Influences on rhetoric in qualified immunity cases: race, gender, and political ideology of Circuit Court judges and Supreme Court justices from 1982-2021

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[When writing the Constitution, many of the Founders worried about the government having too much power over the country’s citizens. To ensure the privacy and security of the country’s citizens, the Founders decided to include the Fourth Amendment, guaranteeing “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”1 To further protect the country’s citizens, the 42nd Congress passed the federal Civil Rights Act of 1871 as part of many post-Civil War legal developments. Otherwise known as 42 U.S Code, the Civil Rights Act of 1871 includes section 1983, which seeks to hold officials, “who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State...subjects...any citizen of the United States...to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities, secured by the Constitution and laws…”2 liable to the injured party. Although it was rarely a factor in litigation for a century, Section 1983 gained prominence after the U.S Supreme Court’s 1961 decision in Monroe v. Pape, in which the Supreme Court decided that a police officer can be held individually liable for their actions under the Civil Rights Act.]
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