## Facts

- In 1974, civil rights and community organizations and individuals sued the City of Chicago under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging unconstitutional political surveillance by the Chicago Police Department’s intelligence unit (“Red Squad”) that burdened First Amendment activity.
- In 1981, the parties agreed to a detailed consent decree; the federal district court approved it in 1982.
- The decree imposed extensive restrictions on the City’s ability to investigate individuals and groups engaged in expressive or associational activity and placed those practices under continuing federal court supervision.
- Nearly two decades later, the City moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) to modify the decree, asserting it had complied for years and that changes in law and fact made major portions of the decree outdated and inequitable.
- The City cited reforms within the police department, the dismantling of the earlier intelligence apparatus, and changed public-safety threats (including modern ideologically motivated crime and terrorism).
- Plaintiffs opposed modification, pointing to alleged police misconduct toward demonstrators during the 1996 Democratic National Convention as evidence that strict constraints remained necessary.
- The district court denied the City’s motion to modify; the City appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether, under Rule 60(b)(5) and the modification standard for institutional reform decrees set out in *Rufo*, changed factual conditions and legal doctrine justified modifying the consent decree governing Chicago’s political intelligence activities.
2. Whether long-term federal judicial supervision of local policing remained equitable and appropriately tailored given the City’s claimed compliance and asserted evolution in threats, practices, and governing law.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of the Rule 60(b)(5) motion.
- The court held the City made a sufficient showing of changed circumstances to warrant modification of the decree.
- The court remanded with instructions to modify the decree to relax restrictions that were no longer justified by current conditions, leaving specific revisions to the district court consistent with the appellate guidance.

## Legal Principles

- A consent decree governing institutional operations may be modified under Rule 60(b)(5) when changed factual conditions or changes in law make continued enforcement inequitable.
- Under *Rufo*, modification is permitted when the decree is no longer suitably tailored to its original objectives in light of current circumstances; the inquiry is practical and forward-looking, not confined to the conditions existing at entry.
- Institutional reform decrees are not intended to function as indefinite transfers of local governmental authority to federal courts; federal supervision should end or narrow as soon as consistent with achieving the decree’s remedial goals.
- Allegations of isolated or disputed misconduct do not necessarily justify preserving sweeping, highly restrictive decree terms when broader conditions and legal constraints (constitutional doctrine, § 1983 liability, internal governance, and political accountability) now supply meaningful checks.
- When a decree’s breadth exceeds what would likely be ordered after contested litigation, that overbreadth may support later modification once circumstances and law shift and the decree’s costs to governance become disproportionate.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit required modification of a long-standing consent decree restricting Chicago’s political intelligence practices because changes in law and fact made continued enforcement of its original, highly restrictive terms inequitable and insufficiently tailored under Rule 60(b)(5) and *Rufo*, and because extended federal control over local policing should be narrowed when no longer necessary to secure the decree’s aims.


Alliance to End Repression v. City of Chicago, 237 F.3d 799 (7th Cir. 2001)