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The Supreme Court on Monday shielded a Vermont police officer from a legal claim that he used excessive force on a protester during a sit-in at the state's Capitol.
The court, in an unsigned opinion, found that Sgt. Jacob Zorn is entitled to qualified immunity after injuring a nonviolent protester in 2015. The protester, Shela Linton, accused Zorn of excessive force after the officer put her arm behind her back, applied pressure and lifted her up. She was unarmed and nonthreatening - though largely noncompliant - throughout the incident, according to court records.
The court's three liberal justices dissented from the decision. "The majority today gives officers license to inflict gratuitous pain on a nonviolent protestor even where there is no threat to officer safety or any other reason to do so," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent.
The case is one of two in which the justices on Monday weighed in on qualified immunity, a hotly debated legal doctrine that involves protections for police facing lawsuits. In the other, the court let stand a ruling that police officials in Laredo, Texas, are shielded from a lawsuit that claims they violated a citizen journalist's constitutional right to gather news.
The decision involving the Vermont sergeant comes as the Trump administration's deployment of federal officers at some cities across the country has have sparked clashes with protesters. White House officials have stated that federal officers have broad immunity against claims they've acted unreasonably as they face protesters.
The Supreme Court's decision concerned a state officer, and it could still impact police interactions with peaceful protesters. The high court has sided with police officers in past cases involving qualified immunity.
In 2015, Linton joined about 200 others gathered for a sit-in at the Vermont State House to demand universal health care. When the capitol closed for the evening, Linton and about a couple dozen protesters remained seated in the building with their arms locked. Police officers warned the demonstrators that they would be arrested for trespassing if they did not leave. The officers began to remove the demonstrators one by one.
When Zorn tried to remove Linton, she "passively resisted," according to the opinion. Zorn then put Linton's arm in a "rear wristlock" and warned her to comply with his orders to stand up. He twisted her arm, and Linton exclaimed, "Ow, ow, ow." Linton continued to refuse Zorn's orders to stand up, and Zorn lifted her.
As a result of the wristlock, Linton suffered a permanent "loss of motion" in her left wrist and shoulder, she later alleged in a lawsuit that accused Zorn of excessive force.
A federal judge in Vermont found that Linton could not take her lawsuit to trial. The judge said Zorn was shielded from the lawsuit because he is entitled to qualified immunity. The legal doctrine protects public officials from lawsuits unless the alleged misconduct is clearly established by past cases. Critics say the doctrine has largely shielded police officers from lawsuits alleging a wide array of misconduct, including excessive force.
A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit reversed the finding that Zorn was protected by qualified immunity. Attorneys for Zorn appealed to the Supreme Court.
In siding with the officer, the majority found that past courts have not established that Zorn's wristlock on Linton is a form of excessive force. A past case the appeals court relied on "fails to specify which circumstances make the use of force ‘gratuitous,'" it wrote.
In dissent, Sotomayor - joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson - wrote that past cases had established wristlock as a form of excessive force that may offend Linton's constitutional rights. Linton should be able to move forward with her lawsuit, Sotomayor argued.
Sotomayor chided the majority for too often siding with police officers in similar cases. She said the case represents a "resurgence" in the court's "one-sided approach" to qualified immunity, transforming the doctrine into an "absolute shield" for police officers.
• 'Lagordiloca' case
In a separate case, the high court declined to review an appeal filed by Priscilla Villarreal, a citizen journalist whom police arrested after she published information that a police officer volunteered to her. Sotomayor dissented.
Villarreal, under the name "Lagordiloca," runs a Facebook page that reports happenings in Laredo. In 2017, she contacted an internal police source to confirm the name of a border agent who had died by suicide and gather details of a fatal traffic accident.
Six months later, police secured two warrants accusing of her obtaining that information for her own benefit, citing a Texas law that Webb County police had not previously used in the 23 years since it had been enacted. Police officials accused of Villarreal of using the nonpublic information she gathered to boost her online popularity.
When Villarreal turned herself in, police officers laughed and took pictures of her as she wore handcuffs, according to her brief to the court. She had had a tense relationship with the police department because of her previous reporting.
Villarreal was released on bond, and a state judge later found that the charges were "unconstitutionally vague," as Sotomayor put it in her dissent.
Villarreal sued, saying the police department retaliated against her and violated the Constitution's guarantee of press freedom. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying the police officials were entitled to qualified immunity. A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed, finding Villarreal's arrest was "obviously" unconstitutional. But the full 5th Circuit disagreed, and concluded Laredo police officials were entitled to immunity.
The Supreme Court subsequently vacated that decision and told the appeals court to reconsider the case in light of a 2024 precedent regarding retaliatory arrests. But after a divided 5th Circuit again found the officials are entitled to qualified immunity, the high court declined another review.
In her dissent, Sotomayor said the case needed another look. "Here, it is hard to conceive of a more obvious constitutional violation than arresting a journalist who, in searching for corroboration, simply asks a government source for information," she wrote.
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