In a win for civil rights in the South, a Louisiana federal judge held that Social Justice Legal Foundation client Nia Mills could proceed to trial in her case against a Louisiana sheriff and his deputies for violating her Fourth Amendment rights.
United States District Judge Brian A. Jackson held in two orders on November 21, 2024 that the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office and its officers are not entitled to qualified immunity, and that a jury should decide if Defendants unreasonably searched Ms. Mills’s phone, car, purse, and laptop; invaded her privacy; and seized her car and money.
On March 26, 2021, what should have been a routine traffic stop for Ms. Mills became a harrowing ordeal that left her—a Black woman, a mother, and the daughter of a U.S. military veteran—stranded outside a sheriff’s office in a foreign state at night. After being spit at, threatened with deportation, and told her partner had been shot and maimed by a sheriff’s deputy, Ms. Mills was left with no cash and no car to travel the nearly two hundred miles back to her home state.
One year later, SJLF, along with the ACLU of Louisiana, sued the sheriff of West Baton Rouge Parish on behalf of Ms. Mills. In November 2023, SJLF, ACLU of Louisiana, and the Southern Poverty Law Center together filed a First Amended Complaint asserting that the officers also violated state law by intentionally subjecting her to emotional distress, invading her privacy, and impounding her car.
In its order, the Court held that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity on any claims because a reasonable jury could agree with Ms. Mills that she was subjected to “an extended illegal detention”—and if so, the detention and all that came after it were “unconstitutional under clearly defined law.” (ECF 195 at pp. 22, 29.) That included trying to obtain Ms. Mills’s consent to the searches through “quintessential coercion” (id. at p. 22), holding her at the station for nearly six hours while the officers rifled through her belongings and swiped her bank cards, and impounding her car with “absolutely no justification” (id. at p. 26). Challenging these civil rights violations implicated novel and under-litigated areas of law involving electronic privacy and civil asset forfeiture practices.
Ms. Mills said the Court’s ruling was a positive step toward holding law enforcement accountable. “My experience at the hands of the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s office was extremely traumatizing, yet it is just one example of how a person’s life can be turned upside down when an officer violates your constitutional rights,” she said.
Ms. Mills’s counsel at SJLF, Senior Attorneys Vanessa Domenichelli and Marjorie Menza, agreed. “Sheriff’s deputies stopped Ms. Mills for the slightest of technical violations—her left tire touching the solid yellow line on a highway—and then they chose to violate the United States Constitution, the Louisiana Constitution, and, frankly, the basic rules of human dignity that should govern us all in these times,” said Menza. Added Domenichelli: “The abuse Ms. Mills and her partner suffered at the hands of law enforcement is egregious. The Court’s rulings yesterday allow her the opportunity to continue to tell her story and is a warning to these officers that they cannot violate the law and hide behind qualified immunity.”
In addition to Menza and Domenichelli, SJLF Fellow Kayla Gardner and Executive Director Sara Haji participated in the briefing. Attorneys Emily Lubin of the Southern Poverty Law Center and Nora Ahmed, Legal Director at the ACLU of Louisiana, also contributed.
“These rulings allow Ms. Mills her day in court, and SPLC is honored to stand by her side to prove what we already know – that officers with the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office engaged in unconstitutional police misconduct.” said Emily Lubin, senior staff attorney at SPLC.
As part of SJLF’s inaugural project, SJLF Impact Litigation Fellows have worked with ACLU of Louisiana’s Justice Lab to challenge police misconduct. The Justice Lab initiative targets racially discriminatory police practices by focusing intensive litigation efforts on a single state. “When we launched Justice Lab in the summer of 2020, we knew it was critical to assert rarely litigated constitutional claims on behalf of those who would never see their day in court absent pro bono assistance” said Nora Ahmed, legal director at the ACLU of Louisiana. “We are proud to fight for Ms. Mills rights and the work the Justice Lab has done.” Ms. Mills is just one of many individuals affected by unconstitutional and racist policing. Launched in 2020, over 50 cases have been filed as part of the Justice Lab initiative, see https://aclujusticelab.org/.
To read the *Full Amended Complaint, click here.
To read the Order Denying Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, click here.
To read the Order Denying Defendants’ Partial Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction, click here.
*Paragraphs 148-155 and 168-190 were stricken by order No. 162.
