NYC and Qualified Immunity for Police Officers

[farscott]

I believe prosecutors have qualified immunity for some things, but have absolute immunity for prosecutorial decisions.

The holding from the SCOTUS decision in Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976) is below.

A state prosecuting attorney who acts within the scope of his duties in initiating and pursuing a criminal prosecution and in presenting the State's case, is absolutely immune from a civil suit for damages under § 1983 for alleged deprivations of the accused's constitutional rights.

To me (not an attorney and did not stay at a Holiday Inn), a prosecutor cannot be sued for damages IF a person or persons is indicted (assuming one has to be indicted for there to be any damages). I wonder how this squares with a prosecutor who was selectively prosecuting based on race and/or income. Is the absence of prosecuting people of a certain "class" covered by the SCOTUS decision or is that a violation of civil rights? I assume it would as my (not qualified to have an opinion as I do not understand "declaratory relief" in the absence of any indictment but does) reading of § 1983 suggests it does not apply to making decisions based on race and/or income. In other words, can prosecutors be charged or sued for not treating people equally?

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

[kev8287]

Another area that allows for the use of Qualified Immunity is the training an officer received. If an agency trains its officers poorly or incorrectly and the officers do what they were trained to do, then as I understand it the officers are not to blame and Qualified Immunity can be used.

This is a short quick response to this discussion.

[jd950]

For those wanting to better understand what qualified immunity is and is not, the 5th Circuit just issued an opinion yesterday, in which they discuss the concept at some length and also cite to several significant cases. Of course, this is the 5th Circuit's application of the doctrine, which is not the same as every other circuit The case is Roque vs. Harvel

Warning, legal stuff comes next:

And, FWIW, I would generally disagree with the idea that inadequate or improper training or policies will help. "I didn't know" does not work. Courts have been willing to use a violation of policy or training as evidence that an officer's acts were unreasonable, but are reluctant to go the other way and find "reasonableness" due to limited or poor training. The standard is whether an act violated a clearly established constitutional right in the relevant jurisdiction, that should have been known to a reasonable police officer (or was demonstrably known to the actual defendant).

"an official municipal policy, custom, or negligent training...of course could not make reasonable a belief that was contrary to a decided body of case law.'" Sampson v. City of Schenectady, 160 F. Supp. 2d 336

"the issue is whether defendants' training was contrary to a decided body of case law. This court has already held that it is. [However], in light of pre-existing case law, the unlawfulness [of those actions] was apparent." Defendants' motion for judgment or new trial on qualified immunity grounds is denied. Pappas v. New Haven Police Dep't, 278 F. Supp. 2d 296

"[t]he standard to be applied in reviewing a qualified immunity claim . . . is not affected by the defendant's particular state of knowledge about the law." Jackson v. Hollowell, 714 F.2d 1372

"Whether an official may prevail in his qualified immunity defense depends upon the "objective reasonableness of [his] conduct as measured by reference to clearly established law." No other "circumstances" are relevant to the issue of qualified immunity.
Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 191, 104 S. Ct. 3012, 3017 (1984)

"If the law was clearly established, the immunity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct. Nevertheless, if the official pleading the defense claims extraordinary circumstances and can prove that he neither knew nor should have known of the relevant legal standard, the defense should be sustained. But again, the defense would turn primarily on objective factors. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818-19, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 2738 (1982)

The courts use the standard of what "a reasonably well-trained officer in [defendant's] position" would have done. In other words YOUR training does not or should not matter...you are held to the standard of a well-trained officer even if you are Barney Fife or were trained by Sheriff J.W. Pepper.

Oh, I almost forgot...in general, prosecutors are generally entitled to absolute immunity for acts performed in good faith in performance of their prosecutorial functions, much like judges are. That absolute immunity is lost if a prosecutor can be shown to have acted in bad faith or when the prosecutor is doing something other than a legitimate prosecutorial function. So, accepting or offering bribes, suborning perjury, tampering with evidence or witnesses or jurors, filing charges for malicious purposes, perjury, etc., no immunity. For decisions about accepting or declining cases, what charges to file, what crimes to prosecute or not (to a point), how to prosecute a case, what witnesses to call, whether to dismiss a case, what penalties to request, etc., etc.; Absolute immunity.

Proof that a prosecutor was violating civil rights laws in the performance of his duties would overcome liability. Such claims are frequently made against prosecutors and even judges and are rarely supported by any evidence, and thus are usually dismissed early in a case on immunity grounds. Often in a single If there was compelling evidence of such acts, in all likelihood, the DOJ would initiate a civil rights investigation that could lead to civil and criminal penalties, and immunity would not be an issue.

People who go to prison like to file lawsuits against the cops that arrested them and the prosecutors who prosecuted them, and inmates don't have much else to do with their time. The courts recognize that. Here is a common result, taken from a case:

"MAGISTRATE'S RECOMMENDATION dismiss action by Magistrate Judge XXXXXXXXXXXXXX concerning motion to dismiss."

[Erick Gelhaus]

For those wanting to better understand what qualified immunity is and is not, the 5th Circuit just issued an opinion yesterday, in which they discuss the concept at some length and also cite to several significant cases. Of course, this is the 5th Circuit's application of the doctrine, which is not the same as every other circuit The case is Roque vs. Harvel

Thanks for that reference.

Also, there is an 11th Circuit ruling from March '21 out on training, failure to train: Demetric Favors v City of Atlanta, 11th Circuit 20-12944.

[jd950]

Thanks for that reference.

Also, there is an 11th Circuit ruling from March '21 out on training, failure to train: Demetric Favors v City of Atlanta, 11th Circuit 20-12944.

Thanks. It is an interesting case (as court opinions go) that does not make Atalanta look very good. I think we have to be a little cautious with that one.

The court found that "the City also failed to provide Thompson with a copy of the statute, as required [by state law]" and had six reported incidents in which officers discharged their firearms into a vehicle [and] none of the reports prepared for these incidents contained information regarding the facts justifying the shootings, or documentation of a supervisor's evaluation of the shootings. There was also a lack of incident reports with proper information and evaluation for the years 2013 and 2014 as well. "These incomplete reports are contrary to APD's [own] reporting requirements."

The court also noted that "the City's [own] witness said the APD provides no academy or in-service training specifically addressing the circumstances that would justify an officer shooting into a moving vehicle." That is pretty stunning if true. The court referenced an 11th circuit standard that deliberate indifference can be shown by "evidence that the municipality knew of a need to train and/or supervise in a particular area and the municipality made a deliberate choice not to take any action." Clearly, in this case Atlanta falls squarely within that area and for the most part admitted this. They did not train at all on a pretty serious issue, violated state law and failed to adequately document or investigate at least a half dozen similar previous incidents.

I think it is a good example of really bad facts. Atlanta screwed the pooch on this one and may face liability for a rather gross failure to train. It probably does not matter much as those same facts seem to establish a policy custom and practice claim as well. Please note that I know nothing of the case beyond the published opinion and the facts at trial may be substantially different and warrant a different conclusion. I don't think this will ever go to trial, though.