“Specializing” Section 1983

Authors

Ndjuoh MehChu

Abstract

Recent Supreme Court decisions eroding protections for race-class-gender subjugated rights claimants have drummed up alarm about the legitimacy of the Court. Much discussion focuses on the need to reform the Court, reflecting a widely shared belief that the institution is inclined to abjure checks on the coercive apparatus and punishment bureaucracy (e.g., police) while failing to vindicate the rights of disadvantaged groups. The lower federal courts, however, while not only implementing the Supreme Court’s rights-retrenching decisions but, in some cases, dipping below the floor of protection the Court itself has recognized, have received relatively scant attention. This vacuum persists despite the fact most of the content of federal law is developed in the lower courts. This Article attempts to fill this void by exploring the desirability of Congress establishing a specialized federal appellate court with exclusive jurisdiction over cases brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which I refer to as “specializing” Section 1983.

Many court reform proposals face obstacles because they have a political valence that serves as an impediment to their implementation at a time when there is intense political polarization. To ignore the complexities of the political economy into which any court reform proposal would be airdropped would plainly be shortsighted. I therefore suggest an alternative focused on lower federal courts that does not overtly favor either civil rights plaintiffs or governmental defendants; instead, the proposal is driven by neutral principles that will not only bring about neutral benefits but will also eliminate the unfair and one-sided aspects of current qualified immunity doctrine that disproportionately favors governmental defendants.

I suggest that specializing Section 1983 will develop subject-matter expertise in Section 1983 cases, which is (neutrally) good because expertise enhances the quality of judicial decision-making. This expertise will in turn lead to more efficient disposition of Section 1983 cases where qualified immunity is invoked—a neutral benefit. Most notably, the proposed court would establish uniform, nationwide law. Currently, splintered decisions from different regional courts of appeals create an artificial constraint on plaintiffs’ ability to overcome qualified immunity. The uniform, nationwide law would address such fragmentation and aid in generating clearly established law to bring some internal coherence to the qualified immunity doctrine.

Recommended Citation

Ndjuoh MehChu, “Specializing” Section 1983, 14 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 571 (2024).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.uci.edu/ucilr/vol14/iss2/9