Court Ruling Creates Dangerous Loophole That Could Shield Local Governments From Accountability For Constitutional Abuses
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coroner’s macabre misconduct has exposed an even more disturbing problem: a legal loophole that could allow local governments to escape accountability for unconstitutional abuses by their own top decision-makers simply because those officials broke state or local law.
In a case involving an elected county coroner who secretly kept the skulls of deceased individuals as trophies, a federal appeals court ruled that the county could not be held liable for his unconstitutional conduct because his actions violated state law. Warning that the ruling could open the door to even greater government abuses without accountability, The Rutherford Institute has joined the Cato Institute, Due Process Institute and Public Accountability in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. In an amicus brief filed in Betts v. Boone County, Illinois, the coalition argues that the Seventh Circuit’s decision threatens to undermine the ability of ordinary Americans to seek redress when government officials violate their constitutional rights.
“The government keeps breaking the law, abusing its power and violating our rights. Yet somehow, it’s always the people who pay the price while the government escapes the consequences,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “The most disturbing thing about this case isn’t just what the coroner did. It’s that the courts have found a way to let the government off the hook for it. If the government can use the very laws it violated to shield itself from accountability, what protection do the American people really have? Constitutional rights mean little if there is no remedy when government officials violate them.”
The case arose after the family of Louise Betts learned that the Boone County coroner had secretly retained her skull following an autopsy in 1977. The family did not discover what had happened until more than four decades later, after the coroner’s death. The family sued Boone County, alleging that the coroner had violated their Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. Although the Seventh Circuit acknowledged the constitutional violation, it ruled that the county could not be held liable because the coroner’s conduct violated Illinois law. The ruling creates a troubling paradox: the very law intended to prohibit government misconduct becomes the government’s defense against being held responsible for it.
At issue is the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision in Monell v. Department of Social Services, which established that local governments may be held liable for constitutional violations resulting from official policies, customs or decisions by officials with final policymaking authority. Under the Seventh Circuit’s interpretation, however, even an official who otherwise possesses final policymaking authority may not expose a municipality to liability when the unconstitutional conduct also violates state or local law. The consequences extend far beyond this disturbing case. As Seventh Circuit Judge David Hamilton warned in dissent, the same reasoning could shield a municipality when a mayor orders police to shut down a political march by his opponents, when local officials engage in unlawful discrimination on the basis of religion or race, or when a sheriff abuses a prisoner.
The coalition points to decisions from other federal appeals courts that take a different approach, recognizing that local governments may be held accountable for unconstitutional actions by final policymakers even when those actions violate state or local law. Indeed, when Justice Neil Gorsuch served on the Tenth Circuit, he warned that allowing municipalities to escape liability whenever their final policymakers violated their own rules would create a perverse incentive for governments to adopt protections on paper and deliberately ignore them in practice.
The Rutherford Institute and its coalition partners warn that the Seventh Circuit’s ruling effectively creates a form of backdoor immunity for local governments at a time when qualified immunity already makes it difficult to hold individual officials accountable for constitutional violations. In the Betts family’s case, the consequences are particularly stark. Because the coroner is deceased, the county represents the family’s remaining avenue for obtaining a federal remedy. As the district court acknowledged, its ruling left the family with no federal recourse against either the deceased coroner or the county. The result is a constitutional violation without a remedy—and a dangerous precedent that could leave countless others without recourse when government officials abuse their power. The coalition is asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, resolve the conflict among federal appeals courts, and reaffirm that local governments may be held accountable for unconstitutional actions by officials with final policymaking authority—even when those actions violate state or local law.
Lori Alvino McGill and the University of Virginia School of Law Supreme Court Litigation Clinic helped advance the arguments in the amicus brief.
Betts v. Boone County, Illinois
Article posted with permission from John Whitehead
