Listen & Download

Download

On February 21, the Supreme Court will hear argument in Hernandez v. Mesa. In July of 2010, a 15-year-old adolescent named Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca and his friends were playing along a concrete structure on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. When Jesus Mesa, Jr., a U.S. Border Patrol Agent arrived, he detained one of the youths on the border, and shot and killed Hernandez, who was hiding behind a pillar of the Paso Del Norte Bridge on the Mexican side of the border. Hernandez’s parents sued Agent Mesa under the Fourth and Fifth Amendment for the use of unlawful and disproportionate force. Agent Mesa argued that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments did not apply because Hernandez was not a U.S. citizen. The District Court found for Agent Mesa, while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the Fifth Amendment Protections against deadly force applied but the Fourth Amendment did not, and that Agent Mesa should not receive qualified immunity.

Professor Andrew Kent of Fordham University School of Law and Professor Stephen I. Vladeck of UT Austin Law School joined us to examine the case and its implications for extraterritorial application of the Bill of Rights and for qualified immunity.

Featuring:

  • Prof. Andrew Kent, Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law
  • Prof. Stephen I. Vladeck, Professor of Law, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law