Supreme Court weighs effort to shield federal law enforcement : NPR

Five years ago, a gang riot broke out inside a federal prison in Hawaii.

Kekai Watanabe was beaten with a makeshift weapon known as a “lock in a sock.”

When he complained about serious back pain, a nurse told him to “stop being a cry baby.”

Seven months later, doctors diagnosed Watanabe with a fractured tail bone, and he sued the nurse for violating his Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear his case, which could determine whether federal law enforcement officers can be held to account when they violate constitutional rights. The claim by Watanabe, now 40, echoes far beyond the walls of prison — and into American streets where immigration officers have been accused of beating and running over migrants.

“What’s at stake here is whether, basically, we as a country are going to hold federal law enforcement officers accountable when they violate clearly established constitutional rights,” said Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck, who filed a “friend of the court” brief in the case. “I mean, it really is, I think, that stark.”

It’s already difficult for these claims to proceed, because the court requires people to show the facts in their cases are identical to precedent. In the federal prisons, the landmark case dates to 1980. The prisoner in that lawsuit died from untreated asthma. The nurse’s lawyers say Watanabe, the inmate from Hawaii, survived the gang attack in 2021, so his case is different enough that it should be dismissed.

Mary Hampton Mason worked at the Justice Department for nearly 35 years, in an office that evaluated these kinds of legal claims. Mason said rogue officers are rare, and problems are typically systemic.

“It’s a result of agency culture, it’s a result of training, it’s a result of all sorts of things, but these failures are really institutional,” Mason said.

The Supreme Court created a right to sue federal officers for wrongdoing in a 1971 case known as Bivens. But Mason said that precedent has been hollowed out for years, and the court should finally overrule it because it gives plaintiffs false hope.

“In fact in the last 20 years, I’m only aware of one Bivens case that has resulted in a judgment for the plaintiffs that … didn’t get reversed on appeal, and that’s in thousands and thousands and thousands of cases filed,” she said.