Police Liability Under Section 1983: The Year in Review

Wayne C. Beyer is a litigator, author, presenter, and former administrative appeals judge. He has been lead counsel in over 300 police misconduct cases, including dozens of jury trials, involving Fourth Amendment excessive force, false arrest, illegal search, fatal shootings, positional asphyxia, cell suicide, pursuits, failure to render medical assistance, failure to protect, First Amendment, malicious prosecution, and wrongful conviction. Beyer was an assistant attorney general for the District of Columbia (previously called assistant corporation counsel) and outside counsel to New Hampshire’s Property and Liability Insurance Trust. He has been a presenter at national programs for Georgetown University Law Center, Defense Research Institute, the American Bar Association and the Federal Judicial Center for District and Magistrate Judges, and more recently for numerous webinar providers. Beyer is the author of law review and magazine articles on police misconduct, including the 1,540-page treatise and handbook, Police Misconduct: A Practitioner’s Guide to Section 1983, available from Juris Publishing at http://www.jurispub.com/ Bookstore/United-States/Police-Misconduct.html. He is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Sheriffs Association, and Police Executive Research Forum. He was an associate and partner at prominent New Hampshire law firms; chief of staff U.S. General Services Administration; and he rendered 750 final decisions on employment and labor issues for the Executive Branch of the United States Government as member, chairman, chief judge, U.S. Department of Labor Administrative Review Board and member Federal Labor Relations Authority. Beyer holds degrees from Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and Georgetown University Law Center.