In my previous post I mentioned declaratory judgment and promised to follow-up. Basically, when you sue in federal court you can ask for a change in police, city or county policy (in the next post I will explain the difference between federal court and state court civil rights actions). Also, you can ask the federal court to grant you process in state court.
The concept of declaratory judgment is better understood through examples.
Example 1: A woman was pulled over by the police for speeding. She says that she was totally cooperative with the officer, he called her a racial slur, and broke her jaw by punching her in the jaw with a closed fist. The officer says that she got out of the car before the officer even approached the car, she was yelled and screamed at the officer, poked him in the chest, and when the officer attempted to get her to go back in the car she attempted to punch the officer in the face and the officer moved out of the way and she fell on the hood of her own car and broke her jaw.
It turns out that the woman is very wealthy and money is not a factor to her. She wants the officer fired. When her lawyer files the lawsuit in federal court, discovery is conducted and the lawyer asks for the video from the hood of police cruiser. The township claims they don’t have video dashboard cameras on the hoods of their cars.
The result of the case is that the township is forced to install cameras on the hoods of all of the cars and the cameras are connected to the cars in a way that the dashboard cameras cannot be disabled by the police officers, i.e. if the dashboard camera is disconnected the cruiser won’t start.
Example 2: In a very small town in Pennsylvania, where everyone knows your name, plaintiff is given a citation for disorderly conduct. He shows up at his hearing on time at the correct location, but he is found guilty without a hearing. The judges says that everyone knows him and the officer, so he must be guilty. Plaintiff files a de novo appeal to the Court of Common Pleas for a real trial and the prothonotary marks the filing as “DENIED.” The prothonotary cannot do this as a matter of law.
Plaintiff sues and doesn’t want money because he is going to medical school and doesn’t want a criminal record. The federal judge orders the lower court conviction vacated and orders the township to conduct a hearing; further the judge orders an investigation into the lower court judge, the officer who issued the citation, and the prothonotary.
