A Functional Approach to Municipal Policymaker Determinations in Section 1983

Abstract

Debtors’ prisons are alive and well in America despite being deemed unconstitutional. Indigent defendants often find themselves caught in a cycle of unconstitutional bail, fines, and fees that ultimately may land them in jail with no consideration of their indigence. These indigent defendants have a route to relief through Section 1983 which provides a federal forum for those plaintiffs deprived of federally protected rights by state actors. Unfortunately, awards of money damages, while possible, are often out of reach. The primary problem this paper addresses concerns municipal policymaker determinations. In short, the plaintiff may pursue money damages against a municipality, but he often must show that the action which deprived him of his constitutional right was made by a municipal policymaker. The issue is that the indigent defendant is jailed through a judicial order. This means he would need to show the municipal judge acted as a municipal policymaker in order for the municipality to be liable. In making policymaker determinations, courts look to state law. If the applicable state law defines a municipal judge as part of the state judiciary, then the judge cannot be a municipal policymaker. This formulaic determination often prevents the indigent plaintiff from connecting the unconstitutional judicial order to the municipality, which in turn prevents the plaintiff from receiving money damages from the city. While at first glance this may seem like a fair disconnect in order to protect the independence of the local judiciary, the reality is that it may ignore the way in which some municipalities actually operate. To explain, local judges are often hired and fired by the city, and recent cases reveal the pressure that some cities put on judges to fund their own courts through fine and fee imposition. With this in mind, municipal judges may actually come to set municipal policy, and policymaker determinations should reflect that. This paper proposes a solution — a functional approach to policymaker determinations. Instead of simply relying on statutory definitions of judges, courts should look to the actual functions the judge is performing. If the judge is acting under the municipality’s authority and subject to the municipality’s influence, then in consideration of the judge’s actual function within the municipality, he should be considered a policymaker for the locality. With this functional approach, plaintiffs would be able to pursue money damages and connect the unconstitutional judicial orders to the responsible municipality.