The past several years have seen a slew of high-profile excessive force cases against law enforcement officers, often highlighted by cell phone video. These cases have placed increasing pressure on local police departments, which continue to struggle with balancing the public interest in community safety against the individual rights of suspects on the street. At the highest level of the legal landscape, however, the United States Supreme Court recently issued a decision that arguably expands the qualified immunity defense, at least in certain kinds of deadly force cases.
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The King Can Do No Wrong. But Then Again …
At common law, municipalities were immune from liability in tort for the misfeasance of their officers and employees. This principle of “sovereign immunity” was often summed up by the phrase, “The King can do no wrong.” Sovereign immunity was not merely a defense to liability, it was a true immunity.
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Albuquerque Police in the Crosshairs of Federal Oversight
This is my first entry as a regular contributor to the Municipal & Public Entity section of the Professional Liability Advocate blog. Municipal and public official litigation falls under Wilson Elser’s Municipal/Local Government practice group.
Among other topics, this blog will focus on cases and liability under 42 U.S.C. §1983. Section 1983 is a notably short statute – it covers less than a single page in the United States Code – yet is responsible for a very large volume of federal litigation. This is because section 1983 does not provide substantive rights as such, but rather a procedural mechanism, a cause of action, to enforce rights guaranteed elsewhere by the U.S. Constitution and federal laws.
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