Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has been cleared of personal liability in a federal lawsuit filed by two people injured by projectiles during a 2020 protest in South Los Angeles. A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Villanueva is entitled to qualified immunity, reversing a lower-court decision that had let the case against him move forward.
The lawsuit traces back to a demonstration that Christina Astorga and Hugo Padilla attended in South Los Angeles in 2020. According to Bloomberg Law, the former sheriff has qualified immunity for his role policing the protest where officers injured two people with projectiles. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and ordered demonstrators to disperse, and as Astorga and Padilla retreated, deputies allegedly fired less-lethal projectiles at them, leaving both injured.
Astorga and Padilla sued Villanueva under federal civil rights law, alleging violations of their Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The case concerned Villanueva's conduct in his supervisory role during the protest.
A Lower Court Let the Claim Proceed
US District Judge André Birotte Jr. had denied Villanueva's request for summary judgment and allowed the claim against him to proceed, setting up the appeal that the Ninth Circuit has now resolved. A trio of judges for the appeals court reversed that lower court ruling, finding that the plaintiffs failed to identify an earlier ruling establishing that Villanueva's supervisory conduct violated their constitutional rights, per the same Bloomberg Law account.
The panel included Circuit Judges Ryan Nelson and Roopali Desai along with Judge Karen Schreier of the District of South Dakota. Nelson and Desai concluded that the protesters failed to establish the legal basis required to overcome Villanueva's immunity defense, and Schreier joined that conclusion. The ruling itself, issued as an unpublished memorandum, generally does not serve as binding precedent in future cases, the report notes.
Villanueva's Supervisory Role
The appeal concerned Villanueva's supervisory conduct in the protest response.
The panel granted him qualified immunity.
The Panel's Reasoning
In this case, the panel concluded that the plaintiffs had not identified an earlier ruling establishing that Villanueva's supervisory conduct violated their constitutional rights.
In a Phoenix protest case decided in December 2024, the court held that officers who physically struck three protesters with projectiles were entitled to qualified immunity because they acted reasonably under the circumstances or did not violate clearly established law, according to a Ninth Circuit opinion reproduced by Justia. That same opinion affirmed summary judgment for Phoenix's police chief and the city itself, finding no evidence the chief caused or ratified excessive force or that the city was deliberately indifferent to constitutional rights.
A separate case out of Phoenix, stemming from a 2017 protest outside a Donald Trump rally, similarly ended in qualified immunity for officers accused of using excessive force, as Courthouse News Service reported. That case involved allegations that officers shot protesters above the waist with rubber projectiles and tear-gas canisters without warning or a chance to flee — allegations strikingly similar to what Astorga and Padilla describe from the 2020 South Los Angeles demonstration.
What the Ruling Does Not Decide
The ruling addressed Villanueva's qualified-immunity defense. Astorga's lawsuit also names Los Angeles County and the Sheriff's Department.
The ruling granted Villanueva qualified immunity.
