Buffalo Law Review Volume 47 Number 3 Article 4 10-1-1999 Patterns of Injustice: Police Brutality in the Courts Susan Bandes DePaul University College of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons Recommended Citation Susan Bandes, Patterns of Injustice: Police Brutality in the Courts, 47 Buff. L. Rev. 1275 (1999). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol47/iss3/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Buffalo Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Patterns of Injustice: Police Brutality in the Courts SUSAN BANDESt INTRODUCTION Legal consequences often hinge on whether events or incidents are categorized as isolated or connected, individual or systemic, anecdotal or part of a larger pattern. Courts tend to portray incidents of police brutality as anecdotal, fragmented, and isolated rather than as part of a systemic, institutional pattern. Though numerous doctrines-including federalism, separation of powers, causation, deference, discretion, and burden of proof- provide partial explanations for the judicial fragmentation of police misconduct, it seems clear that courts cannot or do not choose to see systemic patterns for reasons that transcend doctrinal explanations. This article explores those reasons, which, ultimately, are relevant not only to police brutality, but to the larger judicial tendency to anecdotalize systemic government misconduct.