Constitutional Rights & Police Misconduct
PRF Law’s Constitutional Rights Practice litigates individual and class action lawsuits on behalf of people whose constitutional rights have been violated by federal, state, or local governments.
The United States Constitution provides rights that can be vindicated in civil litigation, and state constitutions often provide equal or greater protection to people than the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitutional Rights We Enforce:
PRF Law enforces violations of federal and state constitutions, including the following types of violations:
Public employers discriminating against workers based on race, sex, national origin, and other protected traits.
Public employers violating due process rights of former employees by making negative remarks about them.
Public entities that discriminate when awarding contracts.
Public entities that discriminate when providing government benefits.
Governments that enforce civil penalties or fines that are constitutionally excessive.
Police departments that discriminate based on race when enforcing the law.
Police departments that apply excessive force or torture to suspects of crimes.
Making an Impact
Peter Romer-Friedman has litigated constitutional claims in variety of contexts, including workplace disputes and litigation over unconstitutional policing.
Peter represented Bradley Podliska, a House Benghazi Committee investigator, who claimed that Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Chairman of the Benghazi Committee, violated his due process rights by making false and defamatory statements about him without providing him with due process to demonstrate he did not engage in the misconduct that Rep. Gowdy falsely alleged. In that case, Podliska v. House Benghazi Committee and Rep. Trey Gowdy, No. 15 Civ. 2037 (D.D.C.), Peter negotiated a settlement. The Washington Post reported in 2017 that “Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) used $150,000 in taxpayer dollars to settle with a former aide who alleged he was fired in part because he was not willing to focus his investigative work on Hillary Clinton.”
In 2023, Peter and his co-counsel at Mobilization for Justice and Pollock Cohen filed a class action lawsuit against the City of New York that exposed the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC)’s practice of targeting thousands of people of color in undercover sting operations and then imposing constitutionally excessive fines. In Miller v. City of New York, No. 23 Civ. 00065 (S.D.N.Y.), the plaintiffs alleged they were targeted by undercover TLC officers who aggressively solicited rides for money by appearing to be desperate travelers in need of rides from the airport. The TLC officers then issued them summonses for allegedly violating the New York City law prohibiting unlicensed street hails, even when plaintiffs repeatedly declined to give a ride to the officer or accept any money. These street hail law violations carry a minimum penalty of $1,500. Based on the TLC’s own data, the City of New York has collected millions of dollars from drivers the TLC has targeted in these sting operations. The lawsuit alleges that these penalties violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines.
Peter has also represented victims of misconduct by police officers and prison officials. For instance, in James Gibson v. City of Chicago, No. 19 Civ. 04152 (N.D. Ill.), Peter represented James Gibson, a Black resident of Chicago, who was brutally tortured by the Chicago Police Department in 1989, which led to Mr. Gibson’s wrongful conviction and Mr. Gibson spending more than 29 years in prison before he was released in 2019. The case has raised the concern that the City of Chicago has formally condemned the torture practices of Jon Burge from the 1980s but has not yet made the victims of that torture whole and has not learned the right lessons from that dark chapter in Chicago’s history.
Relevant Cases
