Constitutional Policing and Civil Justice Reform

Share

Following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, the Constitutional Policing and Civil Justice Reform ("CPR") Initiative was created at the direction of the Managing Partner. The initiative was designed to further the Firm's commitment "to advancing the rule of law governing policing in the minority communities." Underscoring the necessity of this important work, the Managing Partner noted that "an effective police force—one that is widely respected as honest, fair, and evenhanded both in protecting communities and enforcing order—is essential to the survival of any system built on the rule of law."

The CPR Initiative is engaging in local and nationally coordinated efforts to achieve cultural and systemic changes in policing practices in minority communities throughout the United States, with an emphasis on the African-American community. Specifically, the Initiative and the dozens of lawyers supporting it are:

  • Coordinating efforts at the local and national levels to impact systemic reform in policing practices, policies, procedures, and culture;
  • Working with police departments committed to reform in their efforts to design and implement changes to policy, practice, procedure and culture within their departments;
  • Assisting with government investigations of alleged police misconduct and facilitating improvements and change;
  • Conducting police discipline investigations resulting from citizen complaints;
  • Exploring opportunities to engage in police reform accountability by addressing issues with police union contracts and arbitration proceedings related to police discipline;
  • Educating communities, stakeholders, local government leaders, community activists, and our corporate clients on issues related to police reform in order to help bring key parties together to move toward meaningful reform;
  • Undertaking impact litigation designed to challenge unconstitutional policing practices and to achieve systemic reform resulting in a decrease in excessive use of force, improved transparency and accountability, and standardized policing practices; and
  • Working with the Innocence Project to fight for the freedom of those wrongfully convicted.
Airplane Jetway 

Eleventh Circuit revives civil rights lawsuit brought to declare jet-bridge stops by law enforcement at Atlanta Airport unconstitutional

Jones Day and its co-counsel at the New York University School of Law Policing Project and Krevolin Horst secured a reversal of the district court’s dismissal of this civil rights lawsuit arising from Clayton County’s unconstitutional policy of detaining and searching passengers in airport jet bridges ostensibly searching for drugs. The plaintiffs, comedians Eric André and Clayton English, alleged that they were unlawfully racially profiled in connection with the jet bridge interdiction program run by Clayton County law enforcement at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Clayton County police officers stopped Mr. André and Mr. English on the jet bridge as they were attempting to board their flights, blocked them from continuing down the jet bridge, held their identification, and peppered them with questions about whether they were carrying illegal drugs. While Clayton County claims such stops are random, over a period from September 2020 through April 2021, 56% of the passengers Clayton County officers stopped (whose race was recorded) were Black, even though just 8% of United States airline passengers were Black. Plaintiffs alleged that the odds that this racial disparity was caused by random chance is infinitesimal.

The Northern District of Georgia dismissed the case in September 2023, and Jones Day and its co-counsel appealed the dismissal to the Eleventh Circuit. In its ruling, the Eleventh Circuit found that Mr. André and Mr. English plausibly alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment by Clayton County. The Court specifically recognized the systemic nature of the program’s constitutional violations, explaining that “plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that the drug interdiction program itself calls for repeated violations of the Fourth Amendment.” However, the Court upheld the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ Equal Protection Clause claim, finding that despite the program’s allegedly “stark” discriminatory impact, the Complaint did not plausibly allege “that any individual defendant acted with a discriminatory purpose.” And the Court upheld the dismissal of the Fourth Amendment claims against the individual officers, concluding that the officers had qualified immunity. The case has returned to the district court, where litigation continues. More

Before sending, please note:

Information on www.jonesday.com is for general use and is not legal advice. The mailing of this email is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. Anything that you send to anyone at our Firm will not be confidential or privileged unless we have agreed to represent you. If you send this email, you confirm that you have read and understand this notice.