Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote Monday that the court is developing a “disturbing trend” of siding with police officers accused of excessive force at the expense of their alleged victims, a notion disputed by two of her colleagues.
Judge Sotomayor Sees "Disturbing Trend" of Courts Favoring Officers in Use-of-Force Rulings
Her colleagues’ failure to accept the case “continues a disturbing trend regarding the use of this court’s resources,” Sotomayor wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
April 25, 2017
Sotomayor was arguing that the court should have accepted the case of Richardo Salazar-Limon, who was shot in the back by Houston police officer Chris Thompson in 2010. A federal district judge dismissed Salazar-Limon’s suit before trial, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld that decision, the Washington Post reports.
What happened in the incident that left Salazar-Limon crippled is disputed, Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, and a decision on which man is telling the truth should be made by “a jury sitting as finder of fact, not a judge reviewing a paper record.”
What made Sotomayor’s dissent unusual was the criticism of the court’s past decisions.
Her colleagues’ failure to accept the case “continues a disturbing trend regarding the use of this court’s resources,” Sotomayor wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
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