Professor joanna schwartz, its such a pleasure. Finally meet you. How are you. Im well. How are you . Very good, thank you. Very good. I really enjoyed reading your book. Even though the subject is quite a serious subject matter. So i feel a little uncomfortable saying i enjoyed it, but i always enjoy being informed. And certainly as someone who focuses on these issues in my teaching and as former Police Officer here in new york city, i just found it absolutely fascinating. I wanted to start off with what what motivated you i know this is your area of scholarship and focus but broadly speaking what motivated you to write this book. Well i before i a professor at ucla, i a civil rights litigator new york city bringing lawsuits. New york city police, Police Officers and new York City Department of corrections, other agencies in the area. And when i was in that practice, there were a lot of questions that came to mind about the way in which our system, the way in which civil litigation actually makes its way through the courts, the impact that it has on Police Officers and departments, because the underlying expectation is that these cases are going to have an impact, but when i was bringing these, i came to learn that in new york city, at least the money in these cases very rarely came out of Police Officers and Police Officers and departments didnt even seem to have basic about what happened in these cases, i would depose officers, meaning question them under oath, and they didnt know how many times theyd been sued or what the allegations were in cases against them, what the outcomes were in these cases and. So these were the kinds of questions that got me really inspired when i became a professor at, ucla and i started empirically testing these these questions and fast forward ten years after ten years of research and papers in academic journals, looking at the impact of civil rights litigation on the ground. George floyd was murdered and in may 2020 and in the months after i was receiving constant calls from reporters and from legislators, legislative aides who wanted to our system of civil litigation, what worked and, what didnt, and those conversations really inspired me to write shielded as a way to share with a broader audience what. All the barriers are to relief in a civil rights case and how those barriers came to be and how they impact the lives of real people in our communities and we should do to to make system work better so. You touched on something is amazing. I was going to ask next you know when youre writing a work like this i think a lot of authors the reader and envision how theyre going to impact the reader that when they close the book after that final change page, they have thought or theyre going to take action or do something or response. What do you envision, the readers, to get out of this book . What would you like . In a Perfect World . What would you like to see the readers response to this work . Well, i think, i think there are three sort of main categories of things that i hope readers get out of this book. One is simply understanding because our system of civil rights litigation and civil remediation is very complex. You, if youre an interested learner or reader in this area, you might learn about one area of the law qualified immunity, for example which is a defense. Im sure well well talk about later on in the in the conversation but you might learn about one defense or one aspect of the system. My goal is first to really make the system clear, transparent and to a reader who is not a lawyer in this area, but is interested in learning about. And my goal is to learn, educate folks not just about one aspect of the system but the entire system and the way in which it fits together. So thats one goal. I think another goal for me is to have written a book that leaves people really feeling for those in the book whose stories i tell to understand and the breadth of Police Violence and misconduct, the variety of people lives it can touch and and has touched. People who are never whose stories never make the who arent the subject of mass protests, but have nevertheless had their lives really shaken to the core and. Telling those stories and understanding real life impact of barriers to relief in civil rights cases is a key part of my goal. And then i guess a third or a third aspect of my goals in writing this book is, as you say to a path forward. It is not a uplifting, cheery book through through much it or perhaps through through all of it. But i do try to offer concrete steps steps that can be taken by the Supreme Court and congress but also by state legislatures, by local governments, councils, and also by people simply reading the book and wanting some guidance about what they can do to make the system work better. It currently does. You know, its great. You mentioned who the book was written for and certainly, as was reading it, i could see it as a something thats written for a work thats written for a practicing attorney. A work is written for those of us in academia and the work thats written for the layperson. And that was easily digestible. So i can only imagine thats fairly difficult to do. Lawyers are not particularly known for explaining the law to nonlawyers well so kudos to you. You know, theres so much, so much work here, so much to offer in this work. But id like to cherry pick a few topics that i found very interesting. So the outset you mentioned that basically a person who has been harmed by the police via the abuse of of force, they have three avenues for up for redress. One through the criminal process. Right. The Police Officer can be criminally prosecuted through. Interdepartmental discipline, which could range from though the loss of pay loss of Vacation Days to termination. And then finally civil suits which as you mention well get into because qualified immunity plays a huge part in civil in your opinion these three avenues of redress. Would you advocate that they be modified . Do you think we kind of need to start over or perhaps have some additional avenues of redress . Well, i certainly think that i do think that those are the three avenues that we have available to us, that none of them are working as they should or as they could. If we are imagining a system that actually compensates people whose rights have been wronged and deters future misconduct. Now, none of those systems work as. They should. Criminal prosecutions are exceedingly rare. Officers violate the law. And theres debate and i important debate about whether the answer in these cases should be to send Police Officers to jail. Whether that is the you know the way if for those of us who dont believe that prison is particularly effective deterrent for people who have been charged with crimes. I, i, i have some questions about whether that is the right system for Law Enforcement officers as well. I would like to at that entire system if i had a magic wand to do so. Internal Affairs Investigations. Discipline and termination are really in much of the country and this is in part because of Law Enforcement officers bills of rights which limit the the way in which officers can be investigated and what the standards are for sustaining investigations and disciplining and terminating officers. And i want to put my hope in this book in civil litigation as the best alternative among these three options. One reason or a few reasons that, people who have been wronged by the police can bring these claims themselves. They dont have to wait for a prosecutor decide to bring a charge or an internal Affairs Investigator to begin to investigate and a person whose rights have been violated also through the litigation process can Important Information about what happened and and how things went so wrong, which is often what victims of misconduct want to know. Thats information that criminal prosecutors and internal Affairs Investigators have no obligation to turn over. And that can happen in the civil litigation process. And people who have been harmed can receive money to compensate them for their losses and potentially a court order requiring that departments change their behavior, which again, are things that cant happen through the criminal prosecution or the internal Affairs Investigation processes. So i think that civil rights litigation is a valuable tool and makes sense a tool to pursue. Although much of my book is focused, the many barriers to relief in these cases. If if i had that magic and i could create an alternative system, i certainly imagine what that alternative system or aspects of it might look like. I think there been experiments with, forms of Restorative Justice or coming together that the officers and victims to really reach a an understanding of what happened outside of the adversarial process. I think that the kinds of root analysis or understanding what the real causes of these errors are or violations when they occur and figuring out how to prevent it from happening again. Thats thats a kind of process that happens in medicine. It happens in aviation and those are ideas that have been. There have been some working to to have those goals integrated into our criminal justice system. And i think that theres a huge potential in those. And that we should explore those ideas with system that we currently have. I think that civil litigation is the best available tool among some imperfect alternatives. Yeah, its really interesting. You know, im certainly not privy to every conversation on Restorative Justice. Its not necessarily my area research. That being youre the first person that ive heard the concept of Restorative Justice and as possibly integrating it into these parties right where have a person a civilian that some that was harmed the police and perhaps the Police Officer or officer or you know precinct commander really understanding whatever entity understands the harm that they have caused. Do you think that would go anywhere or do you possibilities there . Well, are some example of this happening and i should say its not an area of my expertise is either actually a student of mine one of the sort of one of the real beauties of being a professor is that your students teach you so much and i first started understanding this possibility and thinking about it from a Student Research paper who had looked at a similar type of process used in seattle following, a Police Shooting and i know there a lawyer named alphonse gerstein, who practices in cincinnati, who really thinks about these kinds of approaches as well. He represented the family, Philando Castile and spoken with him also about these kinds of ideas which tries to integrate into his practice. So it is out there, but really a case by case level and in policing its its often true that burble up from the bottom and from experimentation in individual departments and so i think that theres a possibility of ideas taking more route in the future. There has be the will to do so and the recognition of, its importance, but i think i think anythings possible. Certainly, certainly very interesting. So moving back to to the book you know, i would characterize and this is just a term that i came up with, so im going to copyright it. I would characterize book as an informant, peace of advocacy. And why do i say that . There is a very strong historical and narrative that helps the reader to understand basically how we got to where we are today. And its really interesting and comes to life. So im you and i both im sure are certainly used to reading where its just case after case and then this and heres the whole thing but you really dug into the nuts and bolts of some of these cases and i felt like i was watching a almost so along those lines you know you use the james monroe case to frame the narrative here early on and you cause and you go back that case often in discussing developments of 1983 claims and qualified immunity. So i wonder if you could talk a little bit about that case and why you felt it was so important. Sure. And thank you for those kind words about. The about the the book ive centered this case called monroe versus pape and the underlying facts of that case because which ill talk about in just a second because as monroe versus pape the monroe versus pape decision, the United StatesSupreme Court in 1961 is a crucial turning point in. Civil Rights Enforcement in our country, its the first time that the Supreme Court recognized that people could sue government officials for violating their constitutional rights. And so it was an extremely important decision. And and opened the federal courthouse doors to, these kinds of claims before monroe versus pape could only be brought in state court, which state courts were considered far less hospitable to claims against local governments. And as and James Monroes attorney commented after their bringing a claim by an africanamerican family against a politically powerful white Police Officer in state court in anywhere in the country was going to be very, very difficult to and so this was the first time that a case like this could be brought in federal court. This why monroe versus is such an important in the history of Supreme Court decisions about civil rights and that sort of development of this particular ability to sue. But i also think that the story of james monroe and his family and what they endured is an important story for. What it says about for its similarities to things that we face today. And its similarity things that were happening in the 1860s and 1870s when Congress First enacted this right to sue. So its an important historical bridge as well as a legal bridge. So james monroe was married to his wife flossie monroe and they had six children and they were asleep in their chicago apartment in october of 1958. And in the of the night they heard a loud pounding on their door. And it was Chicago Police named frank pape was infamous for people. He was referred to as chicagos toughest cop and he liked to take photos of himself to the bodies of people he killed. He was a he was a very guy. It sounds. And he and a number of other Chicago Police broke into monroes home without a warrant with their guns drawn. They did this because a white woman that day had identified james monroe as having killed her husband. In the truth of the matter, james monroe had nothing to do with killing this womans husband. In fact, this woman had arranged for her lover to kill her husband to on his insurance money and then she pointed out james monroe, as the person who had done the crime to, avoid suspicion to herself and her lover with that evidence, frank pape and his officers barged into the house at gunpoint got james and flossie monroe out of bed, not wearing any clothes, brought them into the living room. Frank pape beat james. While interrogate him about this murder and using odious racial slurs, the children came in to the living room crying screaming, seeing their parents being assaulted and the Police Officers assaulted as well. Houston monroe, who was the eldest stepson of james monroe, turned 17 on that day, and he recalls that their screaming probably saved his fathers life because they seemed like they were going to kill him. The officers then arrest james monroe, took him to the station, held him for hours without letting him see a judge, speak to a lawyer or have any phone calls. And then when the white woman couldnt pick him out of a lineup he was eventually released. So this a story on that we could be reading about in the news today its also story that sounded eerily like the kinds of stories that prompted congress in the years after the civil war reconstruction to first pass this law that allowed people to sue for constitutional violations. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. And thats what struck me as i was reading, if could be reading something from today or yesterday or a few years ago or as you mentioned 100 years ago. So i found that amazing. You the law here that was passed you know, during we construction 48 im sorry, 42 u. S. C. 1983. So its amazing how long this particular statute has been around. This is, of course, where one can sue the Police Department or municipality for deprivation of their civil rights, you know, ive heard it put all different types ways, and ill put the question to you. In 1983, suits are the statute in and of itself, is it dead . Is it life support . Is it still alive and kicking . Whats the future . 1983 . I think its alive and kicking and is there are lawyers to bring section 1983 claims on behalf people around the country whose rights have been violated. But the way in which the Supreme Court interpreted various aspects of that law, they made it extremely difficult to succeed in these cases. So the lawyers bringing cases would tell you and certainly have told me. And i know in my own experience from being a civil rights litigator, that section 1983 remains a crucial, important tool of compensate and deterrence. It doesnt work anywhere near as well as it should. So i dont know if that means its on life support or that it it needs some some serious medical attention. But im not willing to say that it is that it is gone because we need it as we need it more today than ever before. So certainly in 1983 exists to for litigants for those who suffer harm to be able to seek some form of redress. However, the entity that does the harm and weve seen this with the exclusionary of course. Right that the primary reason the rule is to deter Police Misconduct is there is when 1983 was promulgated, was there an