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80 B.U. L. Rev. 17 (2000)
Breaking the Code of Silence: Rediscovering Custom in Section 1983 Municipal Liability

handle is hein.journals/bulr80 and id is 31 raw text is: ARTICLES BREAKING THE CODE OF SILENCE: REDISCOVERING CUSTOM IN SECTION 1983 MUNICIPAL LIABILITY MYRIAM E. GILLES* INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 18 I. MUNICIPAL LIABILITY UNDER § 1983: THE EVOLUTION OF A D OCTRINE .......................................................................................... 23 A. Section 1983 From Monroe to Monell ...................................... 23 B. The Rationale Behind Municipal Liability ............................... 29 C. Early Formulations of the Policy Basis for Establishing M unicipal Liability ..................................................................... 32 II. THE PROBLEMS WITH POLICY. ...................................................... 35 A. The Quasi-Legislative Model ................................................ 35 B. The Official Action M odel ...................................................... 37 C. The Failure to [Blank] Model ............................................... 41 D. The Problems With Policy ..................................................... 47 III. THE LOST CUSTOM LANGUAGE OF § 1983 .................................... 48 A. Historical Context and Early Federal Civil Rights Legislation ..... 50 B. The Ku Klux Klan Act of1871 ................................................... 54 C. M odern Custom Claims ....................................................... 60 IV. THE CUSTOM OF THE POLICE CODE OF SILENCE........................ 63 A. The Officer Whose Repeated Violence Goes Unreported .......... 67 B. Officers Who Engage In Misconduct In the Presence Of Other Officers ......................................................................................... *.68 C. Retaliation Against Officers Who Breach the Code of Silence ....... 69 D. Common Threads: Injuries Result From the Police Code of Silence ....................................................................................... 7 1 V. THE PROMISE OF CUSTOM ............................................................ 72 A. The Code of Silence Causes (Colloquially) Constitutional Injury ........................................................................................ . . 73 B. The Failures of Policy ........................................................... 78 C. The Code of Silence Causes Constitutional Injury .................... 80 Assistant Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. B.A., Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, 1993; J.D., Yale Law School, 1996. My most heartfelt thanks to Stewart Sterk and Gary Friedman. I would also like to thank Jack Beermann, David Gray Carlson, E. Nathaniel Gates, Risa Goluboff, Jonathan Gutoff, Michael Herz, Melanie Leslie, David Rudenstine, Barry Scheck, Martin Schwartz, and Peter Schuck for their helpful comments and suggestions.