Justice For Kate
Our readers may be aware of the recent decision in the lawsuit by the family of Kate Steinle, a victim of San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy. The following represents the analysis of the Steinle ruling by an attorney.
The court dismissed the family’s lawsuit against the County and City of San Francisco and former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. The court did allow one claim to go forward: the negligence claim against the federal government because a federal Bureau of Land Management ranger left his handgun in a backpack in an unlocked car in downtown San Francisco, which is how the criminal alien obtained the gun he used to murder Kate Steinle, an innocent American citizen.
I am extremely upset that the judge dismissed the case against San Francisco and Mirkarimi over their sanctuary policies. The basis of the claim that I was really hopeful about was 42 U.S.C. Section 1983: every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance or policy of any state, causes any citizen to be deprived of their civil rights (here, the right to life) shall pay money damages to the party injured (Kate Steinle). The idea being that San Francisco’s sanctuary law and policy, in contravention of federal law, deprived Kate Steinle of her life.
If U.S. citizens could be successful in pursuing that claim, they might extract massive monetary damages from these sanctuary cities and the damned fool officials that perpetrate these policies. The judge’s reasoning in dismissing the Steinle case is that the precedents (prior cases) all require that specific, identifiable state or local government action (or failure to act) in relation to a specific, identifiable person led to the deprivation of that specific person’s rights. The thing about the San Francisco sanctuary policy is that it places everyone at risk, not any identifiable person. Here is an example of the kind of case that usually wins a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim:
“A case where a state trooper arrested an intoxicated driver and impounded the vehicle, but, according to the plaintiff’s testimony, left the plaintiff who had been a passenger in the vehicle) to walk home late at night in a high-crime area, ignoring her request for assistance getting home.”
This was a woman who was raped on her way home. She was passenger in the car, not the intoxicated driver. The court ruled that the police had an obligation to help her get home or keep her safe until she could arrange transportation. It was 5 miles to her house, so it would have taken perhaps 15 minutes at most for an officer to drive her home. That case is a specific, identified failure to act and it placed at risk a specific, identifiable person. In contrast, the Kate Steinle case was a local government policy that placed everyone at risk, not a specific person, so the precedents do not apply.
Without further research, I can’t say that the judge was wrong. I was thinking for the past several years that 42 USC 1983 would be a way to nail these sanctuary cities. Looks like my hopes may have been in vain. Thank god for Trump because I think he will stick it to these cities in every way possible.
Tags: amnesty, Bureau of Land Management, California, Homeland Security, illegal aliens, Kate Steinle, Ross Mirkarimi, San Francisco, sanctuary cities, Washington Times
This entry was posted on January 13, 2017 at 1:04 AM and is filed under Analysis, News, News and Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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