In 1978, the Supreme Court held that individuals can sue local governments for constitutional violations in federal court. Indeed, the Court held that...
In 2012, Little Rock police officer Josh Hastings shot and killed 15-year-old Bobby Moore and lied about how it happened. Hastings had a long history ...
In 1967, the Supreme Court invented qualified immunity. And in 1982, the Court transformed the doctrine into the one we have today. On this episode, w...
In Chicago in 1958, over a dozen police officers barged into the home of a sleeping family with guns drawn. They didn’t have a warrant, and it turned ...
Section 1983 is one of the most important civil rights laws on the books; tens of thousands of plaintiffs file Section 1983 cases each year seeking to...
By any measure, the conditions that Lee Saunders endured in the psych unit at the Brevard County jail in Florida were shockingly inhumane. But when he...
For victims of government misconduct, whether you can sue the officials who violated your constitutional rights often depends on whether the officials...
In 2014, two members of a joint state-federal fugitive task force beat up an innocent college student, James King, after mistaking him for a suspect w...
Why is it so hard to sue officials who violate the Constitution? Season 2 of Bound By Oath is coming soon. Click here for transcript. Click for Apple ...
Prohibitions on excessive fines date back at least as far as Magna Carta in 1215, and the U.S. Constitution has barred excessive fines since 1791. But...