From: Rutherford Institute
On The Front Lines
March 28, 2013
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its ruling in Millbrook v. United States,
a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that the U.S. government
may be held liable for abuses intentionally carried out by law
enforcement officers in the course of their employment. The Court’s
ruling dovetails with arguments put forward by The Rutherford Institute
in its amicus brief, which urged the Court to enforce the plain meaning
of federal statutes allowing citizens to sue the government for injuries
intentionally inflicted by law enforcement officers.
In striking down lower court rulings, the justices held that the courts
had erred in dismissing a prisoner’s lawsuit alleging that three prison
guards had brutally and sexually assaulted him. The lower courts
justified their ruling under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which
allows individuals to sue the government for misconduct by law
enforcement officials only if the injury inflicted occurs while the
officers are in the course of making an arrest or seizure, or executing a
search. In their amicus brief, Rutherford Institute attorneys
asked the Supreme Court to protect citizens from government brutality by
eliminating the restriction on government liability.
“Hopefully, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Millbrook will send a
strong message to the government’s various law enforcement agencies
that they need to do a better job of policing their employees—whether
they’re police officers or prison guards—and holding them accountable to
respecting citizens’ rights, especially while on the job,” said John W.
Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “At a time when the
courts are increasingly giving deference to the police and prioritizing
security over civil liberties, this ruling is at least an encouraging
glimmer in the gloom.”
In 1948 Congress enacted the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) to provide a
limited waiver of “sovereign” immunity for the negligent acts of
government agents, despite the fact that the United States is generally
not liable for injuries to persons caused by the negligent or
intentional acts of government employees and agents. The original
version of the FTCA preserved government immunity for “intentional
torts” such as assault, battery and false imprisonment. However, in
1974, Congress amended the FTCA to allow the government to be sued for
intentional torts by “law enforcement officers.”
In 2011, Kim Millbrook, a prisoner at a federal penitentiary in
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, filed an FTCA lawsuit against the United States
alleging that three prison guards had brutally assaulted him in the
basement of the prison, forcibly restraining Millbrook and forcing him
to perform oral sex. Millbrook’s lawsuit was dismissed by a federal
district court which ruled that the 1974 amendment to the FTCA allowing
for intentional tort claims against law enforcement officers only
applies to acts that occur during searches, while seizing evidence, or
while making arrests. The district court’s decision was affirmed on
appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which,
relying on prior rulings from the circuit, held that because the 1974
amendment defines “law enforcement officers” as officers “empowered by
law to execute searches, to seize evidence, or to make arrests,” the
scope of the waiver of immunity for intentional torts applies only where
the harmful act occurs in the course of one of those three duties. The
U.S. Supreme Court rejected this interpretation, noting that the plain
language of the law does not restrict the waiver of immunity to acts
that occur during searches, seizures, and arrests. MORE
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