Federal Appeals Court Upholds Major Federal Challenges to DOJ Program Aimed at Curbing Police Misconduct
A viral rumor sweeping social media claims that a federal appeals court has completely dismantled a Department of Justice program designed to investigate and reform local police departments accused of systemic misconduct. The claim is partially true but misleading. In reality, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on March 18, 2025, that the DOJ’s consent decree process—which forces cities to agree to sweeping reforms without a trial—violates state sovereignty in certain cases.
The ruling only applies to a specific case involving the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, where the DOJ sought a consent decree after alleging racial profiling by its police department. The court found that the DOJ bypassed due process by demanding reforms without proving misconduct in court. However, this does not invalidate the entire DOJ program. The Biden administration has vowed to appeal, and the DOJ continues to operate reforms in over 30 other active consent decrees nationwide.
The viral claim that "all police oversight programs are dead" is entirely false. Legal experts caution that the ruling is narrow and unlikely to survive Supreme Court scrutiny given precedent from cases like United States v. City of Columbus. So, while federal challenges to the DOJ program are real, the program remains alive for now.