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Local Sovereign Immunity LOCAL SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY Fred Smith* When governmental actors offend federal rights, victims are often left with no one to hold accountable in federal courts. This Article explores this accountability gap in cases involving local officials’ violations of the Constitution. Local government, after all, is the layer of government that is often closest to our daily lives, from law enforce- ment to education. This Article argues that as a descriptive matter, contrary to the conventional account, a form of sovereign immunity protects local governments from federal constitutional suits. And this immunity unduly obstructs constitutional accountability. Local sovereign immunity operates primarily through two doctrines that, together, prevent remedies for violations of federal rights. First, a special, stringent causation requirement often prohibits recovery against local governments, even when that government’s agent violates federal constitutional rights. This causation requirement shares core historical and ideological commitments with the Supreme Court’s state sovereignty jurisprudence. The requirement also shares historical roots with com- mon law doctrines barring or limiting suits against local governments for traditional torts. Second, like federal and state officials, local actors are often entitled to qualified and absolute immunities, blocking suits against such actors in their individual capacities. Qualified and absolute immunities have roots in the doctrine of sovereign immunity. This Article observes that the version of state sovereignty that infuses these immunity doctrines is inflected with concerns about repub- licanism, representative government, federalism, and autonomy. It concludes by advocating for reforms that would narrow the rights– remedies gap for constitutional violations, while showing due respect for *. Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley Law School; Visiting Professor, Emory Law School. Tremendous thanks to Ty Alper, Michelle Anderson, KeNNeth Bamberger, Andrew Bradt, Dorothy Brown, Jesse Choper, Sujit Choudry, Charlton Copeland, Richard Craswell, David Engstrom, Dan Farber, Richard Ford, Richard Freer, David Gamage, Jamal Greene, John Jeffries, Pamela Karlan, Prasad Krishnamurthy, Mark Lemley, Katerina Linos, Michael McCoNNell, Anne Joseph O’CoNNell, James Pfander, Russell Robinson, Bertrall Ross, Andrea Roth, Jane Schacter, Peter Schuck, Neil Siegel, David Shraub, Norm Spaulding, A. Benjamin Spencer, Rachel Stern, Stephen Sugarman, KareN Tani, Amanda Tyler, Jennifer Urban, John Yoo, and Ernest Young for reading earlier drafts or otherwise providing helpful guidance. Thanks are also due to participants of the Jerome Culp Colloquium at Duke Law School; the John Mercer Langston Workshop at the University of California, Irvine; the Federal Courts Junior Faculty Workshop at William and Mary Law School; the Faculty Workshop Series at Stanford Law School; and the Faculty Workshop Series at the University of California, Berkeley. Caitlin Bedsworth, Gregory Miller, Swati Prakash, and Shira Teva provided stellar research assistance. 409 410 COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 116:409 the values that undergird this American jurisprudence of “republican sovereignty.” Potential reforms include permitting suits against local governments when there is no other federal remedy available and placing restrictions on the execution of judgments instead of restricting the availability of suits. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 411 I. GENEALOGY OF lOCAL SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY.................................... 423 A. Development of Common Law Municipal Immunity ............... 424 B. Constitutional Liability: The “Policy and Custom” Requirement430 1. Deliberate Indifference........................................................ 433 2. Policymakers ......................................................................... 438 C. Individual Immunities as Sovereign Immunity.......................... 440 II. STATE “REPUBLICAN SOVEREIGNTY” ................................................... 443 A. History ......................................................................................... 446 B. Doctrine....................................................................................... 449 1. State Sovereign Immunity .................................................... 449 2. Anticommandeering ............................................................ 452 III. lOCAL “REPUBLICAN SOVEREIGNTY”.................................................. 454 A. Local Sovereign Interests............................................................ 455 1. Police Power.......................................................................... 455 2. EducatioN.............................................................................. 457 B. Lawsuits as a Threat to Sovereign Functions ............................. 458 C. Accountability.............................................................................. 460 1. Municipal Immunity Pre-Monell ......................................... 460 2. Municipal Immunity Post-Monell ........................................ 462 IV. IMMUNITY ........................................................................................... 465 A. Absence of Alternatives............................................................... 466 1. Element of a Violation ............................................................ 466 2. Pleading Prerequisite.............................................................. 467 3. Legislative Command.............................................................. 467 B. Methodology ............................................................................... 470 V. CONSEQUENCES .................................................................................. 472 A. Doctrines in Dialogue ................................................................. 472 B. The “Embarrassing Eleventh Amendment” .............................. 474 C. Balancing Republican Principles: Toward Reforms .................. 476 1. A Synergistic Remedy?.......................................................... 478 2. Damages and Execution of Judgments................................ 482 D. Collateral Order Doctrine .......................................................... 484 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 485 2016] LOCAL SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY 411 INTRODUCTION Constitutional torts take many forms. Sometimes the victim is an innocent person formerly on death row, convicted after a team of local prosecutors has illegally withheld exonerating evidence.1 Far more often, the aggrieved is a persoN who was unjustifiably and excessively beaten, tasered, or shot in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s command against unreasonable seizures. Such individuals often file federal suits, relying on the broad promise of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which creates a private cause of action against state and local actors who violate federal rights.2 But these victims of lawless conduct often find that even when they properly allege violations of federal rights, and even when they produce evidence of government abuse, they are left with no one to hold accountable in federal court.3 Federal courts have drawN in part upon principles of sovereignty and federalism to provide broad protection to local governments and their agents. With few exceptions, local governments are not liable for the federal constitutional violations committed by their agents.4 Further, governmental actors serving in a prosecutorial, judicial, or legislative function are absolutely immune from suit in their individual capacities.5 Like state and federal officials, other local governmental actors are also often immune from suit under a concept called “qualified immunity.”6 This stands in contrast to common law suits against local governments, where state courts and legislatures have often shed or softened these municipal immunities in favor of increased government accountability.7 1. See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963) (“We now hold that the suppressioN by the prosecutioN of evidence favorable to an accused upoN request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.”). 2. Section 1983 states in relevant part: Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivatioN of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the ConstitutioN and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress . 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2012). 3. See, e.g., Truvia v. Connick, 577 F. App’x 317, 320 (5th Cir. 2014) (affirming dismissal of claims filed by exonerated former inmates for Brady violations); see also CoNNick v. Thompson, 131 S. Ct. 1350, 1366 (2011) (overturning judgment against city under similar circumstances). 4. Thompson, 131 S. Ct. at 1359 (“[L]ocal governments . are not vicariously liable under § 1983 for their employees’ actions.”). 5. See infra sectioN I.C (discussing individual immunities for local government actors). 6. Infra sectioN I.C. 7. Infra sectioN I.C. 412 COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 116:409 This Article argues that the
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