Locke v. Hubbard County et al.

While Matthew Locke was peacefully protesting, a county sheriff and his chief deputy used extreme and gratuitous “pain compliance” tactics on him, causing him severe pain and neurological injury. The district court threw out Mr. Locke’s excessive-force suit based on the judicially invented doctrine of qualified immunity. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure that peaceful citizens like Mr. Locke can hold law enforcement officers accountable for wrongdoing.

In 2021, Matthew Locke joined a peaceful protest at a fossil fuel construction site in Hubbard County, Minnesota. His protest involved attaching himself to idle construction equipment and a fellow protestor. He did not threaten anyone, flee, actively resist arrest, or commit any violence. He simply remained still.

Although Hubbard County had a dedicated “extraction team” to remove protestors who attached themselves to construction equipment, Sheriff Cory Aukes and Chief Deputy Sheriff Scott Parks decided not to wait for the extraction team. Instead, they used extreme “pain compliance” techniques against Mr. Locke and his fellow protesters, pressing their full body weight into the cranial nerves behind his ears, around his jaw, and under his nose. The officers pressed so hard into these sensitive areas that both Mr. Locke and another protestor suffered facial paralysis.

Mr. Locke sued Sheriff Aukes, Chief Deputy Parks, and Hubbard County for this excessive and unnecessary use of force. The district court dismissed Mr. Locke’s suit based on the doctrine of “qualified immunity.” The court never considered whether the officers’ use of force was excessive. Instead, it based its dismissal solely on the notion that no previous case had involved these exact same torture tactics, so a reasonable officer purportedly could not have been on notice that such tactics were inappropriate under these circumstances.

The MacArthur Justice Center, alongside co-counsel Tim Phillips, represents Mr. Locke on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to ensure that peaceful citizens seeking to hold government actors accountable for violating their rights are not tossed out of court based on a flawed and misapplied legal doctrine like qualified immunity.

UPDATE

The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal in a published decision, holding that Aukes’ and Parks’ conduct, as alleged, violated Mr. Locke’s Fourth Amendment rights, and that they are not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage because it is clearly established that an officer cannot use more than de minimis force against someone who is not fleeing, actively resisting arrest, suspected of a serious crime, or posing any threat.  The Court rejected the premise that the law was not clearly established because no case had addressed these particular “pain compliance” tactics, observing that “types of force are not categorically forbidden or categorically constitutional” and that even routine acts like handcuffing can violate the Fourth Amendment “when done with excessive force.”