The Supreme Court declined this week to hear a case brought by a California woman who has been blocked from suing the police officer who allegedly leaked a confidential abuse report to her violent boyfriend, a fellow police officer, Reason magazine reports. A U.S. district court initially ruled that the tipster wasn't entitled to qualified immunity, writing that "it was clearly established that an officer sharing a domestic violence victim's confidential information to the alleged abuser would be a violation of the victim's substantive due process rights." But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision on immunity grounds, a decision that now stands after the Supreme Court denied review. Martinez was represented by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public interest law firm. "This is obviously hugely disappointing," Anya Bidwell, an Institute for Justice senior attorney, said in a press release. "Qualified immunity should not be a one-size-fits-all doctrine that protects on-the-beat cops and desk-bound bureaucrats alike."
The doctrine of qualified immunity shields state and local government officials from federal civil suits if their alleged misconduct was not "clearly established" by existing case law. Martinez's lawsuit claimed that several Clovis, Ca., police officers ignored her multiple attempts to report her abusive boyfriend. She says that's because her boyfriend, Kyle Pennington, was also a Clovis police officer. According to Martinez's Supreme Court petition, in one instance she filed a confidential abuse report against Pennington to the Clovis police. Later, during a late-night argument, Pennington called another Clovis officer, Channon High. Pennington put her on speakerphone and asked Martinez, "So you're telling the cops what I did to you?" Martinez denied it, but High interjected, "Yes, she did. I see a report right here." Martinez claims Pennington hung up the phone and sexually and physically abused her. Pennington was later convicted of violating a restraining order, and prosecutors dropped more serious charges against him in exchange for a guilty plea to a single misdemeanor domestic abuse charge.
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