County Law Update

Know your affirmative duty Training, hiring and supervision duties

County Law Update

In the context of law enforcement and detention, a county has an affirmative duty to “not be deliberately indifferent to a need for” necessary training, hiring, or supervision.

City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378 (1989): The “failure to provide proper training may fairly be said to represent a policy for which the city [or county] is responsible” if “the need for more or different training” is “so obvious, and the inadequacy so likely to result in the violation of constitutional rights, that the policy makers of the city can reasonably be said to have been deliberately indifferent to the need.”

The city of Canton dealt with the issue of training needed to enable officers to determine whether a prisoner required medical care. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the evidence did not support a finding of deliberate indifference because there were “no past incidents of ‘deliberate indifference’ to the medical needs of emotionally disturbed detainees [nor] any other circumstances that had put the city on actual or constructive notice of a need for additional training in this regard.”

Hiring

In Board of County Commissioners of Bryan County v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397 (1997), the Supreme Court said that a county would be considered to be “deliberately indifferent” to a necessary hiring need “where adequate scrutiny of an applicant’s background would lead a reasonable policy maker to conclude that the plainly obvious consequence of the decision to hire the applicant would be the deprivation of a third party’s federally protected rights.”

The U.S. Supreme Court remanded Ms. Brown’s case for trial on the issue of whether the county had been “deliberately indifferent” to a necessary training need for the officer in question, an inexperienced officer who had been hired and put on patrol with no training although he was in line for standard training provided by the state law enforcement training academy.

Supervision

On the issue of supervision, Brown won a jury verdict in her favor. Brown v. Bryan County Board of Commissioners, 219 F.3d 450 (5th Cir. 2000). The jury’s verdict was appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the jury’s verdict, stating that the verdict was supported by evidence that the sheriff knew of that particular officer’s “exuberant and reckless background” and “his record of ‘taking down’ a number of arrest subjects” (during his first 12 arrests). The Court of Appeals ruled that “under certain circumstances, § 1983 liability can attach for a single decision not to train an individual officer even where there has been no pattern of previous constitutional violations . . . [where there is] . . . evidence that would support a finding that it was obvious that the offending officer . . . was highly likely to inflict the particular injury suffered by the plaintiff.”

The Court concluded that evidence was sufficient in Brown’s case for the jury to have concluded that “it was obvious to [the sheriff] that his policy decision not to train [the particular deputy in question] would result in a constitutional deprivation.”

Annual deputy training

Arkansas Law: “Each law enforcement agency shall provide annual training to all officers that ... emphasizes the prohibition against [unlawful] profiling ... and stresses ... development of effective and appropriate methods of carrying out law enforcement duties.”

A.C.A. 12-12-1404. This annual training is

to: (1) emphasize the prohibition against unlawful profiling; (2) ensure that Mike Rainwater operating proce- Risk Management dures adequately Legal Counsel implement the prohibition against unlawful profiling (so that all law enforcement personnel have copies of, understand, and follow the operating procedures); (3) include foreign language instruction, if possible, to ensure adequate communication with residents of the community, and (4) stress understanding of and respect for racial, ethnic, national, religious and cultural differences and apply such to “A county has an affirmative duty to ‘not be deliberately indifferent to a need the development of effective and appropriate methods of carrying out law enforcement duties. A.C.A. 12-12-1404. for’ necessary training, hiring or supervision.” This applies to all persons deputized: When considering these principles, don’t forget that the principles apply to auxiliary deputies and to any other persons deputized. If, for example, you choose to “deputize” city or town officers, your grant of your “sheriff” power carries with it the duty to “not be deliberately indifferent to a need for” necessary training, hiring, or supervision. Before deputizing auxiliaries or non-county officers, count the additional cost in necessary training, hiring or supervision. (Note: Arkansas law limits the use/authority of auxiliary officers.) (Mike Rainwater, a regular contributor to County Lines and lead attorney for AAC Risk Management, is principal shareholder of Rainwater, Holt, and Sexton, P.A., a state-wide personal injury and disability law firm. He has been a lawyer for more than 30 years, is a former deputy prosecuting attorney and has defended city and county officials for more than 25 years.)