A federal lawsuit challenges the District of Columbia’s practice of sending police officers rather than mental health providers to respond to mental health emergencies.

This case concerns whether taking and selling a home to satisfy a debt to the government, and keeping the surplus value as a windfall, violates the Fifth Amendment's takings clause.

Whether a reasonable jury could find that police officers violate the Constitution’s prohibition on excessive force when they kill a shackled and handcuffed arrestee inside of a jail cell by holding him face-down on the ground and pressing into his back until he suffocated, also known as compression asphyxiation.

Whether individuals can challenge the conduct of federal officials engaged in standard law enforcement operations as unconstitutional under Bivens or whether such claims present a new context unless they involve narcotics officers “manacling the plaintiff in front of his family in his home and stripsearching him in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” as the Fifth Circuit held.

It is critical that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals clarify that the Fourth Amendment applies to the use of force against schoolchildren. J.W. v. Paley involves Fourteenth and Fourth Amendment claims stemming from a police officer tasing a high school student with disabilities who was attempting to exit the school building to calm down following an incident with another student. The district court dismissed the Fourteenth Amendment claim based on precedent, but allowed the Fourth Amendment claim to proceed, denying qualified immunity to the officer. The Fifth Circuit, however, reversed the lower court’s decision regarding the Fourth Amendment claim, ultimately leaving schoolchildren without any constitutional protection from excessive force by law enforcement in the Fifth Circuit.