Scheuer v. Rhodes

After Ohio National Guard troops deployed to Kent State University killed several students during 1970 campus unrest, the estates of three of those students (plaintiffs) sued Ohio Governor Rhodes, other state officials, guardsmen, and the university's president (defendants) under Section 1983, alleging the officials acted outside or abused the scope of their authority in deploying the guard and ordering the actions that led to the deaths. The district court dismissed the suits as effectively against the state itself and thus barred by the Eleventh Amendment, and the court of appeals affirmed, alternatively finding the individual defendants entitled to executive immunity, with both lower courts treating the governor's good faith and the existence of 'mob rule' on campus as established facts.