| Venue: | SCOTUS |
| Facts: | Officers bust into Monroe's place in the early morning, roust him and his wife from bed, ransack the place, detain him at the station for 10 hours without charging him or allowing him contact with family or attorney, and then release him. Oh, and it turns out they had no warrant. |
| Posture: | Suit in federal court. The city of Chicago moves to dismiss saying that it's not liable for acts committed in performance of government functions. All the defendants move to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action under the constitution. Dismissed at district court. Ct. App. affirms the dismissal. Appeal. |
| Issue: | Did congress, in enacting § 1983, intend to give a remedy to parties deprived of constitutional rights by an official's abuse of his/her position? |
| Holding: | Yes. |
| Rule: | Your federal remedies are supplementary to your state ones-- you don't first have to get the state to reject you before you can seek a federal remedy. |
| Reasoning: | § 1983 was created under § 5 of 14A, to enforce the
provisions of the constitution. And the 4A right against
unreasonable searches is one of those provisions. And
congress has the power to enforce the privisions of 14A
against those who carry a badge of state authority.
There were three main concerns behind that legislation:
See, because the problem wasn't just the unavailability of state remedies, but rather the fact that some states were failing to enforce them with an even hand. This was initially to combat the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, but the force of it is to help out when someone is unwilling or unable to enforce a state law. The issue wasn't a quarrel with state law itself, but rather the enforcement of it. So it's no defense that there a state remedy exists. |
| Dicta: | Harlan (concurring): If we think a remedy should be available when a
state official's unconstitutional act is unauthorized, why shouldn't
there be one when it's authorized? And deprivation of a constitutional
right is different and more serious than deprivation of a state
right. Also, even though a state remedy exists, maybe it's
inadequate.
Frankfurter (dissenting): Art III jurisdiction assumes that the states will be the main guardians of the security of person and property, and we shouldn't think that 14A altered that basic aspect of federalism. Until congress declares its intent to shift the distribution of judicial power for the determination of causes between co-citizens of a state, we shouldn't do so. If we take this over, we let state legislators off the hook for making laws that protect their citizens in ways that are denied to congress. |