NEW ORLEANS – Partnering with top-tier private law firms and legal clinics across the country, the ACLU in Louisiana is taking on police misconduct.
The goal of the new program is to limit the scope of “qualified immunity,” a doctrine – supported by years of federal precedent – that makes it difficult to hold police departments and individual officers legally accountable when deaths and injuries occur during stops and seizures.
“A dearth of lawsuits challenging these unconstitutional abuses has exacerbated this crisis,” ACLU of Louisiana executive director Alanah Odoms Herbert said in a statement.
ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Alanah Odoms Herbert
Herbert says the ACLU of Louisiana will bring as many as 1,000 lawsuits through the program, which is called Justice Lab: Putting Racist Policing on Trial.
“[The lawsuits will] challenge racially motivated stops and seizures under the Fourth and 14th Amendments and any other applicable laws,” Herbert said.
ACLU of Louisiana Legal Director Nora Ahmed is leading the effort. Ahmed has enlisted 18 of the leading private law firms in the country to help the effort in Louisiana.
“The idea behind Justice Lab is that we can’t wait to hold police officers accountable until they maim or kill someone,” Ahmed told the Louisiana Record. “While those cases that fall short of excessive brutality are traditionally not economical to bring, we can start to shift the tide with the assistance of law firms and legal clinics that are willing to take on these cases pro bono.”
Before coming to Louisiana, Ahmed was a litigator at one of New York’s leading law firms.
“Coming from Big Law, I saw an unprecedented willingness among leaders of the private bar to be part of the solution to addressing racial injustice,” Ahmed said.
The ACLU of Louisiana hopes to enlist 100 private law firms and 25 law school legal clinics to work on Louisiana appeals.
“The sheer volume of cases will help incentivize police districts and individual officers to alter their conduct and respect the constitutional rights of the people they serve,” Ahmed said.
Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, civil complaints against police officers are not successful in court when officers kill or injure someone, as long as the police officer did not intentionally violate “clearly established law.”
The Justice Lab initiative will identify 1,000 plaintiffs who will then bring lawsuits that challenge previous decisions regarding stops and seizures that may have been unconstitutional.
“Our goal is to impose a tangible price – both monetary and non-monetary – on every identifiable, unconstitutional use of police force,” Ahmed said.