Recently, the Supreme Court decided to hear two qualified immunity cases and issued an opinion in a third case without oral argument.  Qualified immunity protects government officials from such lawsuits where the law they violated isn’t “clearly established.”  The State and Local Legal Center will file an amicus brief in both of the newly granted cases. 

In Plumhoff v. Rickard the Court will decide whether the lower court properly denied qualified immunity by distinguishing this case, which arose in 2004, with a later Supreme Court decision from 2007. The Court also will decide whether qualified immunity should be denied based on these facts:  Rickard wove through traffic on an interstate connecting two states, collided with police vehicles twice, and used his vehicle to escape after being surrounded by police officers, nearly hitting at least one officer.   

In Wood v. Moss anti-Bush protesters sued two Secret Service agents claiming they violated their First Amendment rights by moving them about one block further from the President than the pro-Bush demonstrators.  The Supreme Court will decide whether the lower court evaluated the qualified immunity question in this case too generally and whether the anti-Bush protesters have adequately claimed viewpoint discrimination when there was an obvious security-based rationale for moving them:  they were closer to the President.

In Stanton v. Sims the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s refusal to grant qualified immunity to a police officer who kicked open a gate hitting the homeowner while in “hot pursuit” of someone the officer thought committed a misdemeanor.  The Ninth Circuit concluded that it was clearly established that a police officer may not enter someone’s property without a warrant while in “hot pursuit” of someone suspected only of a misdemeanor.  The Supreme Court disagreed based on conflicting lower court opinions on this question and a lack of guidance from the Supreme Court.