If you live in Mississippi, Louisiana, or Texas, you can no longer sue federal police for violating your Constitutional rights, no matter how disgusting their conduct.
The Supreme Court declined to consider a case Monday, Oliva v. Nivar, that would have required federal employees to be held accountable to the Constitution. As a result, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' dangerous lower court ruling will stand, leaving more than 18,000 federal police officers without any accountability for violating the Constitution.
Anya Bidwell, an attorney with the Institute for Justice and co-counsel in Olivia v. Nivar explained the ramifications of the Supreme Court's decision in a statement: "Federal police in the rest of the nation could soon operate under this regime of constitutional unaccountability too. Indeed, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently adopted the same rule, with no accountability in sight for federal police in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota."
José Oliva is a 75-year-old war veteran whose appeal was recently denied by the Supreme Court, his legal troubles began in February 2016 when he tried to attend a dental appointment at an El Paso Veterans Affairs hospital. Three VA security guards violently assaulted him, choking him and inflicting irreversible injury to his shoulder. One of the guards apparently did not like the fact that José put his identity card inside a plastic bin rather than handing it to the officer, so the three allegedly attacked as a response.
When prosecutors refused to charge the officers, José filed a federal lawsuit for violations of his constitutional rights. He took the unreasonable use of force personally as someone who had served in law enforcement for 25 years. “These officers felt like the law did not apply to them,” José told Institute for Justice. “I wanted to prove them wrong. Not just for me, but for all of us who live in this constitutional republic founded on the principle of government accountability.”
Surprisingly, the 5th Circuit declined to rule on qualified immunity. It explicitly stated that VA officers could not be sued because they were employed by the federal government rather than the state government.
If that sounds draconian to you, it's because it is. The decision, as stated by 5th Circuit Judge Don R. Willett, “erases any doubt” that “[i]f you wear a federal badge, you can inflict excessive force on someone with little fear of liability.”
Since losing in the 5th Circuit, José asked the Supreme Court to hear his case. However, the Court refused Monday. But neither José nor the Institute for Justice have given up the fight.
HELP STOP THE SPREAD OF FAKE NEWS!
SHARE our articles and like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter!
0 Comments