420
Souter, J., dissenting
for purposes of § 1983 municipal liability arising from the sheriff's department's exercise of law enforcement authority. As I explain in greater detail below, it was open to the jury to find that the sheriff knew of the record of his nephew's violent propensity, but hired him in deliberate indifference to the risk that he would use excessive force on the job, as in fact he later did. That the sheriff's act did not itself command or require commission of a constitutional violation (like the order to perform an unlawful entry and search in Pembaur) is not dispositive under § 1983, for we have expressly rejected the contention that "only unconstitutional policies are actionable" under § 1983, Canton, supra, at 387, and have never suggested that liability under the statute is otherwise limited to policies that facially violate other federal law. The sheriff's policy choice creating a substantial risk of a constitutional violation therefore could subject the county to liability under existing precedent.2
II
At the level of theory, at least, the Court does not disagree, and it assumes for the sake of deciding the case that a single, facially neutral act of deliberate indifference by a policy-maker could be a predicate to municipal liability if it led to an unconstitutional injury inflicted by subordinate officers. See ante, at 412. At the level of practice, however, the tenor of the Court's opinion is decidedly different: it suggests that
2 Given the sheriff's position as law enforcement policymaker, it is simply off the point to suggest, as the Court does, that there is some significance in either the fact that Sheriff Moore's failure to screen may have been a "deviation" from his ordinary hiring practices or that a pattern of injuries resulting from his past practices is absent. See ante, at 408. Pembaur made clear that a single act by a designated policymaker is sufficient to establish a municipal policy, see Pembaur v. Cincinnati, 475 U. S. 469, 480-481 (1986), and Canton explained, as the Court recognizes, see ante, at 409, that evidence of a single violation of federal rights can trigger municipal liability under § 1983, see Canton v. Harris, 489 U. S. 378, 390, n. 10 (1989). See Part II-B, infra.
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