Influences on rhetoric in qualified immunity cases: race, gender, and political ideology of Circuit Court judges and Supreme Court justices from 1982-2021
Date
2022-05-03
DOI
Authors
Montenegro, Michael S.
Version
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
[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.]