Athul K. Acharya 1/16/25 Athul K. Acharya 1/16/25

BREAKING: Public Accountability Wins Deadly Force Case

No qualified immunity for officers who killed 20-year-old.

Friends,

The Second Circuit just issued its decision in Fagon v. Kiely, a Public Accountability case—and we won. The facts of this case are horrifying: Police in New Britain, Connecticut, tried to arrest our client’s son on suspicion of armed robbery. But they were all in plainclothes, they were mostly in unmarked cars, and they didn’t use their lights or sirens. They just cornered his car in a cul-de-sac, got out of their vehicles, and started pointing guns and shouting at him. He tried to flee. Before he’d gotten more than a couple of blocks away, they emptied 28 rounds at his car. One went into the back of his head and one into his neck. He died at the scene. He was 20 years old.

The district court denied the officers’ request for qualified immunity. They took an immediate appeal, and the family’s lawyers brought us in to handle matters in the Second Circuit. We argued that the appellate court couldn’t even hear the case—that it lacked jurisdiction over the officers’ factual arguments about what happened and why they did what they did. The Second Circuit agreed with our analysis and dismissed the officers’ appeal.

The right to an “interlocutory” appeal—before a case is over—is one of the many ways that qualified immunity protects police at the expense of everyone else. The ordinary rule of federal civil procedure is that you don’t get to appeal until the case is over. But when police are involved, the Supreme Court has created special exception, allowing officers to appeal a denial of qualified immunity immediately. This right of immediate appeal can bog down civil-rights cases for years and even “starve them out” entirely. We’ve argued elsewhere that this special rule should be overruled. But until then, our victory in Fagon preserves an important boundary: Interlocutory appeals of qualified-immunity denials must be limited to purely legal arguments—or risk being dismissed outright.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider sending it to a friend. And if you think our work is important, you should know that we run entirely on the support of people like you. Whether it’s $10 or $100, your contributions help us safeguard the constitutional rights of all. So please, consider investing in our work—

Thanks for reading,

Athul K. Acharya
Founder & Executive Director
Public Accountability

Athul K. Acharya 9/16/24 Athul K. Acharya 9/16/24

Victory against the cop who shot a student at a protest

Bad cop, no qualified immunity.

Friends,

We just won a huge victory in McCrae v. City of Salem, our case against a cop who shot a student in the eye at a protest. Here’s what happened.

Eleaqia McCrae, a young college student and track star, was peacefully protesting the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. A police officer fired rubber bullets directly into the crowd where she was standing. He hit Elea in the eye, permanently damaged her vision, and ended her athletic career. She’ll never jump competitively again.

After nearly two years of litigation, the case went before a jury. The officer said he didn’t fire his gun—that it must’ve been a protester who hit her. The jury didn’t believe him. It rendered a verdict in Elea’s favor and awarded her more than a million dollars in damages. And then, after all that, the district judge decided to give the officer qualified immunity. Case dismissed. Never mind what the jury said, Elea, you’re getting bupkis.

We represented Elea in her appeal to the Ninth Circuit. We argued that the jury found the officer liable and the district court should not have substituted its own judgment for the jury’s. The Ninth Circuit agreed. In a short but sweet decision, it said that the district court failed to give the jury’s verdict the deference it was due, improperly made findings in the officer’s favor, and “effectively nullified the jury’s verdict in this case.” It reversed the district court’s decision. We win.

Qualified immunity has been a colossal disaster of public policy, and this case is a perfect example. If an officer can wriggle out of accountability even after a jury verdict against him, what rational lawyer would ever take a civil-rights case? What hope is there for people whose stories are less cut-and-dried? Our victory gets back for Elea the money and the accountability that she’s owed. Just as importantly, it draws a line in the sand: Constitutional rights are not a joke. They have real teeth. Violate them and we will hold you accountable.

Thanks for reading,

Athul K. Acharya
Founder & Executive Director
Public Accountability