Neil McGill Gorsuch

Judges Terrence O’Brien and Neil Gorsuch agreed it was regrettable that a police officer felt ‘a need to re-sort to physical
force, handcuffs, and arrest’ to control the 67-pound boy, but said that ‘equally regrettable is the disrespectful, obdurate, and
combative behavior of that nine-year-old child.’” [Salt Lake Tribune, 12/05/14]
The Nine-Year-Old Had Been Sitting Quietly When The Officer Arrived. According to The Salt Lake Tribune,
“When Albrand arrived, three school employees had gotten him under control and he was sitting calmly in a hallway. The
principal, school psychologist and the boy’s grandmother were sitting on the other side of the hallway. The principal told
Albrand she wanted to file theft charges, and the accounts of what happened next diverge. Albrand said she tried to talk
with the boy but he didn’t reply. She placed her hands on his left hand and elbow to help him stand, she said, but he
started twisting and grabbed her arm. Fearing he was trying to get her gun, Albrand said, she placed him in a twist lock
and then put him in handcuffs. In a twist lock, an officer holds a suspect’s arm at his side with both hands and then twists
the arm in a painful way to stop the person from fighting or resisting, court documents say.” [The Salt Lake Tribune,
12/05/14]
The Officer Claimed She Was Afraid The Nine-Year-Old Was trying To Grab Her Gun. According to The Salt
Lake Tribune, “When Albrand arrived, three school employees had gotten him under control and he was sitting calmly in
a hallway. The principal, school psychologist and the boy’s grandmother were sitting on the other side of the hallway. The
principal told Albrand she wanted to file theft charges, and the accounts of what happened next diverge. Albrand said she
tried to talk with the boy but he didn’t reply. She placed her hands on his left hand and elbow to help him stand, she said,
but he started twisting and grabbed her arm. Fearing he was trying to get her gun, Albrand said, she placed him in a twist
lock and then put him in handcuffs. In a twist lock, an officer holds a suspect’s arm at his side with both hands and then
twists the arm in a painful way to stop the person from fighting or resisting, court documents say.” [The Salt Lake
Tribune, 12/05/14]
The Force Used On The Child May Have Caused A Fracture On His Colalrbone. According to The Salt Lake
Tribune, “According to the 10th Circuit ruling, an X-ray showed a possible hairline fracture in the boy’s collarbone. The
child’s grandparents, who are his legal guardians, say he suffers from post traumatic stress disorder because of the
incident. They filed suit in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City against Albrand and Sandy, claiming that the officer used
excessive force. […] The 10th Circuit ruling, written by O’Brien, said the key legal question was when Albrand used the
twist lock. The judges agreed with Shelby that the officer used the hold after the boy grabbed her arm, and that its use in
those circumstances did not constitute excessive force.” [The Salt Lake Tribune, 12/5/14]
Gorsuch Opinion: “The Disrespectful, Obdurate, And Combative Behavior Of That Nine-Year-Old Child” Was
“Equally Regrettable” To The Officer’s Actions. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, “After a 9-year-old boy stole an iPad
from his Sandy elementary school in 2011, his principal wanted him charged with theft. A Sandy police officer called to the
school ended up pushing the boy’s arm into a pain-ful twist lock before handcuffing him. The officer didn’t violate the boy’s
constitutional rights, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed in a Friday ruling. But
they split on the philosophical issue of how young offenders should be treated, with Judge Carlos Lucero of Colorado
decrying how intertwining criminal justice and school discipline is creating a ‘school-to-prison’ pipeline. ‘Focusing narrowly on
the legal standards applicable in this case renders it too easy to overlook the obvi-ous question: Why are we arresting nineyear-old
schoolchildren?’ Lucero wrote. Judges Terrence O’Brien and Neil Gorsuch agreed it was regrettable that a police
officer felt ‘a need to re-sort to physical force, handcuffs, and arrest’ to control the 67-pound boy, but said that ‘equally
regrettable is the disrespectful, obdurate, and combative behavior of that nine-year-old child.’” [Salt Lake Tribune, 12/05/14]
Mentally Ill Inmates
2008: Gorsuch Ruled Against The ACLU’s Effort To Certify Mentally Ill Inmates As A Class. According to the
Gazette, “A federal appeals court dealt a setback Friday to the American Civil Liberties Union in its effort to force broad
reforms to how El Paso County treats mentally ill jail inmates. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
in Denver upheld a lower court's ruling that denied the ACLU's motion to have mentally ill inmates treated as a class. […]
Judge Neil Gorsuch, writing for the three-judge panel, upheld the federal District Court ruling that certifying the inmates as a
class would be impossible because ‘there was no single policy or procedure to which all were subject.’ Creating orders to
reform the jail based on only the plaintiffs’ widely varying complaints would require a ‘stratospheric level of abstraction,’
Gorsuch wrote.” [Gazette, 9/03/08]
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