Supreme Court Slams Shut The Doors Of Justice

The Supreme Court recently ruled that Javaid Iqbal, an Arab-American detained and abused after 9/11, could not sue government officials for unconstitutional behavior. This decision, known as Ashcroft vs. Iqbal, has given rise to issues that will cause significant damage to US civil rights for years to come.

Javaid Iqbal was an Arab-American cable installer from Long Island who was held by federal officials after 9/11 at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. While detained, he was beaten, subjected to extreme temperatures, placed in solitary confinement, denied medical care, and subjected to daily body cavity searches. He filed suit against then-Attorney General Ashcroft alleging that he was responsible for the government's policies that led to his mistreatment. After the Supreme Court’s decision, Mr. Iqbal was deported to Pakistan. A major issue that this decision has produced is the creation of a new pleading standard that must now be met by anyone filing a civil complaint. Before Iqbal, claims of government misconduct needed to merely be plausible to survive a motion to dismiss, a typical request in the early phases of a trial. Iqbal now requires courts to distinguish between legally plausible conclusions and factual claims long before a jury is seated. If there aren't enough of the latter, a case can be dismissed. Justice Kennedy wrote the controlling decision with the support of the Court's conservative wing.

Justice David H. Souter, writing for himself and Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, said the accusations against the two officials in Mr. Iqbal’s lawsuit were specific enough to satisfy the requirements for bringing a suit. “Iqbal does not say merely that Ashcroft was the architect of some amorphous discrimination,” Justice Souter wrote, “or that Mueller was instrumental in some ill-defined constitutional violation; he alleges that they helped to create the discriminatory policy he has described.” Justice Souter added that the majority had engaged in a sort of legal sleight of hand, ignoring a concession from the government that Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller would be liable were Mr. Iqbal able to prove that they had actually known of unconstitutional discrimination by subordinates and been deliberately indifferent to it. Instead of accepting that concession, Justice Souter continued, the majority decided that even proof of such knowledge was insufficient.

As a result of this ruling, the Supreme Court has effectively sanctioned government misconduct while slamming shut the doors of justice to all Americans trying to bring their cases to court. The extent to which this case will injure American civil rights has yet to be seen. Justices Turn Back Ex-Detainee’s Suit [The New York Times]