Law360 (July 14, 2026, 4:41 PM EDT) -- Connecticut is urging a federal court to toss the federal government's lawsuit challenging recently enacted state laws relating to law enforcement's use of face coverings and the investigation of cases involving deadly force, arguing the laws don't unconstitutionally hamper federal enforcement efforts.

Regardless of the statutes at issue in the government's May lawsuit, Connecticut has had a long-standing "paramount and inviolable right" to prosecute those who violate its criminal laws, including federal officials, Connecticut said in a Monday motion to dismiss, arguing such authority exists "as a fundamental pillar of this nation's principles of federalism."

"Taken to its logical conclusion, the United States' position would mean federal agents could commit crimes and violate Connecticut residents' rights with impunity, accountable to no one," Connecticut said. It further lodged a separate brief opposing the government's related bid for a preliminary injunction.

The statutes at issue under Senate Bill 397, signed into law May 4, generally bar law enforcement, including federal law enforcement, from wearing face coverings and require them to wear visible identification, though with various exceptions. After the state established the Office of Inspector General, or OIG, under its Division of Criminal Justice in 2021 to investigate police cases involving the deadly use of force or that otherwise involved death, Senate Bill 397 expanded the definition of "peace officer" to include "any federal law enforcement officer."

Though the OIG was established only recently, the state has investigated peace officers' use of force since 1988, the state noted Monday, arguing that the challenged OIG statutes — Section 53a-22, 51-277a and 51-277e — do not proscribe any conduct by federal officials. Instead, Section 53a-22 merely provides charged law enforcement officials an affirmative defense concerning when they are justified in using deadly or nondeadly force, while Sections 51-277a and 51-277e vest the OIG with investigative, reporting and prosecutorial authority, the state said.

The OIG statutes are not enforceable to begin with, it said. If the OIG were to ultimately bring a case against a federal law enforcement official for unlawful use of force, the state said, the office would not bring the case under Senate Bill 397, but would rather charge the officer under an independent statute, such as for murder, manslaughter or assault.

There is also an attenuated and hypothetical chain of events that would need to occur before the OIG seeks to subject a federal law enforcement official to state criminal liability, the state added, thus cutting against the federal government arguments that it has standing, it said.

"The United States has not alleged that any of its' officers plan to kill a Connecticut resident or use deadly force on a Connecticut resident, much less that they intend to do so in a way that violates a criminal statute or would be unjustified," Connecticut further argued. "To trigger the prosecution by the IG that the United States seeks to bar, a law enforcement officer must violate a Connecticut criminal statute like murder, manslaughter, or assault while using force, and the IG must determine that a use of force is unjustified after an investigation, which could take months."

As for the face covering and visible identification requirements under Senate Bill 397, a violation of which is classified as a misdemeanor, the state said the government similarly lacks standing to challenge those provisions because it hasn't named a proper defendant. Connecticut's governor, attorney general and chief state's attorney do not enforce the requirements, but instead individual state's attorneys, the state said, adding that Connecticut itself is not a proper defendant, either, pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1908 ruling in Ex Parte Young.

Under that case, the high court has long recognized that state officials' enforcement of an allegedly unconstitutional statute is not attributable to the state, but rather those officials, Connecticut said.

Additionally, the face covering and visible identification requirements of Senate Bill 397, under Section 6, impose "incidental burdens" on federal operations at most, Connecticut argued, stressing those statutes' numerous exceptions, such as for undercover operations.

While the Ninth Circuit recently granted a preliminary injunction over a similar law enforcement identification law in California, Connecticut said the appeals court's analysis is "not persuasive." In that case, the Ninth Circuit held that under the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity, the California law likely impermissibly regulated federal law enforcement because it applied exclusively to law enforcement, and not conduct by any other citizen.

However, the appeals court "conflated" direct regulation with discrimination under the intergovernmental immunity doctrine, the latter of which deals with state laws that are "underinclusive" by regulating federal entities but not other entities that are "similarly situated," Connecticut said, citing the Supreme Court's 2019 decision in Dawson v. Steager.

"But California's law was not discriminatory, and plaintiff does not claim that [Section] 6 is either, because private citizens are not similarly situated to law enforcement when it comes to the concerns about officer anonymity that identification and masking requirements are designed to address," Connecticut said. "Nonetheless, the Ninth Circuit relied on the law's application only to law enforcement as dispositive proof of an impermissible direct regulation. That was error."

The federal government should have also had to demonstrate any operational impact from the California law, Connecticut maintained.

A representative for the Connecticut attorney general's office declined to comment beyond the state's court filings.

Representatives for the federal government did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The federal government is represented by Stanley E. Woodward Jr., Brett A. Shumate, Yaakov M. Roth, Anna Edwards, Charles E.T. Roberts, Alessandra Faso and Alexandra McTague Schulte of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Connecticut defendants are represented by Janelle Medeiros, Timothy Holzman and Edward Rowley of the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General.

The case is U.S. v. State of Connecticut et al., case number 3:26-cv-00758, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

--Additional reporting by Aaron Keller and Tom Lotshaw. Editing by Amy French.

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