Mario A. Pacella, Attorney at Law:
Civil rights cases are generally brought against the individuals employed by the state who violated a person’s constitutional rights. A reason why you sue the individuals, oftentimes an officer or a correctional officer or some other employee of the state is because of the 11th amendment to the United States Constitution, which gives the state immunity from lawsuits unless the state has consented to being sued.
An employee of the state must be acting under color of state law for you to bring a civil rights claim against that person, which means they have to be acting somewhat in the scope of course of their employment. Typically, the civil rights cases that we see are dealing with law enforcement, whether it’s a police officer or a correction officer. In the context of police officers, it is unreasonable search and seizure, and then with correctional officers, you see it is because of staffing shortages, failing to get inmates the required medical treatment or not staffing prisons sufficiently to prevent riots. If you believe you have a civil rights case, contact Strom Law Firm, and we’ll review your case and discuss with you whether you have something that you can proceed with.
