OFF THE WIRE
Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code is part of the CIVIL RIGHTS ACT of 1871. This provision was formerly enacted as part of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and was originally designed to combat post-Civil War racial violence in the Southern states. Reenacted as part of the Civil Rights Act, section 1983 is as of the early 2000s the primary means of enforcing all constitutional rights in order to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. It effectively creates a Fourteenth Amendment action for damages (and for injunctive relief) against “Every person,” acting under color of state or local law, who deprives a person of his or her Fourteenth Amendment rights and thereby causes damage. As it turns out in Supreme Court case law, “Every person” includes state and local government officials as well as local governments themselves (but not states).
In real world terms, this means that whenever a state or local law enforcement officer makes an arrest, conducts a search or uses force in alleged violation of the Fourth Amendment, section 1983 is potentially implicated.
