March 28, 2013 | Rutherford Institute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its ruling in Millbrook v. United States, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that the U.S. government may be held liable for abuses intentionally carried out by law enforcement officers in the course of their employment. The Court’s ruling dovetails with arguments put forward by The Rutherford Institute in its amicus brief, which urged the Court to enforce the plain meaning of federal statutes allowing citizens to sue the government for injuries intentionally inflicted by law enforcement officers.

In striking down lower court rulings, the justices held that the courts had erred in dismissing a prisoner’s lawsuit alleging that three prison guards had brutally and sexually assaulted him. The lower courts justified their ruling under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows individuals to sue the government for misconduct by law enforcement officials only if the injury inflicted occurs while the officers are in the course of making an arrest or seizure, or executing a search. In their amicus brief, Rutherford Institute attorneys asked the Supreme Court to protect citizens from government brutality by eliminating the restriction on government liability.

“Hopefully, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Millbrook will send a strong message to the government’s various law enforcement agencies that they need to do a better job of policing their employees—whether they’re police officers or prison guards—and holding them accountable to respecting citizens’ rights, especially while on the job,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “At a time when the courts are increasingly giving deference to the police and prioritizing security over civil liberties, this ruling is at least an encouraging glimmer in the gloom.”

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_fro...

Andrew Sullivan finds an eloquent opinion from federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski. The plaintiff was suing under federal civil rights statutes after a police officer stopped and arrested him, apparently in retaliation for a series of obscenities the plaintiff had earlier directed at the cop. Kozinski writes:

Defendant relies heavily on the fact that Duran was making obscene gestures toward him and yelling profanities in Spanish while traveling along a rural Arizona highway. We cannot, of course, condone Duran’s conduct; it was boorish, crass and, initially at least, unjustified. Our hard-working law enforcement officers surely deserve better treatment from members of the public. But disgraceful as Duran’s behavior may have been, it was not illegal; criticism of the police is not a crime.

[T]he First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers…

The freedom of individuals to oppose or challenge police action verbally without thereby risking arrest is one important characteristic by which we distinguish ourselves from a police state…

Thus, while police, no less than anyone else, may resent having obscene words and gestures directed at them, they may not exercise the awesome power at their disposal to punish individuals for conduct that is not merely lawful, but protected by the First Amendment.

Inarticulate and crude as Duran’s conduct may have been, it represented an expression of disapproval toward a police officer with whom he had just had a run-in. As such, it fell squarely within the protective umbrella of the First Amendment and any action to punish or deter such speech–such as stopping or hassling the speaker–is categorically prohibited by the Constitution…

No matter how peculiar, abrasive, unruly or distasteful a person’s conduct may be, it cannot justify a police stop unless it suggests that some specific crime has been, or is about to be, committed, or that there is an imminent danger to persons or property.

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With Reason, Hit and Run
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With Reason, Hit and Run

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• Lawsuit claims police raided the apartment in Livingston, Illinois last year. Woman claims the police barged through the door and ordered her to the ground at gunpoint. They apologized after realizing they had raided apartment 1 instead of apartment 10.
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• The ACLU is suing over a series of raids in Riverside, California in which police targeted black-owned barbershops. Though they were drug raids, the actions were couched as “health inspections,” obviating the need for a search warrant. I’ve seen quite of few of these stories, lately–where police conduct drug raids under the guise of a regulatory inspection to get around the need for a search warrant. It’s troubling.
• The police officer who shot Grand Valley State student Derek Kopp in the chest during a drug raid has been charged with the negligent discharge of a firearm. If the officer is actually guilty of that, it’s nice to see him held accountable. But the problem, here, is the policy of sending police into private homes with their guns drawn to enforce consensual crimes. Until that policy changes, we’ll continue to see incidents like this one. Charging the cops or homeowners who make mistakes under such volatile circumstances isn’t going to change anything. We need to stop putting both parties in such a precarious position in the first place–particularly over, of all things, smoking pot.

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