Today, the Social Justice Legal Foundation, on behalf of client Nia Mills, settled a years-long lawsuit against the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office and its deputies for their flagrant violation of Ms. Mills’s civil rights.
After a traumatic 2021 traffic stop in which deputy sheriffs spat at Ms. Mills, threatened her with deportation, told her that her partner had been shot and maimed, and impounded her car and money, SJLF and the ACLU of Louisiana’s Justice Lab sued the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office for violating Ms. Mills’s civil rights. With help from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Hueston Hennigan LLP, the team successfully defended against multiple motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment in which the Sheriff’s Office repeatedly sought to avoid accountability through qualified immunity.
The Sheriff’s Office entered settlement talks with Ms. Mills just a month before trial, ultimately settling all her claims, including for the search of her Cash App card using ERAD technology, the seizure of her rental car, the infliction of her emotional distress, and her prolonged detention. Through the course of the litigation, the Social Justice Legal Foundation not only pursued novel asset forfeiture and seizure claims but introduced expert evidence on the long-term racial trauma effects of racist policing—a first within the Fifth Circuit.
Ms. Mills remarked, “What happened to me and my family I hope never happens to anybody ever again. And I hope this lawsuit was a wake-up call for the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office.”
In an order allowing Ms. Mills’s claims to proceed past summary judgment, the Court held that the sheriff’s deputies 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).
The team at SJLF was led by Fellowship Director and Senior Attorney Marjorie Menza, who said, “Working with Ms. Mills was one of the highlights of my professional career. Both in the face of abusive, racially charged policing and throughout the litigation, she remained dignified and insightful. I am so proud of the work we did to bring these novel claims and shine a light on lawless police practices when it comes to ordinary Black citizen drivers in Louisiana.”