4.5: Chapter 35 - The Basics of Suppression Hearings and Money Damages

THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE

Chapter 35

The Basics of Suppression Hearings and Money Damages

Having studied the Court’s precedent on when the exclusionary rule applies, we will now turn to an overview of how suppression hearings work. In addition, this chapter reviews the availability of monetary damages to victims of constitutional violations related to criminal procedure law.

The Basics of Suppression Hearings

When a defendant seeks to exclude evidence allegedly obtained in violation of the constitution, the judge normally decides the suppression motion by preponderance of the evidence.¹ With most court motions, the burden of persuasion is on the moving party, meaning that a tie is resolved in favor of the non-moving party. Accordingly, a defendant arguing that a magistrate issued a search warrant without probable cause would have the burden of proof. There are, however, situations in which the prosecution bears the burden of proof. When a confession is challenged as involuntary, for example, “the prosecution must prove at least by a preponderance of the evidence that the confession was voluntary.”²

When defendants seek exclusion of evidence on constitutional grounds, the standard procedure is for the judge to hold a “suppression hearing” outside the presence of the jury. Each side may present witnesses. Police officers commonly testify about what things they observed in advance of a Terry stop or arrest that justified a seizure under review. They also explain what evidence provided probable cause to justify warrantless searches under doctrines such as the automobile exception and exigent circumstances. Defendants may testify in support of their suppression motions, and absent unusual circumstances, their testimony at suppression hearings may not be used against them at trial.³ Under this rule, a defendant may testify that a suitcase belonged to him in order to establish standing to object to an unlawful search of the suitcase, without providing the prosecution a damaging admission usable to prove guilt. If the judge finds for the defendant, then the excluded evidence cannot be shown to the jury. In cases where the prosecution’s primary evidence is challenged as unlawfully obtained—for example, a gun seized from a defendant who is then charged with unlawfully possessing it—a suppression ruling in the defendant’s favor can result in the dismissal of the charges. A defendant who loses her pre-trial suppression motion may, if subsequently convicted, raise her suppression arguments again on appeal.

Our next case explains how courts resolve allegations that a search warrant was issued on the basis of false statements made by police officers to the issuing magistrate.

Supreme Court of the United States

Jerome Franks v. Delaware

Decided June 26, 1978 – 438 U.S. 154

Mr. Justice BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents an important and longstanding issue of Fourth Amendment law. Does a defendant in a criminal proceeding ever have the right, under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, subsequent to the ex parte issuance of a search warrant, to challenge the truthfulness of factual statements made in an affidavit supporting the warrant?

In the present case the Supreme Court of Delaware held, as a matter of first impression for it, that a defendant under no circumstances may so challenge the veracity of a sworn statement used by police to procure a search warrant. We reverse, and we hold that, where the defendant makes a substantial preliminary showing that a false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, was included by the affiant in the warrant affidavit, and if the allegedly false statement is necessary to the finding of probable cause, the Fourth Amendment requires that a hearing be held at the defendant’s request. In the event that at that hearing the allegation of perjury or reckless disregard is established by the defendant by a preponderance of the evidence, and, with the affidavit’s false material set to one side, the affidavit’s remaining content is insufficient to establish probable cause, the search warrant must be voided and the fruits of the search excluded to the same extent as if probable cause was lacking on the face of the affidavit.

I

The controversy over the veracity of the search warrant affidavit in this case arose in connection with petitioner Jerome Franks’ state conviction for rape, kidnaping, and burglary. On Friday, March 5, 1976, Mrs. Cynthia Bailey told police in Dover, Del., that she had been confronted in her home earlier that morning by a man with a knife, and that he had sexually assaulted her. She described her assailant’s age, race, height, build, and facial hair, and gave a detailed description of his clothing as consisting of a white thermal undershirt, black pants with a silver or gold buckle, a brown leather three-quarter-length coat, and a dark knit cap that he wore pulled down around his eyes.

That same day, petitioner Franks coincidentally was taken into custody for an assault involving a 15-year-old girl, Brenda B. ______, six days earlier. After his formal arrest, and while awaiting a bail hearing in Family Court, petitioner allegedly stated to Robert McClements, the youth officer accompanying him, that he was surprised the bail hearing was “about Brenda B. ______. I know her. I thought you said Bailey. I don’t know her.” At the time of this statement, the police allegedly had not yet recited to petitioner his rights under Miranda v. Arizona.

On the following Monday, March 8, Officer McClements happened to mention the courthouse incident to a detective, Ronald R. Brooks, who was working on the Bailey case. On March 9, Detective Brooks and Detective Larry D. Gray submitted a sworn affidavit to a Justice of the Peace in Dover, in support of a warrant to search petitioner’s apartment. In paragraph 8 of the affidavit’s “probable cause page” mention was made of petitioner’s statement to McClements. In paragraph 10, it was noted that the description of the assailant given to the police by Mrs. Bailey included the above-mentioned clothing. Finally, the affidavit also described the attempt made by police to confirm that petitioner’s typical outfit matched that of the assailant. Paragraph 15 recited: “On Tuesday, 3/9/76, your affiant contacted Mr. James Williams and Mr. Wesley Lucas of the Delaware Youth Center where Jerome Franks is employed and did have personal conversation with both these people.” Paragraphs 16 and 17 respectively stated: “Mr. James Williams revealed to your affiant that the normal dress of Jerome Franks does consist of a white knit thermal undershirt and a brown leather jacket,” and “Mr. Wesley Lucas revealed to your affiant that in addition to the thermal undershirt and jacket, Jerome Franks often wears a dark green knit hat.”

The warrant was issued on the basis of this affidavit. Pursuant to the warrant, police searched petitioner’s apartment and found a white thermal undershirt, a knit hat, dark pants, and a leather jacket, and, on petitioner’s kitchen table, a single-blade knife. All these ultimately were introduced in evidence at trial.

Prior to the trial, however, petitioner’s counsel filed a written motion to suppress the clothing and the knife found in the search; this motion alleged that the warrant on its face did not show probable cause and that the search and seizure were in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, defense counsel orally amended the challenge to include an attack on the veracity of the warrant affidavit; he also specifically requested the right to call as witnesses Detective Brooks, Wesley Lucas of the Youth Center, and James D. Morrison, formerly of the Youth Center. Counsel asserted that Lucas and Morrison would testify that neither had been personally interviewed by the warrant affiants, and that, although they might have talked to another police officer, any information given by them to that officer was “somewhat different” from what was recited in the affidavit. Defense counsel charged that the misstatements were included in the affidavit not inadvertently, but in “bad faith.” Counsel also sought permission to call Officer McClements and petitioner as witnesses, to seek to establish that petitioner’s courthouse statement to police had been obtained in violation of petitioner’s Miranda rights, and that the search warrant was thereby tainted as the fruit of an illegally obtained confession.

In rebuttal, the State’s attorney argued [] that any challenge to a search warrant was to be limited to questions of sufficiency based on the face of the affidavit. The State objected to petitioner’s “going behind [the warrant affidavit] in any way,” and argued that the court must decide petitioner’s motion “on the four corners” of the affidavit.

The trial court sustained the State’s objection to petitioner’s proposed evidence. The motion to suppress was denied, and the clothing and knife were admitted as evidence at the ensuing trial. Petitioner was convicted. In a written motion for judgment of acquittal and/or new trial, petitioner repeated his objection to the admission of the evidence, stating that he “should have been allowed to impeach the Affidavit used in the Search Warrant to show purposeful misrepresentation of information contained therein.” The motion was denied, and petitioner was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 25 years each and an additional consecutive life sentence.

On appeal, the Supreme Court of Delaware affirmed. Franks’ petition for certiorari presented only the issue whether the trial court had erred in refusing to consider his allegation of misrepresentation in the warrant affidavit.

III

Whether the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, and the derivative exclusionary rule made applicable to the States under Mapp v. Ohio, ever mandate that a defendant be permitted to attack the veracity of a warrant affidavit after the warrant has been issued and executed, is a question that encounters conflicting values. The bulwark of Fourth Amendment protection, of course, is the Warrant Clause, requiring that, absent certain exceptions, police obtain a warrant from a neutral and disinterested magistrate before embarking upon a search. In deciding today that, in certain circumstances, a challenge to a warrant’s veracity must be permitted, we derive our ground from language of the Warrant Clause itself, which surely takes the affiant’s good faith as its premise: “[N]o Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation….” “[W]hen the Fourth Amendment demands a factual showing sufficient to comprise ‘probable cause,’ the obvious assumption is that there will be a truthful showing.” This does not mean “truthful” in the sense that every fact recited in the warrant affidavit is necessarily correct, for probable cause may be founded upon hearsay and upon information received from informants, as well as upon information within the affiant’s own knowledge that sometimes must be garnered hastily. But surely it is to be “truthful” in the sense that the information put forth is believed or appropriately accepted by the affiant as true. It is established law that a warrant affidavit must set forth particular facts and circumstances underlying the existence of probable cause, so as to allow the magistrate to make an independent evaluation of the matter. If an informant’s tip is the source of information, the affidavit must recite “some of the underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded” that relevant evidence might be discovered, and “some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer concluded that the informant, whose identity need not be disclosed, … was ‘credible’ or his information ‘reliable.’” Because it is the magistrate who must determine independently whether there is probable cause, it would be an unthinkable imposition upon his authority if a warrant affidavit, revealed after the fact to contain a deliberately or reckless false statement, were to stand beyond impeachment.

First, a flat ban on impeachment of veracity could denude the probable-cause requirement of all real meaning. The requirement that a warrant not issue “but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,” would be reduced to a nullity if a police officer was able to use deliberately falsified allegations to demonstrate probable cause, and, having misled the magistrate, then was able to remain confident that the ploy was worthwhile. It is this specter of intentional falsification that, we think, has evoked such widespread opposition to the flat nonimpeachment rule. On occasion, of course, an instance of deliberate falsity will be exposed and confirmed without a special inquiry either at trial or at a hearing on the sufficiency of the affidavit. A flat nonimpeachment rule would bar re-examination of the warrant even in these cases.

Second, the hearing before the magistrate not always will suffice to discourage lawless or reckless misconduct. The pre-search proceeding is necessarily ex parte, since the subject of the search cannot be tipped off to the application for a warrant lest he destroy or remove evidence. The usual reliance of our legal system on adversary proceedings itself should be an indication that an ex parte inquiry is likely to be less vigorous. The magistrate has no acquaintance with the information that may contradict the good faith and reasonable basis of the affiant’s allegations. The pre-search proceeding will frequently be marked by haste, because of the understandable desire to act before the evidence disappears; this urgency will not always permit the magistrate to make an extended independent examination of the affiant or other witnesses.

Third, the alternative sanctions of a perjury prosecution, administrative discipline, contempt, or a civil suit are not likely to fill the gap. Mapp v. Ohio implicitly rejected the adequacy of these alternatives. Mr. Justice Douglas noted this in his concurrence in Mapp. “‘Self-scrutiny is a lofty ideal, but its exaltation reaches new heights if we expect a District Attorney to prosecute himself or his associates for well-meaning violations of the search and seizure clause during a raid the District Attorney or his associates have ordered.’”

Fourth, allowing an evidentiary hearing, after a suitable preliminary proffer of material falsity, would not diminish the importance and solemnity of the warrant-issuing process. It is the ex parte nature of the initial hearing, rather than the magistrate’s capacity, that is the reason for the review. A magistrate’s determination is presently subject to review before trial as to sufficiency without any undue interference with the dignity of the magistrate’s function. Our reluctance today to extend the rule of exclusion beyond instances of deliberate misstatements, and those of reckless disregard, leaves a broad field where the magistrate is the sole protection of a citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights, namely, in instances where police have been merely negligent in checking or recording the facts relevant to a probable-cause determination.

Fifth, the claim that a post-search hearing will confuse the issue of the defendant’s guilt with the issue of the State’s possible misbehavior is footless. The hearing will not be in the presence of the jury. An issue extraneous to guilt already is examined in any probable-cause determination or review of probable cause. Nor, if a sensible threshold showing is required and sensible substantive requirements for suppression are maintained, need there be any new large-scale commitment of judicial resources; many claims will wash out at an early stage, and the more substantial ones in any event would require judicial resources for vindication if the suggested alternative sanctions were truly to be effective. The requirement of a substantial preliminary showing would suffice to prevent the misuse of a veracity hearing for purposes of discovery or obstruction. And because we are faced today with only the question of the integrity of the affiant’s representations as to his own activities, we need not decide, and we in no way predetermine, the difficult question whether a reviewing court must ever require the revelation of the identity of an informant once a substantial preliminary showing of falsity has been made.

Sixth and finally, as to the argument that the exclusionary rule should not be extended to a “new” area, we cannot regard any such extension really to be at issue here. Despite the deep skepticism of Members of this Court as to the wisdom of extending the exclusionary rule to collateral areas, such as civil or grand jury proceedings, the Court has not questioned, in the absence of a more efficacious sanction, the continued application of the rule to suppress evidence from the State’s case where a Fourth Amendment violation has been substantial and deliberate. We see no principled basis for distinguishing between the question of the sufficiency of an affidavit, which also is subject to a post-search re-examination, and the question of its integrity.

IV

In sum, and to repeat with some embellishment what we stated at the beginning of this opinion: There is, of course, a presumption of validity with respect to the affidavit supporting the search warrant. To mandate an evidentiary hearing, the challenger’s attack must be more than conclusory and must be supported by more than a mere desire to cross-examine. There must be allegations of deliberate falsehood or of reckless disregard for the truth, and those allegations must be accompanied by an offer of proof. They should point out specifically the portion of the warrant affidavit that is claimed to be false; and they should be accompanied by a statement of supporting reasons. Affidavits or sworn or otherwise reliable statements of witnesses should be furnished, or their absence satisfactorily explained. Allegations of negligence or innocent mistake are insufficient. The deliberate falsity or reckless disregard whose impeachment is permitted today is only that of the affiant, not of any nongovernmental informant. Finally, if these requirements are met, and if, when material that is the subject of the alleged falsity or reckless disregard is set to one side, there remains sufficient content in the warrant affidavit to support a finding of probable cause, no hearing is required. On the other hand, if the remaining content is insufficient, the defendant is entitled, under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, to his hearing. Whether he will prevail at that hearing is, of course, another issue.

Because of Delaware’s absolute rule, its courts did not have occasion to consider the proffer put forward by petitioner Franks. Since the framing of suitable rules to govern proffers is a matter properly left to the States, we decline ourselves to pass on petitioner’s proffer. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Delaware is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Notes, Comments, and Questions

The details of suppression motion practice differ markedly among jurisdictions and even among judges in the same courthouse. Students who eventually practice criminal law must study carefully the rules and preferences of the judges before whom they appear. The overwhelming bulk of criminal cases never go to trial, and suppression hearings are often the most important court proceeding in a case.

One risk of which defense counsel must be aware concerns the use of suppression hearing testimony against a defendant should a case eventually go to trial. While such testimony cannot be used during the prosecution’s case in chief (that is, cannot be used substantively to prove the defendant’s guilt), see Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 390 (1968), it can be used to impeach the defendant should her trial testimony contradict what she said at the hearing. See, e.g., United States v. Beltran-Gutierrez, 19 F.3d 1287, 1290–91 (9th Cir. 1994); United States v. Geraldo, 271 F.3d 1112, 1116 (D.C. Cir. 2001).

An Introduction to the Availability of Monetary Damages

Much as members of the public commonly overestimate the role of the exclusionary rule in freeing guilty defendants on “technicalities,” public opinion also overestimates the availability of money damages to the victims of police misconduct. For multiple reasons, persons who suffer unlawful searches and seizures—as well as those who experience violations of their rights related to interrogations—rarely recover money.

First, many people under police investigation—the people most likely to undergo searches, seizures, and interrogations, whether lawful or unlawful—are criminals. Imagine, for example, that police violate the “knock-and-announce” rule and break down a suspect’s door unlawfully. Then, while executing a valid search warrant, police find cocaine. Under the rule of Hudson v. Michigan (Chapter 32), the knock-and-announce violation would not stop prosecutors from using the seized drugs at trial to convict the suspect of illegal possession. In theory, the convicted defendant could then sue police for damages related to the breaking of his door. A lawsuit against state officials could be brought under “Section 1983,” as 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is commonly known. A suit against federal officials could be brought under the remedy provided in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), which provides a civil remedy (known as a “Bivens action”) for certain constitutional violations by federal agents. See also Hernandez v. Mesa, 140 S. Ct. 735 (U.S. 2020) (holding that family of a Mexican victim of unreasonable cross-border shooting by U.S. Border Patrol agent cannot bring Bivens action); Egbert v. Boule, 142 S. Ct. 457 (2021) (futher limiting the scope of Bivens).

In practice, however, the defendant would likely have trouble finding a lawyer willing to take the case. In order to make his case to jurors, the convicted criminal defendant—now a civil plaintiff—would need to describe the incident, which involves police finding cocaine at his home. Further, the plaintiff’s testimony could be impeached with evidence of the drug conviction.⁴ Jurors have been known to disfavor claims brought by convicted felons.

While a prevailing plaintiff in a “constitutional tort” case against state officials is entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees paid by the defendant,⁵ a plaintiff who loses must pay his own lawyer. Therefore, unless the victim of police misconduct has money for legal bills, he must convince a lawyer to take his case on a contingent fee basis, which a lawyer is likely to do only if she expects to win. In addition, if the actual damages awarded to prevailing plaintiffs are low, lawyers may not profit unless they win a high percentage of their cases. A lawyer who represents an indigent civil rights plaintiff on a contingency basis often pays up front for expenses such as travel, depositions, and expert witnesses. If the client loses, the lawyer may never be repaid for expenses in the tens of thousands of dollars. If the client wins, then the lawyer must hope that the judge’s definition of a “reasonable fee” is fair, which may not always be true.⁶ Unless a lawyer is taking the rare civil rights case on the side of a different kind of practice, the lawyer can make a living only if occasional clients win sizeable judgments. But juries have been known to award trivial sums, even in cases of serious misconduct.⁷ While some cases do yield large judgments,⁸ the overwhelming majority of practicing lawyers have no interest in representing civil rights plaintiffs who are unable to pay hourly bills. Many would-be plaintiffs with credible claims of unlawful searches and seizures, including police brutality and wrongful shootings, often cannot find lawyers to bring their cases.

Second, even if a plaintiff wins a court ruling that police violated his constitutional rights, he may be denied monetary compensation under the doctrine of “qualified immunity.” Under qualified immunity, a defendant need not pay monetary damages unless her conduct violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. In other words, even if a court finds that the defendant violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights, the plaintiff cannot recover unless the defendant’s behavior violated “clearly established” law.

Supreme Court of the United States

Andrew Kisela v. Amy Hughes

Decided April 2, 2018 – 138 S. Ct. 1148

PER CURIAM.

Petitioner Andrew Kisela, a police officer in Tucson, Arizona, shot respondent Amy Hughes. Kisela and two other officers had arrived on the scene after hearing a police radio report that a woman was engaging in erratic behavior with a knife. They had been there but a few minutes, perhaps just a minute. When Kisela fired, Hughes was holding a large kitchen knife, had taken steps toward another woman standing nearby, and had refused to drop the knife after at least two commands to do so. The question is whether at the time of the shooting Kisela’s actions violated clearly established law.

The record, viewed in the light most favorable to Hughes, shows the following. In May 2010, somebody in Hughes’ neighborhood called 911 to report that a woman was hacking a tree with a kitchen knife. Kisela and another police officer, Alex Garcia, heard about the report over the radio in their patrol car and responded. A few minutes later the person who had called 911 flagged down the officers; gave them a description of the woman with the knife; and told them the woman had been acting erratically. About the same time, a third police officer, Lindsay Kunz, arrived on her bicycle.

Garcia spotted a woman, later identified as Sharon Chadwick, standing next to a car in the driveway of a nearby house. A chain-link fence with a locked gate separated Chadwick from the officers. The officers then saw another woman, Hughes, emerge from the house carrying a large knife at her side. Hughes matched the description of the woman who had been seen hacking a tree. Hughes walked toward Chadwick and stopped no more than six feet from her.

All three officers drew their guns. At least twice they told Hughes to drop the knife. Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Hughes, Chadwick said “take it easy” to both Hughes and the officers. Hughes appeared calm, but she did not acknowledge the officers’ presence or drop the knife. The top bar of the chain-link fence blocked Kisela’s line of fire, so he dropped to the ground and shot Hughes four times through the fence. Then the officers jumped the fence, handcuffed Hughes, and called paramedics, who transported her to a hospital. There she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Less than a minute had transpired from the moment the officers saw Chadwick to the moment Kisela fired shots.

All three of the officers later said that at the time of the shooting they subjectively believed Hughes to be a threat to Chadwick. After the shooting, the officers discovered that Chadwick and Hughes were roommates, that Hughes had a history of mental illness, and that Hughes had been upset with Chadwick over a $20 debt. In an affidavit produced during discovery, Chadwick said that a few minutes before the shooting her boyfriend had told her Hughes was threatening to kill Chadwick’s dog, named Bunny. Chadwick “came home to find” Hughes “somewhat distressed,” and Hughes was in the house holding Bunny “in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other.” Hughes asked Chadwick if she “wanted [her] to use the knife on the dog.” The officers knew none of this, though. Chadwick went outside to get $20 from her car, which is when the officers first saw her. In her affidavit Chadwick said that she did not feel endangered at any time. Based on her experience as Hughes’ roommate, Chadwick stated that Hughes “occasionally has episodes in which she acts inappropriately,” but “she is only seeking attention.”

Hughes sued Kisela, alleging that Kisela had used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment to Kisela, but the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. Kisela then filed a petition for certiorari in this Court. That petition is now granted.

Here, the Court need not, and does not, decide whether Kisela violated the Fourth Amendment when he used deadly force against Hughes. For even assuming a Fourth Amendment violation occurred—a proposition that is not at all evident—on these facts Kisela was at least entitled to qualified immunity.

“Qualified immunity attaches when an official’s conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” “Because the focus is on whether the officer had fair notice that her conduct was unlawful, reasonableness is judged against the backdrop of the law at the time of the conduct.”

Although “this Court’s caselaw does not require a case directly on point for a right to be clearly established, existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” “In other words, immunity protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” This Court has “‘repeatedly told courts—and the Ninth Circuit in particular—not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality.’”

“[S]pecificity is especially important in the Fourth Amendment context, where the Court has recognized that it is sometimes difficult for an officer to determine how the relevant legal doctrine, here excessive force, will apply to the factual situation the officer confronts.” Use of excessive force is an area of the law “in which the result depends very much on the facts of each case,” and thus police officers are entitled to qualified immunity unless existing precedent “squarely governs” the specific facts at issue. Precedent involving similar facts can help move a case beyond the otherwise “hazy border between excessive and acceptable force” and thereby provide an officer notice that a specific use of force is unlawful.

“Of course, general statements of the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning to officers.” But the general rules [] “do not by themselves create clearly established law outside an ‘obvious case.’” Where constitutional guidelines seem inapplicable or too remote, it does not suffice for a court simply to state that an officer may not use unreasonable and excessive force, deny qualified immunity, and then remit the case for a trial on the question of reasonableness. An officer “cannot be said to have violated a clearly established right unless the right’s contours were sufficiently definite that any reasonable official in the defendant’s shoes would have understood that he was violating it.” That is a necessary part of the qualified-immunity standard, and it is a part of the standard that the Court of Appeals here failed to implement in a correct way.

Kisela says he shot Hughes because, although the officers themselves were in no apparent danger, he believed she was a threat to Chadwick. Kisela had mere seconds to assess the potential danger to Chadwick. He was confronted with a woman who had just been seen hacking a tree with a large kitchen knife and whose behavior was erratic enough to cause a concerned bystander to call 911 and then flag down Kisela and Garcia. Kisela was separated from Hughes and Chadwick by a chain-link fence; Hughes had moved to within a few feet of Chadwick; and she failed to acknowledge at least two commands to drop the knife. Those commands were loud enough that Chadwick, who was standing next to Hughes, heard them. This is far from an obvious case in which any competent officer would have known that shooting Hughes to protect Chadwick would violate the Fourth Amendment.

[T]he petition for certiorari is granted; the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed; and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice GINSBURG joins, dissenting.

Officer Andrew Kisela shot Amy Hughes while she was speaking with her roommate, Sharon Chadwick, outside of their home. The record, properly construed at this stage, shows that at the time of the shooting: Hughes stood stationary about six feet away from Chadwick, appeared “composed and content” and held a kitchen knife down at her side with the blade facing away from Chadwick. Hughes was nowhere near the officers, had committed no illegal act, was suspected of no crime, and did not raise the knife in the direction of Chadwick or anyone else. Faced with these facts, the two other responding officers held their fire, and one testified that he “wanted to continue trying verbal command[s] and see if that would work.” But not Kisela. He thought it necessary to use deadly force, and so, without giving a warning that he would open fire, he shot Hughes four times, leaving her seriously injured.

If this account of Kisela’s conduct sounds unreasonable, that is because it was. And yet, the Court today insulates that conduct from liability under the doctrine of qualified immunity, holding that Kisela violated no “clearly established” law. I disagree. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Hughes, as the Court must at summary judgment, a jury could find that Kisela violated Hughes’ clearly established Fourth Amendment rights by needlessly resorting to lethal force. In holding otherwise, the Court misapprehends the facts and misapplies the law, effectively treating qualified immunity as an absolute shield. I therefore respectfully dissent.

I

This case arrives at our doorstep on summary judgment, so we must “view the evidence … in the light most favorable to” Hughes, the nonmovant, “with respect to the central facts of this case.” The majority purports to honor this well-settled principle, but its efforts fall short. Although the majority sets forth most of the relevant events that transpired, it conspicuously omits several critical facts and draws premature inferences that bear on the qualified-immunity inquiry. Those errors are fatal to its analysis, because properly construing all of the facts in the light most favorable to Hughes, and drawing all inferences in her favor, a jury could find that the following events occurred on the day of Hughes’ encounter with the Tucson police.

On May 21, 2010, Kisela and Officer-in-Training Alex Garcia received a “‘check welfare’” call about a woman chopping away at a tree with a knife. They responded to the scene, where they were informed by the person who had placed the call (not Chadwick) that the woman with the knife had been acting “erratically.” A third officer, Lindsay Kunz, later joined the scene. The officers observed Hughes, who matched the description given to the officers of the woman alleged to have been cutting the tree, emerge from a house with a kitchen knife in her hand. Hughes exited the front door and approached Chadwick, who was standing outside in the driveway.

Hughes then stopped about six feet from Chadwick, holding the kitchen knife down at her side with the blade pointed away from Chadwick. Hughes and Chadwick conversed with one another; Hughes appeared “composed and content,” and did not look angry. At no point during this exchange did Hughes raise the kitchen knife or verbally threaten to harm Chadwick or the officers. Chadwick later averred that, during the incident, she was never in fear of Hughes and “was not the least bit threatened by the fact that [Hughes] had a knife in her hand” and that Hughes “never acted in a threatening manner.” The officers did not observe Hughes commit any crime, nor was Hughes suspected of committing one.

Nevertheless, the officers hastily drew their guns and ordered Hughes to drop the knife. The officers gave that order twice, but the commands came “in quick succession.” The evidence in the record suggests that Hughes may not have heard or understood the officers’ commands and may not have been aware of the officers’ presence at all. Although the officers were in uniform, they never verbally identified themselves as law enforcement officers.

Kisela did not wait for Hughes to register, much less respond to, the officers’ rushed commands. Instead, Kisela immediately and unilaterally escalated the situation. Without giving any advance warning that he would shoot, and without attempting less dangerous methods to deescalate the situation, he dropped to the ground and shot four times at Hughes (who was stationary) through a chain-link fence. After being shot, Hughes fell to the ground, screaming and bleeding from her wounds. She looked at the officers and asked, “‘Why’d you shoot me?’” Hughes was immediately transported to the hospital, where she required treatment for her injuries. Kisela alone resorted to deadly force in this case. Confronted with the same circumstances as Kisela, neither of his fellow officers took that drastic measure.

II

Police officers are not entitled to qualified immunity if “(1) they violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, and (2) the unlawfulness of their conduct was ‘clearly established at the time.’” Faithfully applying that well-settled standard, the Ninth Circuit held that a jury could find that Kisela violated Hughes’ clearly established Fourth Amendment rights. That conclusion was correct.

A

I begin with the first step of the qualified-immunity inquiry: whether there was a violation of a constitutional right. [Justice Sotomayer concluded (consistent with the Ninth Circuit opinion) that the “facts would permit a jury to conclude that Kisela acted outside the bounds of the Fourth Amendment by shooting Hughes four times.”]

Rather than defend the reasonableness of Kisela’s conduct, the majority sidesteps the inquiry altogether and focuses instead on the “clearly established” prong of the qualified-immunity analysis. To be “‘clearly established’ … [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” That standard is not nearly as onerous as the majority makes it out to be. As even the majority must acknowledge, this Court has long rejected the notion that “an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful,” “[O]fficials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances.” At its core, then, the “clearly established” inquiry boils down to whether Kisela had “fair notice” that he acted unconstitutionally.

The answer to that question is yes. This Court’s precedents make clear that a police officer may only deploy deadly force against an individual if the officer “has probable cause to believe that the [person] poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others.” It is equally well established that any use of lethal force must be justified by some legitimate governmental interest. Consistent with those clearly established principles, and contrary to the majority’s conclusion, Ninth Circuit precedent predating these events further confirms that Kisela’s conduct was clearly unreasonable. Because Kisela plainly lacked any legitimate interest justifying the use of deadly force against a woman who posed no objective threat of harm to officers or others, had committed no crime, and appeared calm and collected during the police encounter, he was not entitled to qualified immunity.

In sum, precedent existing at the time of the shooting clearly established the unconstitutionality of Kisela’s conduct. The majority’s decision, no matter how much it says otherwise, ultimately rests on a faulty premise: that those cases are not identical to this one. But that is not the law, for our cases have never required a factually identical case to satisfy the “clearly established” standard. It is enough that governing law places “the constitutionality of the officer’s conduct beyond debate.” Because, taking the facts in the light most favorable to Hughes, it is “beyond debate” that Kisela’s use of deadly force was objectively unreasonable, he was not entitled to summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity.

III

This unwarranted summary reversal is symptomatic of “a disturbing trend regarding the use of this Court’s resources” in qualified-immunity cases. As I have previously noted, this Court routinely displays an unflinching willingness “to summarily reverse courts for wrongly denying officers the protection of qualified immunity” but “rarely intervene[s] where courts wrongly afford officers the benefit of qualified immunity in these same cases.” Such a one-sided approach to qualified immunity transforms the doctrine into an absolute shield for law enforcement officers, gutting the deterrent effect of the Fourth Amendment.

The majority today exacerbates that troubling asymmetry. Its decision is not just wrong on the law; it also sends an alarming signal to law enforcement officers and the public. It tells officers that they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished. Because there is nothing right or just under the law about this, I respectfully dissent.

Notes, Comments, and Questions

Recently, the Court again constrained the ability of plaintiffs to sue police. In Vega v. Tekoh, 142 S. Ct. 858 (2022), the Court held that when police violate Miranda by conducting a custodial interrogation without delivering the required warnings, the Miranda violation does not provide the basis for a Section 1983 claim.

Our next case involves serious violations of the Court’s rule set forth in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), which requires that prosecutors provide material exculpatory evidence in their possession to the defense. Although this book does not explore the Brady rule, students should recognize its importance to avoiding wrongful convictions. Our next case illustrates the impediments in the path of a defendant who seeks monetary damages after winning release from prison by proving a Brady violation.

A bit of background will help students understand the plaintiff’s cause of action. Because prosecutors (much like judges) normally enjoy absolute immunity from Section 1983 liability for actions taken during and in preparation for trial, see Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259 (1993), plaintiff John Thompson alleged that district attorney Harry Connick failed to train his prosecutors adequately about their duty under Brady to produce evidence. Only especially egregious failures to train can justify civil liability.

Supreme Court of the United States

Harry F. Connick v. John Thompson

Decided March 29, 2011—563 U.S. 51

Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office now concedes that, in prosecuting respondent John Thompson for attempted armed robbery, prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that should have been turned over to the defense under Brady v. Maryland. Thompson was convicted. Because of that conviction Thompson elected not to testify in his own defense in his later trial for murder, and he was again convicted. Thompson spent 18 years in prison, including 14 years on death row. One month before Thompson’s scheduled execution, his investigator discovered the undisclosed evidence from his armed robbery trial. The reviewing court determined that the evidence was exculpatory, and both of Thompson’s convictions were vacated.

After his release from prison, Thompson sued petitioner Harry Connick, in his official capacity as the Orleans Parish District Attorney, for damages. Thompson alleged that Connick had failed to train his prosecutors adequately about their duty to produce exculpatory evidence and that the lack of training had caused the nondisclosure in Thompson’s robbery case. The jury awarded Thompson $14 million, and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed by an evenly divided en banc court. We granted certiorari to decide whether a district attorney’s office may be held liable under § 1983 for failure to train based on a single Brady violation. We hold that it cannot.

I

A

In early 1985, John Thompson was charged with the murder of Raymond T. Liuzza, Jr. in New Orleans. Publicity following the murder charge led the victims of an unrelated armed robbery to identify Thompson as their attacker. The district attorney charged Thompson with attempted armed robbery.

As part of the robbery investigation, a crime scene technician took from one of the victims’ pants a swatch of fabric stained with the robber’s blood. Approximately one week before Thompson’s armed robbery trial, the swatch was sent to the crime laboratory. Two days before the trial, assistant district attorney Bruce Whittaker received the crime lab’s report, which stated that the perpetrator had blood type B. There is no evidence that the prosecutors ever had Thompson’s blood tested or that they knew what his blood type was. Whittaker claimed he placed the report on assistant district attorney James Williams’ desk, but Williams denied seeing it. The report was never disclosed to Thompson’s counsel.

Williams tried the armed robbery case with assistant district attorney Gerry Deegan. On the first day of trial, Deegan checked all of the physical evidence in the case out of the police property room, including the blood-stained swatch. Deegan then checked all of the evidence but the swatch into the courthouse property room. The prosecutors did not mention the swatch or the crime lab report at trial, and the jury convicted Thompson of attempted armed robbery.

A few weeks later, Williams and special prosecutor Eric Dubelier tried Thompson for the Liuzza murder. Because of the armed robbery conviction, Thompson chose not to testify in his own defense. He was convicted and sentenced to death. In the 14 years following Thompson’s murder conviction, state and federal courts reviewed and denied his challenges to the conviction and sentence. The State scheduled Thompson’s execution for May 20, 1999.

In late April 1999, Thompson’s private investigator discovered the crime lab report from the armed robbery investigation in the files of the New Orleans Police Crime Laboratory. Thompson was tested and found to have blood type O, proving that the blood on the swatch was not his. Thompson’s attorneys presented this evidence to the district attorney’s office, which, in turn, moved to stay the execution and vacate Thompson’s armed robbery conviction. The Louisiana Court of Appeals then reversed Thompson’s murder conviction, concluding that the armed robbery conviction unconstitutionally deprived Thompson of his right to testify in his own defense at the murder trial. In 2003, the district attorney’s office retried Thompson for Liuzza’s murder. The jury found him not guilty.

B

Thompson then brought this action against the district attorney’s office, Connick, Williams, and others, alleging that their conduct caused him to be wrongfully convicted, incarcerated for 18 years, and nearly executed. The only claim that proceeded to trial was Thompson’s claim under § 1983 that the district attorney’s office had violated Brady by failing to disclose the crime lab report in his armed robbery trial. Thompson alleged liability under two theories: (1) the Brady violation was caused by an unconstitutional policy of the district attorney’s office; and (2) the violation was caused by Connick’s deliberate indifference to an obvious need to train the prosecutors in his office in order to avoid such constitutional violations.

Before trial, Connick conceded that the failure to produce the crime lab report constituted a Brady violation. Accordingly, the District Court instructed the jury that the “only issue” was whether the nondisclosure was caused by either a policy, practice, or custom of the district attorney’s office or a deliberately indifferent failure to train the office’s prosecutors.

Although no prosecutor remembered any specific training session regarding Brady prior to 1985, it was undisputed at trial that the prosecutors were familiar with the general Brady requirement that the State disclose to the defense evidence in its possession that is favorable to the accused. Prosecutors testified that office policy was to turn crime lab reports and other scientific evidence over to the defense. They also testified that, after the discovery of the undisclosed crime lab report in 1999, prosecutors disagreed about whether it had to be disclosed under Brady absent knowledge of Thompson’s blood type.

The jury rejected Thompson’s claim that an unconstitutional office policy caused the Brady violation, but found the district attorney’s office liable for failing to train the prosecutors. The jury awarded Thompson $14 million in damages, and the District Court added more than $1 million in attorney’s fees and costs.

After the verdict, Connick renewed his objection—which he had raised on summary judgment—that he could not have been deliberately indifferent to an obvious need for more or different Brady training because there was no evidence that he was aware of a pattern of similar Brady violations. The District Court rejected this argument.

A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. The Court of Appeals sitting en banc vacated the panel opinion, granted rehearing, and divided evenly, thereby affirming the District Court. We granted certiorari.

II

The Brady violation conceded in this case occurred when one or more of the four prosecutors involved with Thompson’s armed robbery prosecution failed to disclose the crime lab report to Thompson’s counsel. Under Thompson’s failure-to-train theory, he bore the burden of proving both (1) that Connick, the policymaker for the district attorney’s office, was deliberately indifferent to the need to train the prosecutors about their Brady disclosure obligation with respect to evidence of this type and (2) that the lack of training actually caused the Brady violation in this case. Connick argues that he was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because Thompson did not prove that he was on actual or constructive notice of, and therefore deliberately indifferent to, a need for more or different Brady training. We agree.

A

Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides in relevant part:

“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State … subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress ….”

A municipality or other local government may be liable under this section if the governmental body itself “subjects” a person to a deprivation of rights or “causes” a person “to be subjected” to such deprivation. But, under § 1983, local governments are responsible only for “their own illegal acts.” They are not vicariously liable under § 1983 for their employees’ actions.

Plaintiffs who seek to impose liability on local governments under § 1983 must prove that “action pursuant to official municipal policy” caused their injury. Official municipal policy includes the decisions of a government’s lawmakers, the acts of its policymaking officials, and practices so persistent and widespread as to practically have the force of law. These are “action[s] for which the municipality is actually responsible.”

In limited circumstances, a local government’s decision not to train certain employees about their legal duty to avoid violating citizens’ rights may rise to the level of an official government policy for purposes of § 1983. A municipality’s culpability for a deprivation of rights is at its most tenuous where a claim turns on a failure to train. To satisfy the statute, a municipality’s failure to train its employees in a relevant respect must amount to “deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the [untrained employees] come into contact.” Only then “can such a shortcoming be properly thought of as a city ‘policy or custom’ that is actionable under § 1983.”

“‘[D]eliberate indifference’ is a stringent standard of fault, requiring proof that a municipal actor disregarded a known or obvious consequence of his action.” Thus, when city policymakers are on actual or constructive notice that a particular omission in their training program causes city employees to violate citizens’ constitutional rights, the city may be deemed deliberately indifferent if the policymakers choose to retain that program. The city’s “policy of inaction” in light of notice that its program will cause constitutional violations “is the functional equivalent of a decision by the city itself to violate the Constitution.” A less stringent standard of fault for a failure-to-train claim “would result in de facto respondeat superior liability on municipalities ….”

B

A pattern of similar constitutional violations by untrained employees is “ordinarily necessary” to demonstrate deliberate indifference for purposes of failure to train. Policymakers’ “continued adherence to an approach that they know or should know has failed to prevent tortious conduct by employees may establish the conscious disregard for the consequences of their action—the ‘deliberate indifference’—necessary to trigger municipal liability.” Without notice that a course of training is deficient in a particular respect, decisionmakers can hardly be said to have deliberately chosen a training program that will cause violations of constitutional rights.

Although Thompson does not contend that he proved a pattern of similar Brady violations, he points out that, during the ten years preceding his armed robbery trial, Louisiana courts had overturned four convictions because of Brady violations by prosecutors in Connick’s office. Those four reversals could not have put Connick on notice that the office’s Brady training was inadequate with respect to the sort of Brady violation at issue here. None of those cases involved failure to disclose blood evidence, a crime lab report, or physical or scientific evidence of any kind. Because those incidents are not similar to the violation at issue here, they could not have put Connick on notice that specific training was necessary to avoid this constitutional violation.

C

1

Instead of relying on a pattern of similar Brady violations, Thompson relies on [] “single-incident” liability. He contends that the Brady violation in his case was the “obvious” consequence of failing to provide specific Brady training, and that this showing of “obviousness” can substitute for the pattern of violations ordinarily necessary to establish municipal culpability.

Failure to train prosecutors in their Brady obligations does not fall within the narrow range of [] single-incident liability. Attorneys are trained in the law and equipped with the tools to interpret and apply legal principles, understand constitutional limits, and exercise legal judgment. Before they may enter the profession and receive a law license, all attorneys must graduate from law school or pass a substantive examination; attorneys in the vast majority of jurisdictions must do both.

In addition, attorneys in all jurisdictions must satisfy character and fitness standards to receive a law license and are personally subject to an ethical regime designed to reinforce the profession’s standards. An attorney who violates his or her ethical obligations is subject to professional discipline, including sanctions, suspension, and disbarment.

In light of this regime of legal training and professional responsibility, recurring constitutional violations are not the “obvious consequence” of failing to provide prosecutors with formal in-house training about how to obey the law. Prosecutors are not only equipped but are also ethically bound to know what Brady entails and to perform legal research when they are uncertain. A district attorney is entitled to rely on prosecutors’ professional training and ethical obligations in the absence of specific reason, such as a pattern of violations, to believe that those tools are insufficient to prevent future constitutional violations in “the usual and recurring situations with which [the prosecutors] must deal.” A licensed attorney making legal judgments, in his capacity as a prosecutor, about Brady material simply does not present the same “highly predictable” constitutional danger as [an] untrained officer.

We do not assume that prosecutors will always make correct Brady decisions or that guidance regarding specific Brady questions would not assist prosecutors. But showing merely that additional training would have been helpful in making difficult decisions does not establish municipal liability. “[P]rov[ing] that an injury or accident could have been avoided if an [employee] had had better or more training, sufficient to equip him to avoid the particular injury-causing conduct” will not suffice.

3

The District Court and the Court of Appeals panel erroneously believed that Thompson had proved deliberate indifference by showing the “obviousness” of a need for additional training. They based this conclusion on Connick’s awareness that (1) prosecutors would confront Brady issues while at the district attorney’s office; (2) inexperienced prosecutors were expected to understand Brady’s requirements; (3) Brady has gray areas that make for difficult choices; and (4) erroneous decisions regarding Brady evidence would result in constitutional violations. This is insufficient.

It does not follow that, because Brady has gray areas and some Brady decisions are difficult, prosecutors will so obviously make wrong decisions that failing to train them amounts to “a decision by the city itself to violate the Constitution.” To prove deliberate indifference, Thompson needed to show that Connick was on notice that, absent additional specified training, it was “highly predictable” that the prosecutors in his office would be confounded by those gray areas and make incorrect Brady decisions as a result. In fact, Thompson had to show that it was so predictable that failing to train the prosecutors amounted to conscious disregard for defendants’ Brady rights. He did not do so.

III

We conclude that this case does not fall within the narrow range of “single-incident” liability. The District Court should have granted Connick judgment as a matter of law on the failure-to-train claim because Thompson did not prove a pattern of similar violations that would “establish that the ‘policy of inaction’ [was] the functional equivalent of a decision by the city itself to violate the Constitution.” The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed.

Justice SCALIA, with whom Justice ALITO joins, concurring.

[T]o recover from a municipality under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must satisfy a “rigorous” standard of causation; he must “demonstrate a direct causal link between the municipal action and the deprivation of federal rights.” Thompson cannot meet that standard. The withholding of evidence in his case was almost certainly caused not by a failure to give prosecutors specific training, but by miscreant prosecutor Gerry Deegan’s willful suppression of evidence he believed to be exculpatory, in an effort to railroad Thompson. According to Deegan’s colleague Michael Riehlmann, in 1994 Deegan confessed to him—in the same conversation in which Deegan revealed he had only a few months to live—that he had “suppressed blood evidence in the armed robbery trial of John Thompson that in some way exculpated the defendant.” I have no reason to disbelieve that account, particularly since Riehlmann’s testimony hardly paints a flattering picture of himself: Riehlmann kept silent about Deegan’s misconduct for another five years, as a result of which he incurred professional sanctions. And if Riehlmann’s story is true, then the “moving force” behind the suppression of evidence was Deegan, not a failure of continuing legal education.

By now the reader has doubtless guessed the best-kept secret of this case: There was probably no Brady violation at all—except for Deegan’s (which, since it was a bad-faith, knowing violation, could not possibly be attributed to lack of training). The dissent surely knows this, which is why it leans heavily on the fact that Connick conceded that Brady was violated. I can honor that concession in my analysis of the case because even if it extends beyond Deegan’s deliberate actions, it remains irrelevant to Connick’s training obligations. For any Brady violation apart from Deegan’s was surely on the very frontier of our Brady jurisprudence; Connick could not possibly have been on notice decades ago that he was required to instruct his prosecutors to respect a right to untested evidence that we had not (and still have not) recognized. As a consequence, even if I accepted the dissent’s conclusion that failure-to-train liability could be premised on a single Brady error, I could not agree that the lack of an accurate training regimen caused the violation Connick has conceded.

Justice GINSBURG, with whom Justice BREYER, Justice SOTOMAYOR, and Justice KAGAN join, dissenting.

In Brady v. Maryland, this Court held that due process requires the prosecution to turn over evidence favorable to the accused and material to his guilt or punishment. That obligation, the parties have stipulated, was dishonored in this case; consequently, John Thompson spent 18 years in prison, 14 of them isolated on death row, before the truth came to light: He was innocent of the charge of attempted armed robbery, and his subsequent trial on a murder charge, by prosecutorial design, was fundamentally unfair.

The Court holds that the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office (District Attorney’s Office or Office) cannot be held liable, in a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for the grave injustice Thompson suffered. That is so, the Court tells us, because Thompson has shown only an aberrant Brady violation, not a routine practice of giving short shrift to Brady’s requirements. The evidence presented to the jury that awarded compensation to Thompson, however, points distinctly away from the Court’s assessment. As the trial record in the § 1983 action reveals, the conceded, long-concealed prosecutorial transgressions were neither isolated nor atypical.

From the top down, the evidence showed, members of the District Attorney’s Office, including the District Attorney himself, misperceived Brady’s compass and therefore inadequately attended to their disclosure obligations. Throughout the pretrial and trial proceedings against Thompson, the team of four engaged in prosecuting him for armed robbery and murder hid from the defense and the court exculpatory information Thompson requested and had a constitutional right to receive. The prosecutors did so despite multiple opportunities, spanning nearly two decades, to set the record straight. Based on the prosecutors’ conduct relating to Thompson’s trials, a fact trier could reasonably conclude that inattention to Brady was standard operating procedure at the District Attorney’s Office.

What happened here, the Court’s opinion obscures, was no momentary oversight, no single incident of a lone officer’s misconduct. Instead, the evidence demonstrated that misperception and disregard of Brady’s disclosure requirements were pervasive in Orleans Parish. That evidence, I would hold, established persistent, deliberately indifferent conduct for which the District Attorney’s Office bears responsibility under § 1983.

I dissent from the Court’s judgment mindful that Brady violations, as this case illustrates, are not easily detected. But for a chance discovery made by a defense team investigator weeks before Thompson’s scheduled execution, the evidence that led to his exoneration might have remained under wraps. The prosecutorial concealment Thompson encountered, however, is bound to be repeated unless municipal agencies bear responsibility—made tangible by § 1983 liability—for adequately conveying what Brady requires and for monitoring staff compliance. Failure to train, this Court has said, can give rise to municipal liability under § 1983 “where the failure … amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the [untrained employees] come into contact.” That standard is well met in this case.

Thompson discovered the prosecutors’ misconduct through a serendipitous series of events. In 1994, nine years after Thompson’s convictions, Deegan, the assistant prosecutor in the armed robbery trial, learned he was terminally ill. Soon thereafter, Deegan confessed to his friend Michael Riehlmann that he had suppressed blood evidence in the armed robbery case. Deegan did not heed Riehlmann’s counsel to reveal what he had done. For five years, Riehlmann, himself a former Orleans Parish prosecutor, kept Deegan’s confession to himself.

On April 16, 1999, the State of Louisiana scheduled Thompson’s execution. In an eleventh-hour effort to save his life, Thompson’s attorneys hired a private investigator. Deep in the crime lab archives, the investigator unearthed a microfiche copy of the lab report identifying the robber’s blood type. The copy showed that the report had been addressed to Whittaker. Thompson’s attorneys contacted Whittaker, who informed Riehlmann that the lab report had been found. Riehlmann thereupon told Whittaker that Deegan “had failed to turn over stuff that might have been exculpatory.” Riehlmann prepared an affidavit describing Deegan’s disclosure “that he had intentionally suppressed blood evidence in the armed robbery trial of John Thompson.”

Thompson’s lawyers presented to the trial court the crime lab report showing that the robber’s blood type was B, and a report identifying Thompson’s blood type as O. This evidence proved Thompson innocent of the robbery. The court immediately stayed Thompson’s execution and commenced proceedings to assess the newly discovered evidence.

Connick sought an abbreviated hearing. A full hearing was unnecessary, he urged, because the Office had confessed error and had moved to dismiss the armed robbery charges. The court insisted on a public hearing. Given “the history of this case,” the court said, it “was not willing to accept the representations that [Connick] and [his] office made [in their motion to dismiss].” After a full day’s hearing, the court vacated Thompson’s attempted armed robbery conviction and dismissed the charges. Before doing so, the court admonished:

“[A]ll day long there have been a number of young Assistant D.A.’s … sitting in this courtroom watching this, and I hope they take home … and take to heart the message that this kind of conduct cannot go on in this Parish if this Criminal Justice System is going to work.”

The District Attorney’s Office then initiated grand jury proceedings against the prosecutors who had withheld the lab report. Connick terminated the grand jury after just one day. He maintained that the lab report would not be Brady material if prosecutors did not know Thompson’s blood type. And he told the investigating prosecutor that the grand jury “w[ould] make [his] job more difficult.” In protest, that prosecutor tendered his resignation.

Thereafter, the Louisiana Court of Appeal reversed Thompson’s murder conviction. The unlawfully procured robbery conviction, the court held, had violated Thompson’s right to testify and thus fully present his defense in the murder trial. The merits of several Brady claims arising out of the murder trial, the court observed, had therefore become “moot.”

Undeterred by his assistants’ disregard of Thompson’s rights, Connick retried him for the Liuzza murder. Thompson’s defense was bolstered by evidence earlier unavailable to him: ten exhibits the prosecution had not disclosed when Thompson was first tried. The newly produced items included police reports describing the assailant in the murder case as having “close cut” hair, the police report recounting Perkins’ meetings with the Liuzza family, audio recordings of those meetings, and a 35-page supplemental police report. After deliberating for only 35 minutes, the jury found Thompson not guilty.

On May 9, 2003, having served more than 18 years in prison for crimes he did not commit, Thompson was released.

On July 16, 2003, Thompson commenced a civil action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that Connick, other officials of the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, and the Office itself, had violated his constitutional rights by wrongfully withholding Brady evidence. Thompson sought to hold Connick and the District Attorney’s Office liable for failure adequately to train prosecutors concerning their Brady obligations. Such liability attaches, I agree with the Court, only when the failure “amount[s] to ‘deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the [untrained employees] come into contact.’” I disagree, however, with the Court’s conclusion that Thompson failed to prove deliberate indifference.

Having weighed all the evidence, the jury in the § 1983 case found for Thompson, concluding that the District Attorney’s Office had been deliberately indifferent to Thompson’s Brady rights and to the need for training and supervision to safeguard those rights. “Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to [Thompson], as appropriate in light of the verdic[t] rendered by the jury,” I see no cause to upset the District Court’s determination, affirmed by the Fifth Circuit, that “ample evidence … adduced at trial” supported the jury’s verdict.

* * *

In our next chapter, we return to substantive criminal procedure law, examining the right to counsel provided by the Sixth Amendment.