''Monroe v. Pape'', 365 U.S. 167 (1961), was a
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
case that considered the application of federal civil rights law to constitutional violations by city employees. The case was significant because it held that
42 U.S.C. § 1983
The Enforcement Act of 1871 (), also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, Third Enforcement Act, Third Ku Klux Klan Act, Civil Rights Act of 1871, or Force Act of 1871, is an Act of the United States Congress which empowered the President to suspend t ...
, a statutory provision from 1871, could be used to sue state officers who violated a plaintiff's constitutional rights. § 1983 had previously been a relatively obscure and little-used statute, but since ''Monroe'' it has become a central part of United States civil rights law.
Background
Thirteen police officers of the City of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, Illinois broke into the residence of the Monroe family. The officers roused the parents from their bed and made them stand naked in the living room while other officers ransacked every room of the house, emptying drawers and ripping mattress covers. Mr. Monroe was then taken to the police station and interrogated concerning a two-day-old
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
case. He was not allowed to make any telephone calls or to contact a lawyer during his interrogation. He was not charged and was finally released. The police had not acted under authority of a
search warrant
A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, ...
or an
arrest warrant
An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual, or the search and seizure of an individual's property.
Canada
Arrest warrants are issued by a j ...
when making the raid.
Plaintiffs Monroe (six
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
children and their parents) sued the police officers and the City of Chicago for violating their civil rights under
§1983.
The City of Chicago
moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it could not be held liable under the
Civil Rights Acts
Civil Rights Act may refer to several acts of the United States Congress, including:
* Civil Rights Act of 1866, extending the rights of emancipated slaves by stating that any person born in the United States regardless of race is an American citi ...
for acts committed in performance of its governmental functions. The District Court dismissed the complaint. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide two particular constitutional questions: (1) whether Congress, in enacting §1979/§1983 meant to give a remedy to parties deprived constitutional rights, privileges and immunities by an official's abuse of his position; and (2) whether Congress sought to bring municipal corporations within the ambit of §1979/§1983.
Opinion of the Court
The Supreme Court dismissed the complaint against the city itself, finding that Congress had not intended the word "person" in section 1983 to apply to municipalities. This aspect of Monroe was later partially overruled in ''
Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York
''Monell v. Department of Social Services'', 436 U.S. 658 (1978), is an opinion given by the United States Supreme Court in which the Court overruled '' Monroe v. Pape'' in holding that a local government is a "person" subject to suit under Section ...
'', which held that local governments were "persons" under the act and could face liability under certain circumstances.
However, the Court reversed the lower court's dismissal of the complaint as against the officials. The Court concluded that Congress "meant to give a remedy to parties deprived of constitutional rights, privileges, and immunities by an official's abuse of his position" under section 1983. Furthermore, the federal remedy was available despite Illinois constitutional provisions that provided protections similar to those provided by the Fourteenth Amendment and section 1983. Monroe remains good law for the proposition that the "state action" language of section 1983 is satisfied by the actions of any state actor at any level of state government.
Legal consequences
When ''Monroe v. Pape'' was decided, the annotations to 42
U.S.C.A. § 1981-1988 were contained in about 4 pages. Now those annotations consume approximately 2 volumes of the U.S.C.A.
This decision not only provided for compensation to injured citizens, but greatly deterred arbitrary actions by state officers. The scope of ''Monroe v. Pape'' covers much more than
police brutality
Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...
or racial bias; it has been invoked in cases ranging from improper land use decisions to inappropriate school allocations to wrongful denials of liquor licenses.
[42 U.S.C.A. § 1981 et seq.]
See also
* ''
Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police''
*
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 365
This is a list of all the United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court ca ...
References
External links
*
{{US4thAmendment, remedies, state=expanded
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court
1961 in United States case law
Civil rights movement case law
Second Enforcement Act of 1871 case law
United States state sovereign immunity case law
Overruled United States Supreme Court decisions