McCauley v. City of Chicago, No. 09-3561 (7th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff's decedent was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend as she left her church. The shooter committed suicide; he was on parole for an earlier homicide and had a history of harassing and assaulting decedent in violation of his parole and a court order of protection. Law-enforcement and corrections officials were aware of these violations and could have ensured that he was detained without bail, but neither issued a parole-violation warrant nor arrested him for violating the order of protection. The district court held that female victims of domestic violence are not a suspect or protected class for purposes of equal-protection analysis and that a claim against the state department of corrections director was barred by the Eleventh Amendment as seeking damages from the director in his official capacity. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The complaint did not plausibly state a policy-or-practice equal protection claim, but included only generalized allegations that the city failed to have specific policies in effect to protect victims of domestic violence from harm inflicted by those who violate their parole or court orders of protection. The complaint alleged, in essence, that the city failed to single out domestic-violence victims as a class for special protection.
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