Does qualified immunity actually accomplish what the Supreme Court intended? Kim Norberg and co-host Keith Neely discuss qualified immunity and how it plays out in the real world. IJ Senior Attorney Bob McNamara and data scientist Jason Tiezzi join to discuss Unaccountable, IJ’s new report that examines qualified immunity by the numbers.The report uses the largest ever collection of federal appellate cases, covering the 11-year period from 2010 through 2020. It is also the first to use cutting-edge automated techniques to parse thousands of federal circuit court opinions and answer key questions about cases where government defendants claim qualified immunity—what kinds of officials and conduct it protects, its impact on civil rights cases, and whether the doctrine is achieving its aims.
This morning, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously ruled against the government in a long-running class action lawsuit from the Institute for Justice (IJ) on behalf of people who rented security deposit boxes at US Private Vaults. The decision slammed the FBI for overstepping its authority when it opened up hundreds of renters’ boxes, conducted criminal searches of them all, and attempted to permanently keep everything in the boxes worth more than $5,000, all without charging any box renter with a crime.“Today’s opinion draws a line in the sand, to ensure something like this never happens again,” said IJ Senior Attorney Rob Johnson. “If this had come out the other way, the government could have exported this raid as a model across the country. Now, the government is on notice its actions violated the Fourth Amendment.”Judge Milan D. Smith, writing for the court, likened the FBI’s actions to the abuses that motivated the Bill of Rights: “[T]he government failed to explain why applying the inventory exception to this case would not open the door to the kinds of ‘writs of assistance’ the British authorities used prior to the Founding to conduct limitless searches of an individual’s personal belongings. It was those very abuses of power, after all, that led to adoption of the Fourth Amendment in the first place.”
Oregon wants to regulate small farms like large commercial dairies. Why? Not because of real environmental concerns, but because large commercial dairies insist that small dairies somehow have a “competitive advantage” over big ones—that is, that they don’t have to install expensive infrastructure to manage waste.But small dairies don’t need that infrastructure because the amount of waste generated can safely decompose in fields or be composted for other productive use. The state is wrapping small dairies in meaningless red tape just to please big dairies. That is protectionist, irrational and, moreover, unconstitutional. Sarah, and three other small farmers, are now teaming up with the Institute for Justice to file a lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Agriculture and save small dairy farms in the Beaver State.
Amy Hadley watched in horror as her home was raided by police and destroyed in South Bend, Indiana, in June 2022. Over a year later, her family is still traumatized and their home still bears the scars of the raid. And all of this happened because police were searching for a man who was never in their home and who had no connection to Amy’s family.
Gas stations in DeKalb County, Georgia, have been ordered to spend thousands of their own dollars to install video surveillance cameras to meet new county requirements. If they fail to comply, DeKalb County will revoke their business licenses starting on January 1. Nearly all gas stations in DeKalb County already have some form of security camera system, but county leaders don’t seem to care. It seems DeKalb County’s answer to solving crimes is drafting private businesses into the government’s surveillance system by demanding they install security cameras and present footage to police without a warrant, regardless of whether business owners want to cooperate.
If it’s legal to sell a product, it’s also legal to talk about that product. But not in Mississippi—at least not if the product is medical marijuana.
Unbeknownst to parents, a portion of their baby’s blood remained unused after the screening was complete. And New Jersey had unilaterally decided that it could keep that blood for 23 years. Even worse, New Jersey believed it could use that blood however it saw fit, whether that be selling it to third parties, giving it to law enforcement, or even turning it over to the Pentagon.
Family homes that have been handed down generations, nestled among century-old oak trees. A charming, renovated two-story house on the National Register of Historic Places. Church property, donated by parishioners, that serves as the gathering place for the community.What do these places have in common? All of them are part of a “slum” or “blighted area”—at least, that is, according to the city of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. This past April, Ocean Springs declared all of these—alongside dozens of other well-maintained homes and properties—to be “slum and blighted” in order to designate them as an “urban renewal” area. That designation authorizes the city to use eminent domain to forcibly take away the homes and businesses within the city’s so-called “urban renewal area.”The city also didn’t tell any residents or property owners that they declared them blighted—or that the blight designation would be final and unappealable if they failed to appeal within 10 days. Unsurprisingly, since no one knew, no one appealed.Cynthia Fisher has lived in the Railroad District for 70 years. In 1980, she moved around the corner from the home she grew up in, which is now declared “blighted.” At least seven family members, including one of her daughters, live just a few steps away. The houses in her family are over 100 years old; six generations of Cynthia’s family grew up in their Robinson Street house.Now, Cynthia, along with other home and business owners whose properties have been blighted, are teaming up with the Institute for Justice to launch a federal lawsuit. Well-cared-for property should never be blighted, and blight designations should never be passed in secret. The U.S. Constitution bars government from depriving people of their property rights without due process, but that is exactly what Ocean Springs did.
The right to criticize the government is a pillar of our constitutional republic—embodied in the text and history of the First Amendment. And yet, across the country that right continues to be violated by unaccountable government agents. One particularly blatant example of this abuse happened recently in the small town of Newton, Iowa, where a resident named Noah Petersen was arrested for criticizing his mayor and police department.