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IU McKinney Professor Gerard Magliocca talked with an Indianapolis Star columnist about qualified immunity and how it was applied in the court case surrounding Indianapolis resident Terrell Day’s death while in police custody. The case is one of many involving qualified immunity that United States Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled upon. The column (subscription required) appeared October 26.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled the Indianapolis police officers were liable for Day’s death. Day was accused of shoplifting, and ran away from a store security guard, only to collapse in a grassy area behind a nearby gas station. He complained to police that he couldn’t breathe, emergency medical workers were called. The district court determined that police put Day in a position that led to his asphyxiation. Judge Barrett was a member of the three-judge panel that overturned that decision, finding that Day didn’t complain the tightness of the handcuffs with his hands behind his back was restricting his breathing.  

Professor Magliocca told the columnist that it’s impossible to extrapolate how Judge Barrett will rule in future qualified immunity cases. He reviewed a few such cases involving the judge. He agreed with the attorney for Day’s family that the higher court’s ruling, which places an obligation on a dying person to accurately explain to officers why the person couldn’t breathe. Professor Magliocca explained this is a reflection of how difficult it is for a plaintiff to overcome qualified immunity. The United States Supreme Court or the United States Congress would have to narrow qualified immunity’s scope, the professor said.

“The bottom line is that I don’t think it changed anything,” Professor Magliocca said in the column. “I think they just applied a standard which is very hard to meet.”