Under Illinois law, coroners are required to release the bodies to next of kin. Instead, the Boone County Coroner kept the skulls of several people as weird souvenirs. When the skulls were discovered after the coroner’s death, the family of one of the dead people sued the County under a Monell theory, arguing that the coroner, as an independently elected official who was not accountable to any other County official, was the de facto final decision maker and that his actions deprived the family of its property without due process of law.

The Seventh Circuit disagreed, holding that because state law required that the bodies be returned, the coroner had no authority to set policy to the contrary, and thus could NOT be the final policymaker.

There is a stinging dissent, which argues that allowing municipalities to avoid liability for unconstitutional acts by arguing that its conduct ALSO violated state law. As the dissent notes, every state (at least in the 7th Circuit) has constitutional provisions barring race discrimination and restrictions on speech, which mirror the similar federal constitutional provisions. To allow a municipality to avoid liability for suppressing speech in violation of the First Amendment by noting that its actions ALSO violated the state constitution completely undermines the very purpose of Section 1983.

While this case has limited application to prison litigation (there is no Monell liability against the State, but there can be Monell claims against the Sheriff in jail litigation, and against private corporations which provide services to Illinois prisoners such as Wexford Health Sources and Centurion).

If one takes the majority’s opinion at its word, it will have a huge impact on Monell claims on behalf of county jail detainees, police misconduct cases, and various private companies which provide services to prisoners, as most such cases involve actions which if they violate the federal constitution also violate the state constitution and/or state law.