Politics

C.J. Ciaramella | 11.14.2024 2:00 PM

A California woman won't be allowed to sue the police officer who allegedly leaked a confidential abuse report to her violent boyfriend after the Supreme Court declined to review her case, ending her nearly decade-long legal battle to hold police officers responsible for abetting her abuse.

The Supreme Court declined this week to take up a petition for writ of certiorari filed in August by Desiree Martinez. Martinez filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2015 against several police officers in Clovis, California, who she accused of ignoring multiple attempts to report her abusive boyfriend. She says that's because her boyfriend, Kyle Pennington, was also a Clovis police officer.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that those officers, including one who tipped off her boyfriend, are immune from Martinez's lawsuit under qualified immunity—a legal doctrine that shields state and local government officials from federal civil suits if their alleged misconduct was not "clearly established" by existing case law. 

Qualified immunity........

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