J.T. et al. v. City and County of San Francisco
J.T. et al. v. City and County of San Francisco is a class-action lawsuit arising out of the San Francisco Police Department's roundup arrest of over 100 young people at an informal skateboarding event in San Francisco, where youth who were skateboarding, observing, and merely passing through the area were kettled into an intersection and arrested without individualized probable cause. The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund brought the case on behalf of the arrested youth. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that mass arrest was justified based on a theory of group probable cause and that the conditions of arrest, including prolonged use of restraints on youth, were reasonable.
Juvenile Law Center, Youth Law Center, and several other advocacy organizations moved the court to file a proposed amicus brief highlighting that youth are developmentally different from adults in ways that make the application of group probable cause to children inherently flawed. We emphasized that peer socialization is developmentally appropriate, that racial and adultification biases towards Black and brown youth impact officers’ perceptions, and that children need access to public spaces for prosocial activity and play. Our proposed brief also underscored the unique vulnerability of children to harm and long-term trauma in encounters with law enforcement, highlighting case law, California statutes, and social science research that support specific consideration of youthfulness in assessing the reasonableness of arrest conditions.
The Court granted our motion to file the amicus brief in part, allowing our legal arguments but declining to review our arguments based upon law review and social science research.
Legal Team:
Jessica Feierman, Christine Lorica, Kate Burdick
Paralegal Team:
Spencer Symula
Legal Issues: