The Eleventh Amendment is an amendment to the United States Constitution which was passed by Congress on March 4, 1794, and ratified by the states on February 7, 1795. The Eleventh Amendment restricts the ability of individuals to bring suit against states in federal court.
In American criminal law, a material witness is a person with information alleged to be material concerning a criminal proceeding. The authority to detain material witnesses dates to the First Judiciary Act of 1789, but the Bail Reform Act of 1984 most recently amended the text of the statute, and it is now codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3144. The most recent version allows material witnesses to be held to ensure the giving of their testimony in criminal proceedings or to a grand jury.
Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970), was a Supreme Court case which held that the United States Congress could set voting age requirements for federal elections but not for local or state elections. The case also upheld Congress's nationwide prohibition on literacy tests and similar "tests or devices" used as voting qualifications as defined in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Congress had passed the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 requiring all states to register citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 as voters. The state of Oregon objected to the lower voting age, and filed suit on the grounds that the act was unconstitutional. The respondent was John Mitchell in his role as United States Attorney General.
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), was a case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that an implied cause of action existed for an individual whose Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizures had been violated by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The victim of such a deprivation could sue for the violation of the Fourth Amendment itself despite the lack of any federal statute authorizing such a suit. The existence of a remedy for the violation was implied by the importance of the right violated.
In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from lawsuits for damages unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". It is a form of sovereign immunity less strict than absolute immunity that is intended to protect officials who "make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions", extending to "all [officials] but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law". Qualified immunity applies only to government officials in civil litigation, and does not protect the government itself from suits arising from officials' actions.
Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered the qualified immunity of a police officer to a civil rights case brought through a Bivens action.
Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135 (2009), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on January 14, 2009. The court decided that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies when a police officer makes an arrest based on an outstanding warrant in another jurisdiction, but the information regarding that warrant is later found to be incorrect because of a negligent error by that agency.
Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed, and Jamal Al-Harith, four former Guantánamo Bay detainees, filed suit in 2004 in the United States District Court in Washington, DC against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They charged that illegal interrogation tactics were permitted to be used against them by Secretary Rumsfeld and the military chain of command. The plaintiffs each sought seek compensatory damages for torture and arbitrary detention while being held at Guantánamo.
Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. ___ (2017), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court determined, by a vote of 4–2, that non-U.S. citizens detained in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks cannot recover monetary damages from high level federal officials for the conditions of their confinement. The case was consolidated with Hastey v. Abbasi, and Ashcroft v. Abbasi. It was argued on January 18, 2017.
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court dealing with the doctrine of qualified immunity.
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment and is thereby enforceable against the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.
Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft could not be personally sued for his involvement in the detention of a U.S. citizen in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 563 U.S. 125 (2011), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving taxpayer standing under Article Three of the United States Constitution.
Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered whether a prosecutor's office can be held liable for a single Brady violation by one of its members on the theory that the office provided inadequate training.
Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452 (2011), was a decision by the US Supreme Court, which held that warrantless searches conducted in police-created exigent circumstances do not violate the Fourth Amendment as long as the police did not create the exigency by violating or threatening to violate the Fourth Amendment.
The Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA) is a United States copyright law that attempted to abrogate sovereign immunity of states for copyright infringement. The CRCA amended 17 USC 511(a):
In general. Any State, any instrumentality of a State, and any officer or employee of a State or instrumentality of a State acting in his or her official capacity, shall not be immune, under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States or under any other doctrine of sovereign immunity, from suit in Federal Court by any person, including any governmental or nongovernmental entity, for a violation of any of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner provided by sections 106 through 122, for importing copies of phonorecords in violation of section 602, or for any other violation under this title.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eight per curiam opinions during its 2014 term, which began October 6, 2014 and concluded October 4, 2015.
Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. ___ (2015), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a police officer who shot a suspect during a police pursuit was entitled to qualified immunity. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that prior precedent did not establish "beyond debate" that the officer's actions were objectively unreasonable.
Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case that determined that unless they consent, states have sovereign immunity from private suits filed against them in the courts of another state. The 5–4 decision overturned precedent set in a 1979 Supreme Court case, Nevada v. Hall. This was the third time that the litigants had presented their case to the Court, as the Court had already ruled on the issue in 2003 and 2016.
Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the use of force by police officers during high-speed car chases. After first holding that it had jurisdiction to hear the case, the Court held that the conduct of the police officers involved in the case did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
