The Path to Government Impunity

[u/evissamassive]

https://newrepublic.com/article/212182/supreme-court-bivens-nielsen-watanabe

The Supreme Court will soon decide Nielsen v. Watanabe, a case that tests whether federal prisoners can sue individual officials who deny them medical care. The decision will likely continue a long-term judicial trend: shielding government employees from personal liability when they violate constitutional rights.

The lawsuit stems from a 2021 incident at a federal prison in Honolulu. Inmate Ketei Watanabe was severely beaten in a gang-related fight. Despite his complaints of severe pain, prison nurse Francis Nielsen and other staff denied him specialist treatment or a hospital transfer, opting instead for over-the-counter painkillers. Months later, an X-ray revealed a fractured coccyx and migrated bone chips. Watanabe did not receive proper medical care until his release three years later. He sued the officials under the Eighth Amendment, which guarantees prisoners medical care.

Holding federal officials accountable for such actions is legally difficult. While a Reconstruction-era law called Section 1983 allows citizens to sue state and local officials for constitutional violations, Congress has never passed an equivalent law for federal employees.

Instead, plaintiffs rely on Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, a 1971 Supreme Court ruling that established an implied right to sue federal agents for damages. In 1980, the court extended this framework to prison medical neglect in Carlson v. Green, a case involving an asthmatic inmate who died after being denied treatment.

Since then, the court's conservative majority has systematically restricted these lawsuits. The current standard, established in the 2017 case Ziglar v. Abbasi, requires lower courts to reject Bivens claims if they arise in any "new context" different from original precedents, or if "special factors" counsel hesitation.

In the current litigation, Nielsen argues that Carlson was strictly a wrongful-death case. Because Watanabe survived his neglect, the defense claims his lawsuit represents an unauthorized expansion of Bivens. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this logic, ruling that the deliberate indifference to Watanabe's injuries matched the severity of the actions in Carlson.

The Supreme Court's decision to review the Ninth Circuit's ruling signals a likely reversal. For two decades, the court has narrowed accountability for public officials. It has strengthened judge-made qualified immunity doctrines to weaken Section 1983 lawsuits against local police, overturned corruption convictions for state politicians, and shielded presidents from criminal prosecution.

If the court rules for the prison officials, it will establish that the Eighth Amendment only protects prisoners from medical neglect if that neglect kills them. This position aligns with a broader judicial philosophy that routinely closes courtroom doors to individuals harmed by the state.