Left to right: Victoria White with other Jan. 6 rioters and then being arrested (Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint).
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has rejected a Jan. 6 defendant's excessive force claim against two members of law enforcement on the basis of qualified immunity.
In March 2021, Victoria White was arrested by federal agents. Progress on the case was slow – as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) dealt with hundreds of similar defendants arrested in the wake of the riot in support of President Donald Trump.
In August 2023, she pleaded guilty to a lone count of interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder. She was sentenced the following November to 10 days in prison, followed by 90 days of home detention and 24 months of supervised release. In a press release, the DOJ said her actions on Jan. 6, 2021, "disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election."
In January 2024, White sued two members of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for excessive force – alleging violations of the Fourth and 14th Amendments and supervisory liability.
In June 2025, the defendants, MPD Commander Jason Bagshaw and Officer Neil McAllister filed a 15-page motion for judgment on the pleadings on the basis of qualified immunity.
On Friday, in an 11-page memorandum opinion, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, issued a ruling in favor of the defendants.
Qualified immunity is a judge-created concept that shields federal and state officials from liability. It requires a plaintiff to show that the right they were deprived of is either specifically codified by statute or is otherwise "clearly established" by case law at the time of the incident.
The modern iteration of the doctrine was created by the U.S. Supreme Court in the late 1960s in order to protect Southern police officers and judges in cases involving civil rights protesters.
While politicians of both major parties have heavily criticized the judge-made rule in recent years for depriving victims of legal recourse, the nation's high court repeatedly declines to hear challenges to the doctrine.
In the present case, the court defines the inquiry as a two-step – or double-pronged – process. That is, a plaintiff must show an official violated their constitutional right and that the right was "clearly established" at the time the violation occurred.
"In sum, White has failed to identify any precedent that 'squarely governs' the facts of this case," the court observes. "The officers are thus entitled to qualified immunity on White's excessive force claim."
The judge's analysis focuses almost entirely on the second prong.
"Here, even assuming arguendo that Bagshaw and McAllister violated White's constitutional right, because that right was not 'clearly established' given the particular context of the officers' alleged conduct, the officers are entitled to qualified immunity," the opinion reads.
A footnote quickly dispenses with the first prong by suggesting that White did not come close to proving her rights were violated because the "threshold question for a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim is whether the plaintiff experienced a seizure." And, the judge found, her case is similar to another January 6th case where an officer used force for a purpose other than to attempt a seizure.
In her complaint, White alleges "the Defendants present on the scene physically and unlawfully beat Ms. White using excessive and deadly force and knew that she could not retreat from their repeated assault and battery upon her because of the crush of the crowd behind her outside of the arched tunnel entrance."
In a follow-up motion, citing Supreme Court precedent, White effectively argued the defendants "use of force was objectively unreasonable under the circumstances" and therefore they were not entitled to qualified immunity.
Nichols says the plaintiff did not get the law right.
At the outset, the judge says the case cited by White did not create clearly established law on its own terms. Then, the judge says the framework White cited does not really apply to her case.
The opinion goes on to juxtapose language from the cited case with the facts of the attack on the national seat of legislative government to show that White's argument does not stand up to scrutiny.
From the opinion, at length:
As to the "severity of the crime," White actively participated in "the violent breach of the Capitol on January 6," posing "a grave danger to our democracy." She also admitted to "help[ing] hoist up another rioter" into the Lower West Terrace tunnel, who then "proceeded to assault the MPD officers" therein. Contrary to her newfound contention that she was merely a "passive resister," White thus did "pose an immediate threat to the safety of the officers." And while she was not "attempting to evade arrest by flight," that was predominantly because she had wedged herself between the police officers and the other rioters; her inability to flee is not a point in her favor.
The judge then turns to another precedent cited by the plaintiff – but rubbishes it for being from a different circuit and because she "misstates both [the other case] and her own behavior."
"As already noted, White was far from an 'unthreatening protester,' she was an active participant in an unprecedented riot at the Capitol," Nichols lectures. "Further, the plaintiffs' conduct in [the other case] stands in marked contrast to White's."
Again, the court intersperses the ill-fitting precedent with the plaintiff's actual behavior on the day in question before summarizing.
"In other words, neither plaintiff in [the other case] was shot while engaged in a riot pitting a mob of protesters against a phalanx of officers in hand-to-hand combat," Nichols goes on.
Finally, the judge turns to a case that actually happened in the D.C. federal system. Unluckily for the plaintiff, Nichols says this is the "most directly on point" case and that it "cuts squarely against White." After running through the facts, the judge finds White's attempts to differentiate her own case "unavailing."
"White admittedly joined a mob that sought to force its way past several rows of police officers into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt a joint session of Congress," the ruling concludes. "Although her treatment in the process is harrowing, the Court cannot say that as of January 6, 2021, the use of force by officers defending the Capitol during an active riot, in a confined tunnel setting, against members of a crowd pressing into that building, constituted a clear violation of White's Fourth Amendment rights."