Recent Development by Tina C. Santopadre
Police officers shot and killed Charlene Leatherman's two dogs, Shakespeare and Ninja, during execution of a search warrant. Shakespeare “had been shot three times, once in the stomach, once in the leg, and once in the head.” Ninja “had been shot in the head at close range . . . and brain matter was splattered across the bed, against the wall, and on the floor around the bed.” Ms. Leatherman was not home at the time. In a separate incident, acting under a search warrant, police officers raided the home of Gerald Andert, “a sixty-four year old grandfather, who was at home with his family mourning” his wife's recent death from cancer. Without knocking or identifying themselves, police officers burst into Andert's home and began to beat him. Both search warrants were obtained and the searches conducted “based on the detection of odors associated with the manufacture of narcotics.” Neither search revealed any narcotics.
Plaintiffs Leatherman and Andert brought suit under Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act alleging, inter alia, that “the municipalities failed to formulate and implement an adequate policy to train its officers on the proper manner to execute search warrants and respond when confronted by family dogs.” The defendants named in the suit included the Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit and the cities of Lake Worth and Grapevine, Texas. The complaint described the two incidents but did not allege any other facts or circumstances to support its allegation that the municipalities had failed to train the police officers adequately. The defendants filed both a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted and a motion for summary judgment. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas dismissed the complaint. Relying on the Fifth Circuit's heightened pleading requirement applicable in Section 1983 claims, the district court concluded that plaintiffs' pleadings failed to contain the specificity required under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that the heightened pleading rule required a plaintiff in a civil rights action to allege all material facts with specificity. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that a federal court cannot apply the heightened pleading requirement in suits alleging municipal liability under Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 113 S. Ct. 1160 (1993).
About the Author
Tina C. Santopadre.
Citation
68 Tul. L. Rev. 689 (1994)