Qualified Immunity, A Suspect’s Right against Self-Incrimination, and Due Process

• The Doctrine of Qualified Immunity
• The Fifth Amendment Right Against Self-Incrimination
• The Fourteenth Amendment Right to Due Process
• A Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Violation That “Shocks the Conscience”
• A Police Officer’s Duty to Intervene

(1) An officer’s violation of a suspect’s constitutional rights will not result in the officer’s civil liability unless the unlawfulness of the officer’s actions was clearly established by prior case law.  (2) An in-custody suspect’s clear and unequivocal invocation of his right to the assistance of counsel, when ignored by law enforcement and results in incriminating statements that are used in trial against the suspect, is a Fifth Amendment violation.  (3) A police officer who, while interrogating a suspect, threatens to tell the court or a prosecutor that the suspect failed to cooperate by refusing to waive his or her rights and/or to confess, violates that suspect’s due process rights, renders any subsequent confession inadmissible, and exposes the officer to potential civil liability.  An interrogation that is so coercive that it “shocks the conscience” violations the Fourteenth Amendment.  Police officers have a duty to intercede when they are aware that their fellow officers are violating the constitutional rights of another person.

On the evening of August 17, 2012, 13-year-old Art Tobias (“Plaintiff”), allegedly a budding gang member of the Mara Salvatrucha (better known as MS-13) criminal street gang, “participated” in the murder of Edwin Cruz.  (The details of his “participation” in this murder are not in issue in this case, and are not ....