Duke Lacrosse Players File Civil Rights Suit

Evans v. City of Durham, No 07-CV-00739; get used to hearing about it.

This is the civil rights action filed Friday by David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, three of the wrongly accused Duke lacrosse players, against ex-District Attorney Mike Nifong, the City of Durham, several police officers, and several lab personnel. Reports here, here , and here. The players seek compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys fees, and a laundry list of structural reforms to the Durham City Police Department, including the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the department.

I have asked our law-school librarian to track down a copy of the complaint, which I plan to distribute to my civil procedure and civil rights classes. I think this could be a rich teaching tool--about pleading and what goes into a complaint, constitutional litigation, prosecutorial and executive immunity, and the niceties of structural government reform litigation.

I will say more once I have had a chance to read it (hopefully early next week). My initial reaction, based on news reports, is that the plaintiffs may be overreaching in seeking these structural reforms. First, some of what they are requesting--such as injunction preventing the Durham Police Department from "targeting students of Duke University for selective enforcement of the criminal laws"--seeks to stop conduct that already is unlawful, so a judge is not going to issue an injunction for that (the old adage is that "equity will not enjoin a crime"). Second, victims of past police misconduct typically are deemed not to have standing to seek prospective relief in the form of changes to government operations, absent some facts indicating that the plaintiffs will again be subject to the same unconstitutional behavior in the future--in other words, allegations that any of these plaintiffs will again be arrested and charged with a crime and subject to the same improper departmental procedures that caused their past injuries.

Again these are merely preliminary thoughts, based on news reports (which I rarely trust fully). I want to hold off saying more until I have read the whole thing.

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