Short Circuit 182 | Putting the Protection in “Equal Protection”

Today we think of the Equal Protection Clause as requiring equal treatment of the laws. But in addition to anything else it covers, at its core it’s supposed to protect, well, equal protection. Yet if you bring a claim that you’re not being protected equally the courts generally have little to offer. However, civil rights attorney Laura Schauer Ives just won an appeal at the Tenth Circuit in a tragic case where the court did take “protection” seriously, denying qualified immunity to police officers who failed to protect a woman from her stalking ex-partner. She joins us to discuss the victory and its wider impact. Also, what’s a “closely-regulated industry?” That term is often used to deny businesses some of their Fourth Amendment protections, and the Ninth Circuit recently ruled that massage parlors qualify. IJ’s Josh Windham joins us to analyze whether this is becoming an exception that swallows the rule, i.e. the rule that the government come back with a warrant.

Transcript forthcoming.

Dalton v. Reynolds, https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/19/19-2047.pdf

Killgore v. City of South El Monte, https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/07/08/20-55666.pdf

DeShaney v. Winnebago County, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/489/189/#tab-opinion-1957769

New York v. Burger, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/482/691/

Laura Schauer Ives, http://nmcivilrights.com/laura-schauer-ives/

Josh Windham, https://ij.org/staff/joshua-windham/

Anthony Sanders, https://ij.org/staff/asanders/

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