Title 42, Section 1983 of the U.S. Code provides a remedy in federal court for individuals who suffer constitutional rights violations at the hands of criminal justice officials. To succeed in a Section 1983 lawsuit, a plaintiff must demonstrate a constitutional violation by an official acting under color of state law. Recently, however, courts have begun to require that constitutional rights violations be committed with a certain level of culpability for a finding of liability, a development that has received little attention in the criminal justice literature. Accordingly, this article seeks to (1) sort out the important culpability issues associated with Section 1983 litigation, with particular reference to theories of liability, and (2) discuss the relevance of this inquiry for both academics and practitioners, calling attention to the problems the current multitude of culpability standards pose.
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