Court Opinion

ID: 9429163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:51.738031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:17.542852
License: Public Domain

Justice Marshall,
with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.
The District Court found that the city of Los Angeles authorizes its police officers to apply life-threatening choke-holds to citizens who pose no threat of violence, arid that respondent, Adolph Lyons, was subjected to such a chokehold. The Court today holds that a federal court is without power to enjoin the enforcement of the city’s policy, no matter how flagrantly unconstitutional it may be. Since no one can show that he will be choked in the future, no one — not even a person who, like Lyons, has almost been choked to death — has standing to challenge the continuation of the policy. The city is free to continue the policy indefinitely as long as it is willing to pay damages for the injuries and deaths that result. I dissent from this unprecedented and unwarranted approach to standing.
There is plainly a “case or controversy” concerning the constitutionality of the city’s chokehold policy. The constitutionality of that policy is directly implicated by Lyons’ claim for damages against the city. The complaint clearly alleges *114that the officer who choked Lyons was carrying out an official policy, and a municipality is liable under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for the conduct of its employees only if they acted pursuant to such a policy. Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 694 (1978). Lyons therefore has standing to challenge the city’s chokehold policy and to obtain whatever relief a court may ultimately deem appropriate. None of our prior decisions suggests that his requests for particular forms of relief raise any additional issues concerning his standing. Standing has always depended on whether a plaintiff has a “personal stake in the outcome of the controversy,” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962), not on the “precise nature of the relief sought.” Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U. S. 411, 423 (1969) (opinion of Marshall, J., joined by Warren, C. J., and Brennan, J.).
I
A
Respondent Adolph Lyons is a 24-year-old Negro male who resides in Los Angeles. According to the uncontradicted evidence in the record,1 at about 2 a. m. on October 6, 1976, Lyons was pulled over to the curb by two officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for a traffic infraction because one of his taillights was burned out. The officers greeted him with drawn revolvers as he exited from his car. Lyons was told to face his car and spread his legs. He did so. He was then ordered to clasp his hands and put them on top of his head. He again complied. After one of the officers completed a patdown search, Lyons dropped his hands, *115but was ordered to place them back above his head, and one of the officers grabbed Lyons’ hands and slammed them onto his head. Lyons complained about the pain caused by the ring of keys he was holding in his hand. Within 5 to 10 seconds, the officer began to choke Lyons by applying a forearm against his throat.' As Lyons struggled for air, the officer handcuffed him, but continued to apply the chokehold until he blacked out. When Lyons regained consciousness, he was lying face down on the ground, choking, gasping for air, and spitting up blood and dirt. He had urinated and defecated. He was issued a traffic citation and released.
On February 7, 1977, Lyons commenced this action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against the individual officers and the city, alleging violations of his rights under' the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution and seeking damages and declaratory and injunctive relief. He claimed that he was subjected to a chokehold without justification and that defendant officers were “carrying out the official policies, customs and practices of the Los Angeles Police Department and the City of Los Angeles.” Count II, ¶ 13.2 These allegations were included or incorporated in each of the Counts in which the city was named as a defendant. See Counts II through VI. Lyons alleged that the city authorizes the use of chokeholds “in innumerable situations where [the police] are not threatened by the use of any deadly force whatsoever.” Count V, ¶ 22.
B
Although the city instructs its officers that use of a choke-hold does not constitute deadly force, since 1975 no less than 16 persons have died following the use of a chokehold by *116an LAPD police officer. Twelve have been Negro males.3 The evidence submitted to the District Court4 established that for many years it has been the official policy of the city to permit police officers to employ chokeholds in a variety of situations where they face no threat of violence. In reported “altercations” between LAPD officers and citizens the choke-holds are used more frequently than any other means of physical restraint.5 Between February 1975 and July 1980, LAPD officers applied chokeholds on at least 975 occasions, which represented more than three-quarters of the reported altercations.6
It is undisputed that chokeholds pose a high and unpredictable risk of serious injury or death. Chokeholds are intended to bring a subject under control by causing pain and rendering him unconscious. Depending on the position of the officer’s arm and the force applied, the victim’s voluntary *117or involuntary reaction, and his state of health, an officer may inadvertently crush the victim’s larynx, trachea, or hyoid. The result may be death caused by either cardiac arrest or asphyxiation.7 An LAPD officer described the reaction of a person to being choked as “do[ing] the chicken,” *118Exh. 44, p. 93, in reference apparently to the reactions of a chicken when its neck is wrung. The victim experiences extreme pain. His face turns blue as he is deprived of oxygen, he goes into spasmodic convulsions, his eyes roll back, his body wriggles, his feet kick up and down, and his arms move about wildly.
Although there has been no occasion to determine the precise contours of the city’s chokehold policy, the evidence submitted to the District Court provides some indications. LAPD Training Officer Terry Speer testified that an officer is authorized to deploy a chokehold whenever he “feels that there’s about to be a bodily attack made on him.” App. 381 (emphasis added). A training bulletin states that “[c]ontrol holds . . . allow officers to subdue any resistance by the suspects.” Exh. 47, p. 1 (emphasis added). In the proceedings below the city characterized its own policy as authorizing the use of chokeholds “ ‘to gain control of a suspect who is violently resisting the officer or trying to escape,’” to “subdue any resistance by the suspects,”8 and to permit an officer, “where . . . resisted, but not necessarily threatened with serious bodily harm or death, ... to subdue a suspect who forcibly resists an officer.” (Emphasis added.)9
The training given LAPD officers provides additional revealing evidence of the city’s chokehold policy. Officer *119Speer testified that in instructing officers concerning the use of force, the LAPD does not distinguish between felony and misdemeanor suspects. App. 379. Moreover, the officers are taught to maintain the chokehold until the suspect goes limp, id., at 387; App. to Pet. for Cert. 51a, despite substantial evidence that the application of a chokehold invariably induces a “flight or flee” syndrome, producing an involuntary struggle by the victim which can easily be misinterpreted by the officer as willful resistance that must be overcome by prolonging the chokehold and increasing the force applied. See n. 7, supra. In addition, officers are instructed that the chokeholds can be safely deployed for up to three or four minutes. App. 387-388; App. to Pet. for Cert. 48. Robert Jarvis, the city’s expert who has taught at the Los Angeles Police Academy for the past 12 years, admitted that officers are never told that the bar-arm control can cause death if applied for just two seconds. App. 388. Of the nine deaths for which evidence was submitted to the District Court, the average duration of the choke where specified was approximately 40 seconds.
C
In determining the appropriateness of a preliminary injunction, the District Court recognized that the city’s policy is subject to the constraints imposed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court found that “[d]uring the course of this confrontation, said officers, without provocation or legal justification, applied a Department-authorized chokehold which resulted in injuries to plaintiff.” (Emphasis added.) The court found that the “City of Los Angeles and the Department authorize the use of these holds under circumstances where no one is threatened by death or grievous bodily harm.” The court concluded that the use of the chokeholds constitutes “deadly force,” and that the city may not constitutionally authorize the use of such force “in situations where death or serious bodily harm is not threatened.” On the basis of this conclusion, the District Court en*120tered a preliminary injunction enjoining “the use of both the carotid-artery and bar arm holds under circumstances which do not threaten death or serious bodily injury.”10 As the Court of Appeals noted, “[a]ll the trial judge has done, so far, is to tell the city that its police officers may not apply life threatening strangleholds to persons stopped in routine police work unless the application of such force is necessary to prevent serious bodily harm to an officer.” 656 F. 2d 417, 418 (1981).
II
At the outset it is important to emphasize that Lyons’ entitlement to injunctive relief and his entitlement to an award of damages both depend upon whether he can show that the city’s chokehold policy violates the Constitution. An indispensable prerequisite of municipal liability under 42 U. S. C. §1983 is proof that the conduct complained of is attributable to an unconstitutional official policy or custom. Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312, 326 (1981); Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S., at 694. It is not enough for a § 1983 plaintiff to show that the employees or agents of a municipality have violated or will violate the Constitution, for a municipality will not be held liable solely on a theory of respondeat superior. See Monell, supra, at 694.
The Court errs in suggesting that Lyons’ prayer for injunc-tive relief in Count V of his first amended complaint concerns a policy that was not responsible for his injuries and that therefore could not support an award of damages. Ante, at 106-107, n. 7. Paragraph 8 of the complaint alleges that Lyons was choked “without provocation, legal justification or ex*121cuse.” Paragraph 13 expressly alleges that “[t]he Defendant Officers were carrying out the official policies, customs and practices of the Los Angeles Police Department and the City of Los Angeles,” and that “by virtue thereof, defendant City is liable for the actions” of the officers. (Emphasis added.) These allegations are incorporated in each of the Counts against the city, including Count V.
There is no basis for the Court’s assertion that Lyons has failed to allege “that the City either orders or authorizes application of the chokeholds where there is no resistance or other provocation.” Ante, at 106, n. 7. I am completely at a loss to understand how paragraphs 8 and 13 can be deemed insufficient to allege that the city’s policy authorizes the use of chokeholds without provocation. The Court apparently finds Lyons’ complaint wanting because, although it alleges that he was choked without provocation and that the officers acted pursuant to an official policy, it fails to allege in haec verba that the city’s policy authorizes the choking of suspects without provocation. I am aware of no case decided since the abolition of the old common-law forms of action, and the Court cites none, that in any way supports this crabbed construction of the complaint. A federal court is capable of concluding for itself that two plus two equals four.11
The Court also errs in asserting that even if the complaint sufficiently alleges that the city’s policy authorizes the use of chokeholds without provocation, such an allegation is in any event “belied by the record made on the application for preliminary injunction.” Ibid. This conclusion flatly contradicts the District Court’s express factual finding, which was left undisturbed by the Court of Appeals, that the officers applied a “Department-authorized chokehold which resulted in *122injuries to plaintiff.” (Emphasis added.) The city does not contend that this factual finding is clearly erroneous.12
In sum, it is absolutely clear that Lyons’ requests for damages and for injunctive relief call into question the constitutionality of the city’s policy concerning the use of chokeholds. If he does not show that that policy is unconstitutional, he will be no more entitled to damages than to an injunction.
III
Since Lyons’ claim for damages plainly gives him standing, and since the success of that claim depends upon a demonstration that the city’s chokehold policy is unconstitutional, it is beyond dispute that Lyons has properly invoked the District Court’s authority to adjudicate the constitutionality of the city’s chokehold policy. The disputé concerning the constitutionality of that policy plainly presents a “case or controversy” under Art. III. The Court nevertheless holds that a federal court has no power under Art. Ill to adjudicate Lyons’ request, in the same lawsuit, for injunctive relief with respect to that very policy. This anomalous result is not supported either by precedent or by the fundamental concern underlying the standing requirement. Moreover, by fragmenting a single claim into multiple claims for particular types of relief and requiring a separate showing of standing for each form of relief, the decision today departs from this *123Court’s traditional conception of standing and of the remedial powers of the federal courts.
A
It is simply disingenuous for the Court to assert that its decision requires “[n]o extension” of O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488 (1974), and Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U. S. 362 (1976). Ante, at 105. In contrast to this case O’Shea and Rizzo involved disputes focusing solely on the threat of future injury which the plaintiffs in those cases alleged they faced. In O’Shea the plaintiffs did not allege past injury and did not seek compensatory relief.13 In Rizzo, the plaintiffs sought only declaratory and injunctive relief and alleged past instances of police misconduct only in an attempt to establish the substantiality of the threat of future injury. There was similarly no claim for damages based on past injuries in Ashcroft v. Mattis, 431 U. S. 171 (1977), or Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103 (1969),14 on which the Court also relies.
*124These decisions do not support the Court’s holding today. As the Court recognized in O’Shea, standing under Art. III is established by an allegation of “‘threatened or actual injury.’” 414 U. S., at 493, quoting Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614, 617 (1973) (emphasis added). See also 414 U. S., at 493, n. 2. Because the plaintiffs in O’Shea, Rizzo, Mattis, and Zwickler did not seek to redress past injury, their standing to sue depended entirely on the risk of future injury they faced. Apart from the desire to eliminate the possibility of future injury, the plaintiffs in those cases had no other personal stake in the outcome of the controversies.
By contrast, Lyons’ request for prospective relief is coupled with his claim for damages based on past injury. In addition to the risk that he will be subjected to a chokehold in the future, Lyons has suffered past injury.15 Because he has a live claim for damages, he need not rely solely on the threat of future injury to establish his personal stake in the outcome of the controversy.16 In the cases relied on by the majority, *125the Court simply had no occasion to decide whether a plaintiff who has standing to litigate a dispute must clear a separate standing hurdle with respect to each form of relief sought.17
B
The Court’s decision likewise finds no support in the fundamental policy underlying the Art. Ill standing requirement — the concern that a federal court not decide a legal issue if the plaintiff lacks a sufficient “personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult . . . questions.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S., at 204. As this Court stated in Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 101 (1968), “the question of standing is related only to whether the dispute sought to be adjudicated will be presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of judicial resolution.” See also Valley Forge Christian College v. *126Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U. S. 464, 472 (1982) (standing requirement ensures that “the legal questions presented to the court will be resolved, not in the rarified atmosphere of a debating society, but in a concrete factual context conducive to a realistic appreciation of the consequences of judicial action”).
Because Lyons has a claim for damages against the city, and because he cannot prevail on that claim unless he demonstrates that the city’s chokehold policy violates the Constitution, his personal stake in the outcome of the controversy adequately assures an adversary presentation of his challenge to the constitutionality of the policy.18 Moreover, the resolution of this challenge will be largely dispositive of his requests for declaratory and injunctive relief. No doubt the requests for injunctive relief may raise additional questions. But these questions involve familiar issues relating to the appropriateness of particular forms of relief, and have never been thought to implicate a litigant’s standing to sue. The denial of standing separately to seek injunctive relief therefore cannot be justified by the basic concern underlying the Art. Ill standing requirement.19
*127C
By fragmenting the standing inquiry and imposing a separate standing hurdle with respect to each form of relief sought, the decision today departs significantly from this Court’s traditional conception of the standing requirement and of the remedial powers of the federal courts. We have never required more than that a plaintiff have standing to litigate a claim. Whether he will be entitled to obtain particular forms of relief should he prevail has never been understood to be an issue of standing. In determining whether a plaintiff has standing, we have always focused on his personal stake in the outcome of the controversy, not on the issues sought to be litigated, Flast v. Cohen, supra, at 99, or the “precise nature of the relief sought.” Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U. S., at 423 (opinion of Marshall, J., joined by Warren, C. J., and Brennan, J.).
*1281
Our cases uniformly state that the touchstone of the Art. Ill standing requirement is the plaintiff’s personal stake in the underlying dispute, not in the particular types of relief sought. Once a plaintiff establishes a personal stake in a dispute, he has done all that is necessary to “invok[e] the court’s authority ... to challenge the action sought to be adjudicated.” Valley Forge Christian College, v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, supra, at 471-472. See, e. g., Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S., at 101 (stake in “the dispute to be adjudicated in the lawsuit”); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 443 (1972) (plaintiff must have “sufficient interest in challenging the statute’s validity”).
The personal stake of a litigant depends, in turn, on whether he has alleged a legally redressable injury. In determining whether a plaintiff has a sufficient personal stake in the outcome of a controversy, this Court has asked whether he “personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury,” Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 99 (1979) (emphasis added), whether the injury “fairly can be traced to the challenged action,” Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Org., 426 U. S. 26, 41 (1976), and whether plaintiff’s injury “is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision.” Id., at 38. See also Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U. S. 59, 74 (1978); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 508 (1975). These well-accepted criteria for determining whether a plaintiff has established the requisite personal stake do not fragment the standing inquiry into a series of discrete questions about the plaintiff’s stake in each of the particular types of relief sought. Quite the contrary, they ask simply whether the plaintiff has a sufficient stake in seeking a judicial resolution of the controversy.
Lyons has alleged past injury and a risk of future injury and has linked both to the city’s chokehold policy. Under established principles, the only additional question in determin*129ing standing under Art. Ill is whether the injuries he has alleged can be remedied or prevented by some form of judicial relief. Satisfaction of this requirement ensures that the lawsuit does not entail the issuance of an advisory opinion without the possibility of any judicial relief, and that the exercise of a court’s remedial powers will actually redress the alleged injury.20 Therefore Lyons needs to demonstrate only that, should he prevail on the merits, “the exercise of the Court’s remedial powers would redress the claimed injuries.” Duke Power Co., supra, at 74. See also Warth v. Seldin, supra, at 508; Simon, supra, at 38. Lyons has easily made this showing here, for monetary relief would plainly provide redress for his past injury, and prospective relief would reduce the likelihood of any future injury. Nothing more has ever been required to establish standing.
The Court’s decision turns these well-accepted principles on their heads by requiring a separate standing inquiry with *130respect to each request for relief. Until now, questions concerning remedy were relevant to the threshold issue of standing only in the limited sense that some relief must be possible. The approach adopted today drastically alters the inquiry into remedy that must be made to determine standing.
2
The Court’s fragmentation of the standing inquiry is also inconsistent with the way the federal courts have treated remedial issues since the merger of law and equity. The federal practice has been to reserve consideration of the appropriate relief until after a determination of the merits, not to foreclose certain forms of relief by a ruling on the pleadings. The prayer for relief is no part of the plaintiff’s cause of action. See 2A J. Moore & J. Lucas, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶8.18, p. 8-216, and n. 13 (1983) (Moore), and cases cited therein; C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2664 (1983) (Wright, Miller, & Kane). Rather, “[the usual rule is] that where legal rights have been invaded, and a federal statute provides for a general right to sue for such invasion, federal courts may use any available remedy to make good the wrong done.” Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 684 (1946) (footnote omitted).
Rule 54(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure specifically provides that “every final judgment shall grant the relief to which the party in whose favor it is rendered is entitled, even if the party has not demanded such relief in his pleadings.” The question whether a plaintiff has stated a claim turns not on “whether [he] has asked for the proper remedy but whether he is entitled to any remedy.” (Emphasis added.) Wright, Miller, & Kane §2664. This is fully consistent with the approach taken in our standing cases. Supra, at 128-129 and this page, and n. 20.
The Court provides no justification for departing from the traditional treatment of remedial issues and demanding a separate threshold inquiry into each form of relief a plaintiff seeks. It is anomalous to require a plaintiff to demonstrate *131“standing” to seek each particular form of relief requested in the complaint when under Rule 54(c) the remedy to which a party may be entitled need not even be demanded in the complaint.21 See Holt Civic Club v. Tuscaloosa, 439 U. S. 60, 65-66 (1978); Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 424 (1975). The traditional federal practice is a sound one. Even if it appears highly unlikely at the outset of a lawsuit that a plaintiff will establish that he is entitled to a particular remedy, there are dangers inherent in any doctrine that permits a court to foreclose any consideration of that remedy by ruling on the pleadings that the plaintiff lacks standing to seek it. A court has broad discretion to grant appropriate equitable relief to protect a party who has been injured by unlawful conduct, as well as members of the class, from future injury that may occur if the wrongdoer is permitted to continue his unlawful actions. Where, as here, a plaintiff alleges both past injury and a risk of future injury and presents a concededly substantial claim that a defendant is implementing an unlawful policy, it will rarely be easy to decide with any certainty at the outset of a lawsuit that no equitable relief would be appropriate under any conceivable set of facts that he might establish in support of his claim.
In sum, the Court’s approach to standing is wholly inconsistent with well-established standing principles and clashes with our longstanding conception of the remedial powers of a court and what is necessary to invoke the authority of a court to resolve a particular dispute.
I — I <1
Apart from the question of standing, the only remaining question presented in the petition for certiorari is whether *132the preliminary injunction issued by the District Court must be set aside because it “constituted a substantial interference in the operation of a municipal police department.” Pet. for Cert. i.22 In my view it does not.
In the portion of its brief concerning this second question, the city argues that the District Court ignored the principles of federalism set forth in Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U. S. 362 (1976). Brief for Petitioner 40-47. The city’s reliance on Rizzo is misplaced. That case involved an injunction which “significantly revis[ed] the internal procedures of the Philadelphia police department.” 423 U. S., at 379. The injunction required the police department to adopt “ ‘a comprehensive program for dealing adequately with civilian complaints’ ” to be formulated in accordance with extensive “guidelines” established by the District Court. Id., at 369, quoting Council of Organizations on Phila. Police A. & R. v. Rizzo, 357 F. Supp. 1289, 1321 (1973). Those guidelines specified detailed revisions of police manuals and rules of procedure, as well as the adoption of specific procedures for processing, screening, investigating, and adjudicating citizen complaints. In addition, the District Court supervised the implementation of the comprehensive program, issuing detailed orders concerning the posting and distribution of the revised police procedures and the drawing up of a “Citizen’s Complaint Report” in a format designated by the court. The District Court also reserved jurisdiction to review the progress of the police department. 423 U. S., at 365, n. 2. This Court concluded that the sweeping nature of the injunc-tive relief was inconsistent with “the principles of federalism.” Id., at 380.
*133The principles of federalism simply do not preclude the limited preliminary injunction issued in this case. Unlike the permanent injunction at issue in Rizzo, the preliminary injunction involved here entails no federal supervision of the LAPD’s activities. The preliminary injunction merely forbids the use of chokeholds absent the threat of deadly force, permitting their continued use where such a threat does exist. This limited ban takes the form of a preventive injunction, which has traditionally been regarded as the least intrusive form of equitable relief. Moreover, the city can remove the ban by obtaining approval of a training plan. Although the preliminary injunction also requires the city to provide records of the uses of chokeholds to respondent and to allow the court access to such records, this requirement is hardly onerous, since the LAPD already maintains records concerning the use of chokeholds.
A district court should be mindful that “federal-court intervention in the daily operation of a large city’s police department ... is undesirable and to be avoided if at all possible.” Rizzo, swpra, at 381 (Blackmun, J., dissenting).23 The modest interlocutory relief granted in this case differs markedly, however, from the intrusive injunction involved in Rizzo, and simply does not implicate the federalism concerns *134that arise when a federal court undertakes to “supervise the functioning of the police department.” 423 U. S., at 380.
V
Apparently because it is unwilling to rely solely on its unprecedented rule of standing, the Court goes on to conclude that, even if Lyons has standing, “[t]he equitable remedy is unavailable.” Ante, at 111. The Court’s reliance on this alternative ground is puzzling for two reasons.
If, as the Court says, Lyons lacks standing under Art. Ill, the federal courts have no power to decide his entitlement to equitable relief on the merits. Under the Court’s own view of Art. Ill, the Court’s discussion in Part V is purely an advisory opinion.
In addition, the question whether injunctive relief is available under equitable principles is simply not before us. We granted certiorari only to determine whether Lyons has standing and whether, if so, the preliminary injunction must be set aside because it constitutes an impermissible interference in the operation of a municipal police department. We did not grant certiorari to consider whether Lyons satisfies the traditional prerequisites for equitable relief. See n. 22, supra.
Even if the issue had been properly raised, I could not agree with the Court’s disposition of it. With the single exception of Rizzo v. Goode, supra,24 all of the cases relied on by the Court concerned injunctions against state criminal proceedings. The rule of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), that such injunctions can be issued only in extraordinary circumstances in which the threat of injury is “great and immediate,” id., at 46, reflects the venerable rule that equity will not enjoin a criminal prosecution, the fact that constitu*135tional defenses can be raised in such a state prosecution, and an appreciation of the friction that injunctions against state judicial proceedings may produce. See ibid.; Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 462 (1974); 28 U. S. C. §2283.
Our prior decisions have repeatedly emphasized that where an injunction is not directed against a state criminal or quasi-criminal proceeding, “the relevant principles of equity, comity, and federalism” that underlie the Younger doctrine “have little force.” Steffel v. Thompson, supra, at 462, citing Lake Carriers’ Assn. v. MacMullan, 406 U. S. 498, 509 (1972). Outside the special context in which the Younger doctrine applies, we have held that the appropriateness of in-junctive relief is governed by traditional equitable considerations. See Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 930 (1975). Whatever the precise scope of the Younger doctrine may be, the concerns of comity and federalism that counsel restraint when a federal court is asked to enjoin a state criminal proceeding simply do not apply to an injunction directed solely at a police department.
If the preliminary injunction granted by the District Court is analyzed under general equitable principles, rather than the more stringent standards of Younger v. Harris, it becomes apparent that there is no rule of law that precludes equitable relief and requires that the preliminary injunction be set aside. “In reviewing such interlocutory relief, this Court may only consider whether issuance of the injunction constituted an abuse of discretion.” Brown v. Chote, 411 U. S. 452, 457 (1973).
The District Court concluded, on the basis of the facts before it, that Lyons was choked without provocation pursuant to an unconstitutional city policy. Supra, at 119. Given the necessarily preliminary nature of its inquiry, there was no way for the District Court to know the precise contours of the city’s policy or to ascertain the risk that Lyons, who had alleged that the policy was being applied in a discriminatory manner, might again be subjected to a chokehold. But in view of the Court’s conclusion that the unprovoked choking of *136Lyons was pursuant to a city policy, Lyons has satisfied “the usual basis for injunctive relief, ‘that there exists some cognizable danger of recurrent violation.’” Rondeau v. Mosinee Paper Corp., 422 U. S. 49, 59 (1975), quoting United States v. W. T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 633 (1953). The risk of serious injuries and deaths to other citizens also supported the decision to grant a preliminary injunction. Courts of equity have much greater latitude in granting injunctive relief “in furtherance of the public interest than . . . when only private interests are involved.” Virginian R. Co. v. Railway Employee, 300 U. S. 515, 552 (1937). See Wright, Miller, & Kane § 2948; 7 Moore. ¶ 65.04[1]. In this case we know that the District Court would have been amply justified in considering the risk to the public, for after the preliminary injunction was stayed, five additional deaths occurred prior to the adoption of a moratorium. See n. 3, supra. Under these circumstances, I do not believe that the District Court abused its discretion.
Indeed, this Court has approved of a decision that directed issuance of a permanent injunction in a similar situation. See Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F. 2d 197 (CA4 1966), cited with approval in Allee v. Medrano, 416 U. S. 802, 816, n. 9 (1974). See n. 15, supra. In Lankford, citizens whose houses had been searched solely on the basis of uncorroborated, anonymous tips sought injunctive relief. The Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that the plaintiffs were entitled to an injunction against enforcement of the police department policy authorizing such searches, even though there was no evidence that their homes would be searched in the future. Lyons is no less entitled to seek injunctive relief. To hold otherwise is to vitiate “one of the most valuable features of equity jurisdiction, to anticipate and prevent a threatened injury, where the damages would be insufficient or irreparable.” Vicksburg Waterworks Co. v. Vicksburg, 185 U. S. 65, 82 (1902).
*137Here it is unnecessary to consider the propriety of a permanent injunction. The District Court has simply sought to protect Lyons and other citizens of Los Angeles pending a disposition of the merits. It will be time enough to consider the propriety of a permanent injunction when and if the District Court grants such relief.
. VI
The Court’s decision removes an entire class of constitutional violations from the equitable powers of a federal court. It immunizes from prospective equitable relief any policy that authorizes persistent deprivations of constitutional rights as long as no individual can establish with substantial certainty that he will be injured, or injured again, in the future. The Chief Justice asked in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, 419 (1971) (dissenting opinion), “what would be the judicial response to a police order authorizing ‘shoot to kill’ with respect to every fugitive”? His answer was that it would be “easy to predict our collective wrath and outrage.” Ibid. We now learn that wrath and outrage cannot be translated into an order to cease the unconstitutional practice, but only an award of damages to those who are victimized by the practice and live to sue and to the survivors of those who are not so fortunate. Under the view expressed by the majority today, , if the police adopt a policy of “shoot to kill,” or a policy of shooting 1 out of 10 suspects, the federal courts will be powerless to enjoin its continuation. Cf. Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S., at 621 (White, J., dissenting). The federal judicial power is now limited to levying a toll for such a systematic constitutional violation.

 The following summary of the evidence is taken from Lyons’ deposition and his “Notice of Application and Application for Preliminary Injunction and Declaratory Relief; Points and Authorities,” pp. 3-4. Although petitioner’s answer contains a general denial of the allegations set forth in the complaint, petitioner has never presented any evidence to challenge Lyons’ account. Brief for Petitioner 8.

 Count I of the first amended complaint also stated a claim against the individual officers for damages. ¶ 8.

 Thus in a city where Negro males constitute 9% of the population, they have accounted for 75% of the deaths resulting from the use of chokeholds. In addition to his other allegations, Lyons alleged racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ¶¶ 10, 15, 23, 24, 25, 30.
Of the 16 deaths, 10 occurred prior to the District Court’s issuance of the preliminary injunction, although at that time the parties and the court were aware of only 9. On December 24,1980, the Court of Appeals stayed the preliminary injunction pending appeal. Four additional deaths occurred during the period prior to the grant of a further stay pending filing and disposition of a petition for certiorari, 453 U. S. 1308 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., in chambers), and two more deaths occurred thereafter.

 Lyons’ motion for a preliminary injunction was heard on affidavits, depositions, and government records.

 Statement of Officer Pascal K. Dionne (officer-in-charge of the Physical Training and Self-Defense Unit of the LAPD), App. 240-241.

 Statement of Officer Pascal K. Dionne, id., at 259. These figures undoubtedly understate the frequency of the use of chokeholds since, as Officer Dionne, a witness for the city, testified, the figures compiled do not include all altercations between police officers and citizens. Id., at 241. Officer Dionne’s statement does not define “altercation” and does not indicate when “altercation reports” must be filed by an officer.
The city does not maintain a record of injuries to suspects.

 The physiological effects of the chokeholds were described as follows by Dr. A. Griswold, an expert in pathology (id., at 364-367):
“From a medical point of view, the bar arm control is extremely dangerous in an unpredictable fashion. Pressure from a locked forearm across the neck sufficient to compress and close the trachea applied for a sufficient period of time to cause unconsciousness from asphyxia must, to an anatomical certainty, also result in ... a very high risk of a fractured hyoid bone or crushed larynx. The risk is substantial, but at the same time, unpredictable.
“It depends for one thing on which vertical portion of the neck the forearm pressure is exerted. . . .
“Another factor contributing to unpredictability is the reaction of the victim. . . . [The] pressure exerted in a bar arm control. . . can result in a laryngeal spasm or seizure which simply shuts off the trachial air passage, leading to death by asphyxiation. Also, it must result in transmission to the brain of nerve messages that there is immediate, acute danger of death. This transmission immediately sets up a ‘flight or flee’ syndrome wherein the body reacts violently to save itself or escape. Adrenalin output increases enormously; blood oxygen is switched to muscles and strong, violent struggle ensues which is to a great extent involuntary. From a medical point of view, there would be no way to distinguish this involuntary death struggle from a wilful, voluntary resistance. Thus, an instruction to cease applying the hold when ‘resistance ceases’ is meaningless.
“This violent struggle . . . increases the risk of permanent injury or death to the victim. This reserve may already be in a state of reduction by reason of cardiac, respiratory or other disease.
“The LAPD [operates under a] misconception. . . that the length of time for applying the hold is the sole measure of risk. This is simply not true. If sufficient force is applied, the larynx can be crushed or hyoid fractured with death ensuing, in seconds. An irreversible laryngeal spasm can also occur in seconds.
“From a medical point of view, the carotid control is extremely dangerous in a manner that is at least as equally unpredictable as the bar arm control.
“. . . When applied with sufficient pressure, this control will crush the carotid sheath against the bony structure of the neck, foreseeably shutting *118down the supply of oxygenated blood to the brain and leading to unconsciousness in approximately 10 to 15 seconds.
“However, pressure on both carotid sheaths also results in pressure, if inadvertent or unintended, on both of the vagus nerves. The vagus nerves (right and left) arise in the brain and are composed of both sensory and motor fibers. . . . Stimulation of these nerves by pressure can activate reflexes within the vagus system that can result in immediate heart stoppage (cardiac arrest). . . . There is also evidence that cardiac arrest can result from simultaneous pressure on both vagus nerves regardless of the intensity or duration of the pressure.”

 City’s Opposition to Application for Preliminary Injunction, No. 77-0420 (CD Cal.), pp. 26, 30.

 Brief in Opposition to Motion to Stay, in No. A-230 (CD Cal.), p. 4.

 The preliminary injunction provided that the city itself could lift the injunction by obtaining court approval of a training program, and also required the city to keep records of all uses of chokeholds and to make those records available.
The District Court refrained from determining the precise nature of the city’s policy given the limited nature of its inquiry at the preliminary injunction stage. Brown v. Chote, 411 U. S. 452, 456 (1973).

 Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, ante, at 106-107, n. 7, there is clearly no inconsistency between the allegation in paragraph 8 of the complaint that Lyons was choked “without provocation, legal justification or excuse,” and the allegations that the city authorizes chokeholds “in situations where [officers] are threatened by far less than deadly force.” ¶¶ 20, 23.

 Even if the issue were properly before us, I could not agree that this Court should substitute its judgment for that of the District Court. One of the city’s own training officers testified that an officer is authorized to use a chokehold whenever he “feels that there’s about to be a bodily attack made on him.” App. 381. This testimony indicates that an officer is authorized to use a chokehold whenever he subjectively perceives a threat, regardless of whether the suspect has done anything to provide an objective basis for such a perception. The District Court’s finding is not refuted by the statement of the city’s policy which is set forth in an LAPD manual, ante, at 110, for municipal liability under § 1983 may be predicated on proof of an official custom whether or not that custom is embodied in a formal policy. Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 694 (1978).

 Although counsel for the plaintiffs in O’Shea suggested at oral argument that certain plaintiffs had been exposed to illegal conduct in the past, in fact “[n]o damages were sought against the petitioners . . . nor were any specific instances involving the individually named respondents set forth in the claim against these judicial officers.” 414 U. S., at 492. The Court referred to the absence of past injury repeatedly. See id., at 492, 495, and n. 3.

 The plaintiff in Mattis did originally seek damages, but after the District Court found that the defendant officers were shielded by the good-faith immunity, he pursued only prospective relief. Although we held that the case had been mooted by the elimination of the damages claim, we in no way suggested that the plaintiff’s requests for declaratory and injunctive relief could not have been entertained had his damages claim remained viable. We held only that where a plaintiff’s “primary claim of a present interest in the controversy is that he will obtain emotional satisfaction from a ruling that his son’s death was wrongful,” 431 U. S., at 172 (footnote omitted), he does not have the personal stake in the outcome required by Art. III. In Zwickler the plaintiff did not even allege that he would or might run for office again; he merely asserted that he “can be ‘a candidate for Congress again.’ ” 394 U. S., at 109. We held that this mere logical possibility was insufficient to present an actual controversy.

 In Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F. 2d 197 (1966) (en banc), which we cited with approval in Allee v. Medrano, 416 U. S. 802, 816, n. 9 (1974), the Fourth Circuit found standing on facts indistinguishable from this case. In Lankford, the Court of Appeals held that four Negro families who had been subjected to an illegal house search were entitled to seek injunc-tive relief against the Baltimore Police Department’s policy of conducting wholesale searches based only on uncorroborated anonymous tips, even though the plaintiffs there did not claim that they were more likely than other Negro residents of the city to be subjected to an illegal search in the future.

 In O’Shea itself the Court suggested that the absence of a damages claim was highly pertinent to its conclusion that the plaintiff had no standing. The Court noted that plaintiffs’ “claim for relief against the State’s Attorney[,] where specific instances of misconduct with respect to particular individuals are alleged,” 414 U. S., at 495 (emphasis added), stood in “sharp contrast” to their claim for relief against the magistrate and judge, which did not contain similar allegations. The plaintiffs did seek damages against the State’s Attorney. See Spomer v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 514, 518, n. 5 (1974). Like the claims against the State’s Attorney in O’Shea, Lyons’ claims against the city allege both past injury and the risk of future injury. Whereas in O’Shea the Court acknowledged the significance for standing *125purposes of past injury, the Court today inexplicably treats Lyons’ past injury for which he is seeking redress as wholly irrelevant to the standing inquiry before us.

 The Court’s reliance on Rizzo is misplaced for another reason. In Rizzo the Court concluded that the evidence presented at trial failed to establish an “affirmative link between the occurrence of the various incidents of police misconduct and the adoption of any plan or policy by [defendants].” 423 U. S., at 371. Because the misconduct being challenged was, in the Court’s view, the result of the behavior of unidentified officials not named as defendants rather than any policy of the named defendants — the City Managing Director, and the Police Commissioner, id., at 372 — the Court had “serious doubts” whether a case or controversy existed between the plaintiffs and those defendants. Here, by contrast, Lyons has clearly established a case or controversy between himself and the city concerning the constitutionality of the city’s policy. See supra, at 120-122. In Rizzo the Court specifically distinguished those cases where a case or controversy was found to exist because of the existence of an official policy responsible for the past or threatened constitutional deprivations. 423 U. S., at 373-374, distinguishing Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 (1939); Allee v. Medrano, 416 U. S. 802 (1974); Lankford v. Gelston, supra.

 It is irrelevant that the District Court has severed Lyons’ claim for damages from his claim for injunctive relief. Ante, at 105, n. 6. If the District Court, in deciding whether to issue an injunction, upholds the city’s policy against constitutional attack, this ruling will be res judicata with respect to Lyons’ claim for damages. The severance of the claims therefore does not diminish Lyons’ incentive to establish the unconstitutionality of the policy.
It is unnecessary to decide here whether the standing of a plaintiff who alleges past injury that is legally redressable depends on whether he specifically seek damages. See Lankford v. Gelston, supra (plaintiffs who did not seek damages permitted to seek injunctive relief based on past injury). See n. 15, supra.

 The Court errs in asserting that Lyons has no standing to seek injunctive relief because the injunction prayed for in Count V reaches suspects who, unlike Lyons, offer resistance or attempt to escape. Ante, at 106-107, n. 7. Even if a separate inquiry into Lyons’ standing to seek injunc-tive relief as opposed to damages were appropriate, and even if he had no *127standing to seek the entire injunction he requests, it would not follow that he had no standing to seek any injunctive relief. Even under the Court’s view, Lyons presumably would have standing to seek to enjoin the use of chokeholds without provocation. There would therefore be no justification for reversing the judgment below in its entirety.
The Court’s reliance on the precise terms of the injunction sought in Count V is also misplaced for a more fundamental reason. Whatever may be said for the Court’s novel rule that a separate showing of standing must be made for each form of relief requested, the Court is simply wrong in assuming that the scope of the injunction prayed for raises a question of standing. A litigant is entitled to advance any substantive legal theory which would entitle him to relief. Lyons’ entitlement to relief may ultimately rest on the principle that a municipality may not authorize the use of chokeholds absent a threat of deadly force. This principle, which the District Court tentatively embraced in issuing the preliminary injunction, would support the entire injunction sought in Count V. Alternatively, Lyons’ entitlement to relief may rest on some narrower theory. If Lyons prevails, the appropriateness of the injunction prayed for in Count V will depend on the legal principle upon which the District Court predicates its decision. It may well be judicious for the District Court, in the exercise of its discretion, to rest its decision on a theory that would not support the full scope of the injunction that Lyons requests. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with Lyons’ standing.

 This limited inquiry into remedy, which addresses two jurisdictional concerns, provides no support for the Court’s requirement that standing be separately demonstrated with respect to each particular form of relief sought. First, a court must have the power to fashion some appropriate remedy. This concern, an aspect of the more general case-or-controversy requirement, reflects the view that the adjudication of rights which a court is powerless to enforce is tantamount to an advisory opinion. See Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227, 241 (1937) (“[The controversy] must be a real and substantial [one] admitting of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts”) (emphasis added). Second, a court must determine that there is an available remedy which will have a “substantial probability,” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 508 (1975), of redressing the plaintiff’s injury. This latter concern is merely a recasting of the causal nexus, supra, at 128, that must exist between the alleged injury and the action being challenged, and ensures that the granting of judicial relief will not be an exercise in futility. See Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, 438 U. S. 59, 74 (1978). These considerations are summarized by the requirement that a plaintiff need only allege an injury that is “legally redressable.” Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U. S. 411, 424 (1969) (emphasis added).

 It is not clear from the Court’s opinion whether the District Court is wholly precluded from granting any form of declaratory or injunctive relief, even if it ultimately holds that Lyons should prevail on his claim for damages against the city on the ground that the city’s chokehold policy is unconstitutional and is responsible for his injury.

 Question 1 of the petition raised the question of Lyons’ standing. Question 2 of the petition states: “Does a federal court order constitute a substantial interference in the operation of a municipal police department where it (a) modifies policies concerning use of force and (b) takes control of such department’s training and reporting systems relative to a particular force technique? ”

 Of course, municipalities may be enjoined under § 1983, Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), and this Court has approved of the issuance of injunctions by federal courts against state or municipal police departments where necessary to prevent the continued enforcement of unconstitutional official policies. See, e. g., Allee v. Medrano, 416 U. S. 802 (1974); Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 (1939); Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F. 2d 197 (CA4 1966) (en bane), cited with approval in Allee, supra, at 816. Although federalism concerns are relevant in fashioning an appropriate relief, we have stated repeatedly that a federal court retains the power to order any available remedy necessary to afford full relief for the invasion of legal rights. See, e. g., Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 14 (1971); Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 684 (1946).

 As explained above, Rizzo v. Goode does not support a decision barring Lyons from obtaining any injunctive relief, for that case involved an injunction which entailed judicial supervision of the workings of a municipal police department, not simply the sort of preventive injunction that Lyons seeks. Supra, at 182-133.