In 1991, a police officer from Illinois, Mary Redmond, shot and killed Ricky Allen in the line of duty. Allen’s family sued Redmond in federal court on the premise that Redmond “violated Allen’s civil rights by using excessive force” (Knapp & VandeCreek, 1997, p. 569). Prior to the court proceedings, it was discovered that Redmond engaged in individual therapy with a licensed social worker and Allen’s family intended to utilize the information from the sessions in the case against Redmond. (Shuman & Foote, 1999). During the proceedings, the social worker did not comply with providing the court specific confidential information from the individual therapy sessions resulting in the judge mandating the jurors to assume that the information that was refused would have been detrimental to Redmond. The jurors in the court case ruled in favor of Allen’s family and ordered Redmond to pay Allen’s family a significant sum of money. …show more content…
Redmond especially after the ruling was appealed and ultimately voided due to the initial court’s failure to account for the privilege that exists between a therapist and client (Knapp & VandeCreek,