Court Opinion

ID: 9426246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:17.251918+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:59.850410
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Blackmun,
with whom Me. Justice Brennan and Me. Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
To be sure, federal-court intervention in the daily operation of a large city’s police department, as the Court intimates, is undesirable and to be avoided if at all possible. The Court appropriately observes, however, ante, at 367, that what the Federal District Court did here was to engage in a careful and conscientious resolution of often sharply conflicting testimony and to make detailed findings of fact, now accepted by both sides, that attack the problem that is the subject of the respondents’ complaint. The remedy was one evolved with the defendant officials’ assent, reluctant though that assent may have been, and it was one that the police department concededly could live with. Indeed, the District Court, in its memorandum of December 18, 1973, stated that “the resolution of all the disputed items was more nearly in accord with the defendants’ position than with the plaintiffs’ position,” and that the relief contemplated by the earlier orders of March 14, 1973, see COPPAR v. Rizzo, 357 F. Supp. 1289 (ED Pa.), “did not go beyond what the defendants had always been willing to accept.” App. 190a. No one, not even this Court’s majority, disputes the apparent efficacy of the relief or the fact that it effectuated a betterment in the system and should serve to lessen the number of instances of deprival of constitutional rights of members of the respondent classes. What is worrisome to the Court is abstract principle, and, of course, the Court has a right *382to be concerned with abstract principle that, when extended to the limits of logic, may produce untoward results in other circumstances on a future day. See Hudson County Water Co. v. McCarter, 209 U. S. 349, 355 (1908) (Holmes, J.).
But the District Court here, with detailed, careful, and sympathetic findings, ascertained the existence of violations of citizens’ constitutional rights, of a pattern of that type of activity, of its likely continuance and recurrence, and of an official indifference as to doing anything about it. The case, accordingly, plainly fits the mold of Allee v. Medrano, 416 U. S. 802 (1974), and Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 (1939), despite the observation, 357 F. Supp., at 1319, that the evidence “does not establish the existence of any overall Police Department policy to violate the legal and constitutional rights of citizens, nor to discriminate on the basis of race” (emphasis supplied). I am not persuaded that the Court’s attempt to distinguish those cases from this one is at all successful. There must be federal relief available against persistent deprival of federal constitutional rights even by (or, perhaps I should say, particularly by) constituted authority on the state side.
The Court entertains “serious doubts,” ante, at 371-372, as to whether there is a case or controversy here, citing O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488 (1974). O’Shea, however, presented quite different facts. There, the plaintiff-respondents had alleged a fear of injury from actions that would be subsequent to some future, valid arrest. The Court said:
“We assume that respondents will conduct their activities within the law and so avoid prosecution and conviction as well as exposure to the challenged course of conduct said to be followed by petitioners .... Under these circumstances, where *383respondents do not claim any constitutional right to engage in conduct proscribed by therefore presumably permissible state laws, or indicate that it is otherwise their intention to so conduct themselves, the threat of injury from the alleged course of conduct they attack is simply too remote to satisfy the case-or-controversy requirement and permit adjudication by a federal court.” Id., at 497-498.
Here, by contrast, plaintiff-respondents are persons injured by past unconstitutional conduct (an allegation not made in the O’Shea complaint) and fear injury at the hands of the police regardless of whether they have violated a valid law.
To the extent that Part II-A of the Court’s opinion today indicates that some constitutional violations might be spread so extremely thin as to prevent any individual from showing the requisite case or controversy, I must agree. I do not agree, however, with the Court’s substitution of its judgment for that of the District Court on what the evidence here shows. The Court states that what was shown was minimal, involving only a few incidents out of thousands of arrests in a city of several million population. Small as the ratio of incidents to arrests may be, the District Court nevertheless found a pattern of operation, even if no policy, and one sufficiently significant that the violations “cannot be dismissed as rare, isolated instances.” 357 F. Supp., at 1319. Nothing the Court has said demonstrates for me that there is no justification for that finding on this record. The Court’s criticism about numbers would be just as forceful, or would miss the mark just as much, with 100 incidents or 500 or even 3,000, when compared with the overall number of arrests made in the city of Philadelphia. The pattern line will appear somewhere. The District Court drew it this side of the number of *384proved instances. One properly may wonder how many more instances actually existed but were unproved because of the pressure of time upon the trial court, or because of reluctant witnesses, or because of inherent fear to question constituted authority in any degree, or because of a despairing belief, unfounded though it may be, that nothing can be done about it anyway and that it is not worth the effort. That it was worth the effort is convincingly demonstrated by the result in the District Court, by the affirmance, on the issues before us, by a unanimous panel of the Third Circuit, and by the support given the result below by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Bar Association, the Greater Philadelphia Movement, and the other entities that have filed briefs as amici curiae here in support of the respondents.
The Court today appears to assert that a state official is not subject to the strictures of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 unless he directs the deprivation of constitutional rights. Ante, at 375-377. In so holding, it seems to me, the Court ignores both the language of § 1983 and the case law interpreting that language. Section 1983 provides a cause of action where a person acting under color of state law “subjects, or causes to be subjected,” any other person to a deprivation of rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States. By its very words, § 1983 reaches not only the acts of an official, but also the acts of subordinates for whom he is responsible. In Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961), the Court said that § 1983 “should be read against the background of tort liability that makes a man responsible for the natural consequences of his actions,” id., at 187, and:
“It is abundantly clear that one reason the legislation was passed was to afford a federal right in federal courts because, by reason of prejudice, pas*385sion, neglect, intolerance or otherwise, state laws might not be enforced and the claims of citizens to the enjoyment of fights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment might- be denied by state agencies.” Id., at 180. (Emphasis added.)
I do not find it necessary to reach the question under what circumstances failure to supervise will justify an award of money damages, or whether an injunction is authorized where the superior has no consciousness of the wrongs being perpetrated by his subordinates.1 It is clear that an official may be enjoined from consciously permitting his subordinates, in the course of their duties, to violate the constitutional rights of persons with whom they deal. In rejecting the concept that the official may be responsible under § 1983, the Court today easts aside reasoned conclusions to the contrary reached by the Courts of Appeals of 10 Circuits.2
*386In the instant case, the District Court found that although there was no departmental policy of racial discrimination, “such violations do occur, with such frequency that they cannot be dismissed as rare, isolated instances; and that little or nothing is done by the city authorities to punish such infractions, or to prevent their recurrence,” 357 F. Supp., at 1319, and that it “is the policy of the department to discourage the filing of such complaints, to avoid or minimize the consequences of proven police misconduct, and to resist disclosure of the final disposition of such complaints.” Id., at 1318. Needless to say, petitioners were under a statutory duty to supervise their, subordinates. See Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, c. 2, § 5-200. I agree with the District Court that its findings are sufficient to bring petitioners within the ambit of § 1983.
Further, the applicability of § 1983 to controlling officers allows the district courts to avoid the necessity of injunctions issued against individual officers and the consequent continuing supervision by the federal courts of the day-to-day activities of the men on the street. The District Court aptly stated:
“Respect and admiration for the performance of the vast majority of police officers cannot justify refusal to confront the reality of the abuses which *387do exist. But deference to the essential role of the police in our society does mandate that intrusion by the courts into this sensitive area should be limited, and should be directed toward insuring that the police themselves are encouraged to remedy the situation.” 357 F. Supp., at 1320.
I would regard what was accomplished in this case as one of those rightly rare but nevertheless justified instances — just as Allee and Hague — of federal-court “intervention” in a state or municipal executive area. The facts, the deprival of constitutional rights, and the pattern are all proved in sufficient degree. And the remedy is carefully delineated, worked out within the administrative structure rather than superimposed by edict upon it, and essentially, and concededly, “livable.” In the City of Brotherly Love — or in any other American city — no less should be expected. It is a matter of regret that the Court sees fit to nullify what so meticulously and thoughtfully has been evolved to satisfy an existing need relating to constitutional rights that we cherish and hold dear.

In this regard, however, this Court recently has approved the imposition of criminal liability without “consciousness of wrongdoing” for failure to supervise subordinates. United States v. Park, 421 U. S. 658 (1975). The concept, thus, is far from novel doctrine.

 “Under section 1983, equitable relief is appropriate in a situation where governmental officials have notice of the unconstitutional conduct of their subordinates and fail to prevent a recurrence of such misconduct. Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496 . . . (1939). From a legal standpoint, it makes no difference whether the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights are violated as a result of police behavior which is the product of the active encouragement and direction of their superiors or as a result of the superiors’ mere acquiescence in such behavior. In either situation, if the police officials had a duty, as they admittedly had here, to prevent the officers under their direction from committing the acts which are alleged to have occurred during the Convention, they are proper defendants in this action.” Schnell v. City of Chicago, 407 F. 2d 1084, 1086 (CA7 1969). See also Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Eisenstadt, 494 F. 2d 1196, 1199 (CA1), cert. denied, 419 *386U. S. 977 (1974), and Rozecki v. Gaughan, 459 F. 2d 6, 8 (CA1 1972); Wright v. McMann, 460 F. 2d 126, 134-135 (CA2), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 885 (1972); Lewis v. Kugler, 446 F. 2d 1343, 1351 (CA3 1971); Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F. 2d 197 (CA4 1966); Jennings v. Patterson, 460 F. 2d 1021, 1022 (CA5 1972); Smith v. Ross, 482 F. 2d 33, 36 (CA6 1973); Byrd v. Brishke, 466 F. 2d 6, 10-11 (CA7 1972); Jennings v. Davis, 476 F. 2d 1271, 1275 (CA8 1973); Dewell v. Lawson, 489 F. 2d 877, 881 (CA10 1974); Carter v. Carlson, 144 U. S. App. D. C. 388, 395, 447 F. 2d 358, 365 (1971), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U. S. 418 (1973).