Sause v. Bauer
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 28, 2018 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 28, 2018
- Term
- October Term 2017
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
PER CURIAM. Petitioner Mary Ann Sause, proceeding pro se, filed this action under Rev. Stat. 1979, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and named as defendants past and present members of the Louisburg, Kansas, police department, as well as the current mayor and a former mayor of the town. The centerpiece of her complaint was the allegation that two of the town's police officers visited her apartment in response to a noise complaint, gained admittance to her apartment, and then proceeded to engage in a course of strange and abusive conduct, before citing her for disorderly conduct and interfering with law enforcement. Among other things, she alleged that at one point she knelt and began to pray but one of the officers ordered her to stop. She claimed that a third officer refused to investigate her complaint that she had been assaulted by residents of her apartment complex and had threatened to issue a citation if she reported this to another police department. In addition, she alleged that the police chief failed to follow up on a promise to investigate the officers' conduct and that the present and former mayors were aware of unlawful conduct by the town's police officers. Petitioner's complaint asserted a violation of her First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and her Fourth Amendment right to be free of any unreasonable search or seizure. The defendants moved to dismiss the…
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