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After spending six days in a cell covered in feces, the Supreme Court has ruled the inmate can sue his jailers. Suggesting it is reconsidering protections for officers who cause harm, the highest court has allowed such a suit to proceed for the first time in years.

Trent Taylor was forced to spend six days in two cells that were covered from floor to ceiling in human feces. It was smeared on the window, packed into the faucet, and there was a swastika painted in feces on the wall. He didn’t eat or drink for days, fearing his food and water would be contaminated. The second cell had no toilet and he was told to relieve himself in a clogged drain on the floor. The cell also had no bed, so Taylor was forced to sleep naked on the floor in raw sewage.

When he sued the officers who put him in those cells and ignored his cries for help, federal judges agreed that the conditions were unconstitutional, before throwing out his lawsuit citing qualified immunity.

For years the courts have used qualified immunity to protect officers from facing consequences for wrongdoing, even when police commit egregious abuse. For the first time in decades, however, the Supreme Court signaled in Taylor’s case that this shield has gone too far. “Any reasonable officer should have realized that Taylor’s conditions of confinement offended the constitution,” the justices wrote.

“This is a new message,” said Joanna Schwartz, a law professor who studies qualified immunity at UCLA. “This is not a reversal of qualified immunity — it is not a new doctrine,” she said, but it does indicate that courts should start thinking more critically about when officers need protection and when that protection becomes a free pass for abuse.

We would like to thank The Marshall Project for the content. Click HERE to view the original comprehensive article.