Ongoing Work
We help people who’ve been beaten by the cops, mistreated in prison, denied their constitutional right to counsel, and much more. The common thread is that all of them come up against one or more “anti-accountability” doctrines—legal rules that prevent civil-rights plaintiffs with good claims from having their day in court.
Weldeyohannes v. State of Washington. When our client, a wheelchair-bound prisoner, found out he’d be transferred to a new facility, he had a simple request: Please take me there in a wheelchair van. I can’t climb the steps to board a regular coach-style bus. Instead of accommodating his disability, the State sent a squad of riot cops to carry, drop, and drag him onto the bus. They broke his shoulder and worsened his longstanding knee and back injuries, and the trauma of the ordeal left him with PTSD. The district court dismissed his claims, holding that a “clerical error” in the State’s computer systems absolved the State of liability. That’s not how this works, and we’ve taken his case up on appeal. Check out the briefs at our Weldeyohannes case page. (This is our first ADA case!)
Puki v. County of Okanogan. This truly is a tragic case. A woman suffering a catatonic seizure was taken to jail because her medical provider thought she was faking. At the jail, staff left her lying on the ground—motionless, nonresponsive, and in a puddle of her own urine—for an entire day. Predictably, she developed a blood clot. She died. We filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit, joined by the ACLU of Washington and the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, arguing that qualified immunity is unlawful, that courts should “stop expanding the legal error,” and that it cannot protect these individuals, on these facts.
Asante-Chioke v. Dowdle. There’s a longstanding rule of federal civil procedure: You don’t get to appeal until the case is over. When qualified immunity is involved, however, the Supreme Court has created a narrow exception to that rule: Officers can appeal a denial of qualified immunity before the case is over. In this case, the Fifth Circuit turned that narrow exception into open season: When qualified immunity is involved, officers can appeal absolutely anything, including routine discovery orders, anytime they’d like. That’s bananas. We filed an amicus brief, joined by the Cato Institute, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to gently remind the Fifth Circuit that there are limits to its jurisdiction—even when qualified immunity is involved.
Fagon v. Kiely. In a shocking display of violence and brutality, five New Britain police officers shot 28 rounds at a young Black man as he was trying to flee arrest in a car. Two rounds hit him in the head and neck and he died. We represent his mother, who sued on behalf of his estate. The district court denied the officers’ request for qualified immunity, but they took an immediate appeal to the Second Circuit. Check out the briefs at our Fagon case page.
Hannah v. State of Oregon. Oregon’s public-defense system is in a full-blown crisis. It’s underfunded, understaffed, and barely functioning. People sit in jail for weeks and months without a trial, their cases on pause, because the state can’t find them a lawyer. Some of them sued the state, seeking a simple declaration that the state had violated their constitutional rights. The lower courts dismissed their claims saying they lacked standing, but we convinced the Oregon Supreme Court to review their claims. Dive in at our Hannah case page.
McCrae v. City of Salem. Our client, a college student and track star, was peacefully protesting the murder of George Floyd when a police officer shot her in the eye and ended her athletic career. A jury awarded her a million dollars in damages. Then came the rub: After trial, the district court decided that the officer should get qualified immunity and our client should get bupkis. We’re fighting to get back what the jury said she was owed. Read more at our McCrae case page.
Hurst v. Dayton. The “Bivens” doctrine is what lets you sue federal agents for violating your constitutional rights. Without it, federal agents could beat protesters, assault prisoners, and intimidate journalists with absolute impunity. Problem is, the Supreme Court has been cutting away at Bivens for decades, including in a big case in June 2022. But it’s always said that the “core” of Bivens—which includes lawsuits for prisoner mistreatment—remains intact. In this lawsuit, we’re asking the Ninth Circuit to confirm that our client, an inmate in federal prison, can sue a prison nurse who refused to treat his injuries. Read our brief here.
Eaton v. Estabrook. When our client agreed to act as a liaison between officers and protesters during a march against police brutality, she didn’t expect to become a victim of police brutality. But a rogue officer with an axe to grind tackled her and threw her to the ground, and the district court granted him qualified immunity. We’ve asked the Second Circuit to take a second look. Read our brief here.
Nazario v. Thibeault. Do prisoners have a clearly established right against being forced to participate in a “Covid party”? We think so—but the State of Connecticut disagrees. Our client was forced to move from a cell block where the inmates were healthy to one that was in the middle of an active Covid outbreak. He caught Covid—the original, extremely dangerous variant—and nearly died. The district court denied the prison warden’s request for qualified immunity, and we’re asking the Second Circuit to affirm that decision on appeal. Read our brief here.
Edwards v. Gizzi. Like Hurst v. Dayton, above, this is a Bivens case. We’re asking the Second Circuit to confirm that our client, an inmate in federal prison, can sue guards who broke his arm for no reason. This is a crucial test case for accountability for federal officials. Read our brief here.
DeHart v. Tofte. Far-right extremists took over the Newberg School Board in Newberg, OR, and banned Black Lives Matter and Pride symbols. Some parents and teachers, concerned about this new and radical direction in their schools, joined a Facebook group to discuss ways they could hold their elected school-board directors accountable. In retaliation, the Board’s conservative majority sued four parents and teachers—supposedly for “doxxing” them, even though in each case they had actually doxxed themselves. (For example: One director told the world he worked at Selectron Technologies on his campaign website, but then sued our client for repeating that information in the Facebook group.) We teamed up with the ACLU of Oregon and prominent local civil-rights lawyers to fight back. Read our anti-SLAPP motion here, our brief on appeal here, and our reply brief here.
Index Newspapers v. City of Portland. In this case, we’re representing journalists and legal observers who covered the Portland protests of 2020 and were shot, beaten, and threatened with arrest in retaliation. The City moved to dismiss the case in December, claiming that it was “moot” because the protests ended. That’d be a neat trick if it worked—not many protests outlast the court cases they kindle. You can read our response here.
Previous Work
Mejia v. Miller. Suspecting our client of a traffic violation, a federal BLM agent shot her in the hand and head. The district court denied his request for qualified immunity—but on appeal, the Ninth Circuit held that our client didn’t even have the right to bring a claim. This type of Fourth Amendment excessive force claim is as close to the core of Bivens as it gets, so we asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its decision en banc. Although the Ninth Circuit declined, it did amend its decision to remove the most troublesome aspects our petition highlighted.
Aberha v. Delafontaine. [TW: sexual assault, rape.] Under the Eighth Amendment, prison guards have to protect inmates from sexual assault and rape. But when our client told a guard that his cellmate had sexually assaulted him, the guard made fun of him and left him in his cell. Sure enough, later that day, the cellmate choked and raped him. Our client sued the guard for refusing to protect him. The district court denied qualified immunity, but the guard took an interlocutory appeal to ask the Ninth Circuit to end the suit. We represented the inmate on appeal and won a complete victory. Read the decision here.
Nasby v. State of Nevada. People in prison have a constitutional right to a law library. It’s part of the constitutional right of access to the courts. For years, courts have told Nevada officials that their system isn’t up to scratch, and for years Nevada officials have ignored them. In this case, Nevada denied an inmate access to legal materials that could’ve helped him get a new trial. Still, the district court granted state officials qualified immunity, so we filed an amicus brief in support of the inmate’s appeal. We explained that qualified immunity is at its weakest in cases like this—where prison officials make calculated choices to violate inmates’ rights, betting that the courts will save them from accountability—and urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse the district court’s decision.
Omeish v. Patrick. In Fairfax County, VA, a cop pepper-sprayed a Muslim woman during a routine traffic stop. The district court granted him qualified immunity, and we filed an amicus curiae brief in support of her appeal. Leveraging our deep expertise in the field, we explained how nearly every court of appeals in the country would deny the officer’s request for immunity. Not many organizations are able to bring that kind of nationwide perspective to the table. And in deciding these cases, courts find it helpful to know that the right outcome is also in line with what other courts are doing.
Senn v. Smith. A Multnomah County police officer pushed a woman who had come to testify against a police-union contract down the steps of City Hall. As she stumbled backwards, she touched the officer’s arm. The district court called her contact with the officer “glancing and debatable.” Still, claiming she was pulling the officer down the steps, another cop blasted her in the face with pepper spray. The district court denied qualified immunity, the cop took an appeal to the Ninth Circuit, and Public Accountability successfully represented the protester on appeal. Read the decision here.
Lietz v. Wilkie. The VA placed a veteran on an “order of behavioral restriction,” forbidding him from visiting the VA without police escort, because he allegedly used swear words during a phone call. He sued the VA for violating his rights under the First Amendment—but the district court didn’t decide whether the VA had violated his right to free speech. Instead, it ruled that no one could ever sue the VA under the First Amendment. Public Accountability represented the veteran in his appeal, and you can read our brief here.
Eaves v. El Paso County. Jail deputies in El Paso County, CO, brutally beat a handcuffed and incapacitated inmate, fracturing his skull. He sued them and managed to defeat two motions for qualified immunity—one without lawyers and another after he found counsel. On the eve of trial, the deputies took an appeal to the Tenth Circuit. We argued that the appeal was frivolous—and won—meaning the deputies suddenly were going to have to try a case they thought they’d postponed for two years. They quickly came to the negotiating table and our client won $750,000, the largest excessive-force settlement in the history of El Paso County.
Witherow v. Baker. A Nevada state prison had a policy of intermittently listening in on prisoners’ calls with their attorneys to make sure the calls were “legal in nature.” One prisoner sued, claiming he had a Fourth Amendment right to confidential communications with his lawyer. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit held that even if such a right existed, it wasn’t clearly established, and so granted qualified immunity. We don’t think that’s right, but at a minimum, the Ninth Circuit should decide in this case that the right exists so that it’s clearly established for future cases. The plaintiff asked the Ninth Circuit to review his case en banc, and we filed an amicus brief in support. Read our brief here.
Elhady v. Kable. The government has a list of over a million U.S. citizens and foreign nationals that it considers “known or suspected terrorists.” It puts people on the list based on characteristics including their race, religion, national origin, and First Amendment activities. Sound problematic? We think so. Unfortunately, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit disagreed. We teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to ask the full Fourth Circuit to review the case. See our amicus brief here.