We are talking about a funeral. If context is ever going to matter, it has to matter in the context of a funeral. Mr. Snyder simply wanted to bury his son in a private, dignified manner. When the Respondent's behavior made that impossible, Mr. Snyder was entitled to turn to the tort law of the State of Maryland.

In Connick v. Thompson [oral arguments transcript, PDF; JURIST report], the court heard arguments on whether imposing failure-to-train liability on a district attorney's office for a single Brady violation contravenes the rigorous culpability and causation standards or undermines prosecutors' absolute immunity. Prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence in violation of defendant John Thompson's rights under Brady v. Maryland [opinion text]. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana entered a judgment [text, PDF] in favor of Thompson, and the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied the motion for a new trial. Counsel for the petitioners argued that the district court misapplied the Supreme Court's rule, ignoring the "distinction between a single incident and pattern liability." Counsel for Thompson argued that court should not "write into section 1983 a per se rule that the only way ... a civil rights victim can ever establish the deliberate indifference of a district attorney is if he can prove a prior significant history of assistant prosecutors violating other citizens' constitutional rights."