Litigation Packet

While cases of police abuse are numerous, it is too often the case that officers are not disciplined or otherwise held accountable for their misconduct. A civil suit is one of the only ways for a victim of an officer’s excessive and/or deadly use of force to seek and obtain justice. Still, many officers can escape liability for their abuses by successfully claiming their conduct did not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known and moving for summary judgment based on their qualified immunity from suit.

• Provides an overview of the civil remedies for police misconduct available under federal law, including Section 1983 against state actors, Monell claims against municipalities, and Bivens actions against federal officers, and related case law and AAJ amicus curiae briefs.
• Features materials from a variety of cases litigated by AAJ plaintiff attorneys involving bystanders injured in the course of a police pursuit, fatal police shootings, negligent hiring resulting in excessive use of force, false arrest, excessive or wrongful tasering, retaliation against protesters, and wrongful police chases.
• Includes sample pleadings, discovery, motions practice, opening statements, closing arguments, and summaries and transcripts of depositions of plaintiffs, defendant officers, supervisors, and other witnesses.
• Contains AAJ Education speaker papers and Trial articles on case evaluation, discovery, obstacles, and general strategies on how to handle a police misconduct case from intake to trial.