SAN DIEGO civil rights LAWYER

A key component of our practice is in civil rights litigation, focusing on cases of prison abuse, police misconduct, excessive force, and First Amendment rights. Typically, these cases need to involve some sort of substantial harm to be viable, but we are also interested in pursuing cases where there is a clear political principle at stake and where that political principle is essential to the functioning of a democratic society.

POLICE MISCONDUCT AND EXCESSIVE FORCE

In the area of policing and prisons, we are focused primarily on cases involving excessive force and wrongful death. There are several important ideas to consider in these cases. One of the most fundamental is the doctrine of qualified immunity, which gives government actors a fairly wide range of discretion in the way they do their jobs. In order to overcome qualified immunity, it is necessary to show both that (1) a constitutional right has been violated, and (2) that that right is “clearly established.” The exact contours of this defense are constantly being litigated. The basic point of the defense, however, is that police and correctional officers are not subject to liability simply because they did their job in a way that someone found unpleasant. Liability will generally exist only when it should have been clear that the policing choice involved trampling on clearly established rights.

A second important idea in this area is the doctrine of Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), which essentially says that an individual who has been convicted of a crime cannot recover civilly if the theory of the civil action is an attempt to invalidate the conviction.

FIRST AMENDMENT RETALIATION

Claims of First Amendment retaliation involve situations where an individual has been punished or sanctioned for speaking out, or engaging in some other form of constitutionally protected activity. To succeed, these claims must show that the protected speech or action was a “substantial or motivating factor” in the alleged retaliation.

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