in responding to this situation.

1. Loss prevention – loss prevention involves obviating, simply. Officers should always anticipate that an individual they will be dealing with may be mentally ill. In order to compensate, officers should be prepared for that eventuality and keep their equipment up to date and keep in mind policy and procedures that would for handing and detaining mentally ill individuals
2. Risk Transfer – Risk transfer involves moving risk from one party to another. In dealing with someone who is mentally ill, this would involve having the individual cleared by a mental health professional before bringing them to a detention facility.
3. Training – Officers should always be up to date on current policies in dealing with someone they suspect is mentally ill. However, initial training can create a foundation for officers to which they can build up a knowledge base on how to handle difficult situations arising from responding to a mentally ill person.

Works Cited

Cleavinger v. Saxner, 474 U.S. 193 (1985)

Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159 (1985)

Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335 (1986)

Monell v. Department of Soc. Svcs., 436 US 658 (1978)

Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961)

Ousley v. Town of Lincoln, C.A. No. 02-139S, (2004).

Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967)

Ross, D. (2013).Civil liability in criminal justice (6th ed). Waltham, MA: Anderson Publishing.

West v. Atkins - 487 U.S. 42 (1988)

Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989)

United States v. Clarke, 33 U.S. 436 (1834)