Under Color of Law | Season 2, Ep. 5

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In Chicago in 1958, over a dozen police officers barged into the home of a sleeping family with guns drawn. They didn’t have a warrant, and it turned out they didn’t have the right man. When the family’s civil rights claim reached the Supreme Court, it resulted in the landmark case of of Monroe v. Pape, which finally — 90 years after Congress authorized such suits — opened the doors of federal courthouses to victims of unconstitutional misconduct by state and local officials. On this episode, we hear about the raid from people who experienced it firsthand. 

Click here for transcript.

Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Stitcher.

Guests

James Montgomery, James D. Montgomery & Associates

David Achtenberg, University of Missouri – Kansas City

Steven Winter, Wayne State University

Anya Bidwell, Institute for Justice

Resources

Steven Winter, The Meaning of Under Color of Law

Myriam Gilles, Police, Race, and Crime in 1950s Chicago: Monroe v. Pape as Legal Noir

Sheldon Nahmod, Section 1983 is Born: The Interlocking Supreme Court Stories of Tenney and Monroe

Paul Watford, Screws v. United States and the Birth of Federal Civil Rights Enforcement

Richard Pildes, Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon

Richard Aynes, Charles Fairman, Felix Frankfurter, and the Fourteenth Amendment

Screws trial transcript: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

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