Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have asked the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the U.S. District Court’s ruling in Murphy v. Delaware, Justices of the Peace, which dismissed the lawsuit and granted quasi-judicial immunity to constables who knowingly evicted the wrong person—a blind man—and left him homeless with his daughters during a snowstorm. On appeal, Institute attorneys argue that the constables do not have immunity for knowingly evicting the wrong person pursuant to their “evict first, ask questions later” practice. The appellate briefs further assert that the eviction was an objectively unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment and that not providing proper notice and a reasonable accommodation for the blind tenant violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protections and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Due process rights mean nothing when the government is allowed to sidestep those safeguards against abuse whenever convenient,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “By allowing government agents to operate above the law, immune from wrongdoing, we have created a situation in which the law is used as a hammer to oppress the populace, while useless in protecting us against government abuse.”
William Murphy, a blind, 52-year-old widower and his two daughters, aged 17 and 11, moved to Wilmington, Del., in Nov. 2020, to be closer to other family members. Murphy signed a one-year lease and received rental assistance from Social Services. The landlord complained about a delay with receiving the partial rent payment from Social Services, and in Feb. 2021, the water and electricity to the home were shut off in violation of state law. Then, on the morning of Feb. 11, during a bitterly cold snowstorm, constables arrived at the Murphy home, ordered them to vacate the premises, and gave the family 30 minutes to collect their belongings and leave. Even though the person named in the Eviction Order was someone other than Murphy, and despite Murphy showing proof of a signed lease in good standing, Murphy and his daughters were still ordered to leave the home, unable to take most of their personal possessions.
Murphy challenged the wrongful eviction in court, and one week later, a state magistrate judge found the Murphys had been unlawfully ousted from their home and that the landlord had weaponized a writ of eviction for a previous female tenant to wrongfully evict the Murphy family. The Rutherford Institute subsequently filed a federal civil rights complaint in Delaware district court in March 2021, demanding that Delaware officials cease their “evict first, ask questions later” practice and ensure that future eviction procedures respect due process rights. The district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and the case is now on appeal before the Third Circuit.
Affiliate attorneys Thomas and Stephen Neuberger and Sanjay K. Bhatnagar are representing Murphy and his daughters, and Stephen Neuberger advanced the arguments in the appellate briefs.
