Background
In 2019, law enforcement in Toulon, Illinois, investigated child pornography images stored on a file-sharing service. An auxiliary police officer and IT employee, Jason Musselman, was given access to the images to help identify victims but instead kept them for his own use. Victims sued Musselman and the local police officers under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, alleging a violation of substantive due process rights. The district court dismissed the claims, finding no recognized constitutional right was violated and that qualified immunity applied.
The court’s reasoning
The court applied the standard from Washington versus Glucksberg, requiring that any asserted fundamental substantive due process right be deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition. The court found that none of the cited precedents, including York versus Story or Whalen versus Roe, established a fundamental right against the sharing of such images during an investigation. The court emphasized that the Due Process Clause does not transform every tort committed by a state actor into a constitutional violation.
Not every wrong is a constitutional one, and plaintiffs continue to press their statutory and common-law tort claims below.
Jane Doe 1 v. Sloan, No. 25-1919 (7th Cir. Apr. 14, 2026)
What it means going forward
The ruling limits the scope of substantive due process claims in child pornography investigations, clarifying that officers’ handling of evidence does not automatically create a constitutional violation absent a historically rooted right.
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