Amicus Brief

  • Dismantling White Supremacy
  • Eliminating Poverty

Barnes v. Felix

Case Number: 23-1239
Date Filed:
November 20, 2024
Court where filed:
Supreme Court of the United States

After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit dismissed a case where a Texas county constable fatally shot an unarmed Black man, and after the man’s family appealed that dismissal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed an amicus brief in support of the man’s family. The amicus brief argued that the justices should overturn the dismissal under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, a statute created to protect Black people from institutional violence.

Roberto Felix, a Harris County, Texas, constable, killed Ashtian Barnes during a 2016 traffic stop over unpaid tolls. Barnes’ mother sued Felix under Section 1983, a statute created by Congress in the aftermath of the Civil War to address the violence suffered by Black people at the hands of police and the Ku Klux Klan after emancipation.

But a federal district court dismissed her case before she could present it to a jury, under its “moment of the threat” doctrine. The principle limits the assessment of an officer’s use of force to the exact moment when the officer perceives a threat to their safety or the safety of others and rules out any analysis of what occurred before the violence transpired.

This doctrine has been used to limit police accountability and what types of cases can be brought under Section 1983, according to the amicus brief.

The SPLC’s amicus brief also examines the legal history of Section 1983 against the backdrop of state-sponsored violence against Black people from 1871, when it was published as Section 1 of the Ku Klux Klan Act, to today. The brief looks at how courts have restricted Section 1983 over the years, and how the “moment of the threat” doctrine restricts it even further.

The history of Section 1983 makes clear that the “moment of the threat” doctrine should not curtail such litigation, according to the brief. During many congressional hearings between 1866 and 1871, Congress took testimony from Black people about the violence they experienced at the hands of those who sought to preserve slavery and its vestiges, including violence “under color of law.” This testimony formed the basis for Section 1983, which aimed to protect the constitutional rights of emancipated Black people in the South.

The case was argued to the Supreme Court on Jan. 22, 2025.