Qualified immunity is a defense against standing in a civil trial, normally against police
Constitutional Avoidance Advantage
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- Court has eliminated the first step – determining if it is a constitutional violation
Constitutional Avoidance AdvantageConstitutional Avoidance LinksUnder Person v. Callahan, judges no longer have to determine if constitutional violation occurred, only if knowledge of such a constitutional violation is widespread, when deciding if a defendant is entitled to qualified immunity. Eliminating this step undermines the development of constitutional lawHudson, Fall 2001 David L. Hudson, Jr. serves as a First Amendment Scholar for the First Amendment Center (http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org). He also teaches First Amendment classes at Vanderbilt Law School and the Nashville School of Law, First Amendment Law Review. Pearson v. Callahan and Qualified Immunity: Impact on First Amendment Law, http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/falr10&div=7&id=&page, p. 125-31 At first glance, a search and seizure case involving informants, the consent-once-removed doctrine, n1 and other Fourth Amendment concepts would seemingly have little connection to freedom of expression. n2 Commentators have noted, however, that, despite the case's scant media coverage, n3 the United States Supreme Court's 2008 decision in Pearson v. Callahan n4 has had a substantial impact on First Amendment litigation. The Court's decision in Pearson dealt with qualified immunity - a doctrine that enables government officials to avoid liability if they have not violated clearly established constitutional or statutory law. n5 The case involved criminal defendant, Afton Callahan, and his sale of methamphetamine to an informant working for a drug taskforce in Millard County, Utah. n6 The wired informant gave an arrest signal to officers in the area, who then arrested Callahan on drug charges. n7 Callahan asserted that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights with their warrantless search and arrest. n8 A trial court ruled that the officers' warrantless search was justified by exigent circumstances. n9 The Court of Appeals for the State of Utah reversed, finding that the search was unconstitutional under exigent circumstances (which the State conceded) or the inevitable discovery rule. n10 Callahan then filed a constitutional tort claim in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, n11 asserting a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. n12 The federal district court granted the state officials qualified immunity, finding that a reasonable officer may have believed that the consent-once-removed doctrine could apply when Callahan gave consent to the informant to come into his home. n13 On appeal, the Tenth Circuit reversed, finding that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity. n14 The court reasoned that the officers knew or should have known that their conduct was unlawful because they knew they did not have a warrant and knew that Callahan did not consent to the police entering his home. n15 The United States Supreme Court unanimously reversed, writing that "when the entry at issue here occurred in 2002, the "consent-once-removed' doctrine had gained acceptance in the lower courts." n16 But the Court did something much more important than rule that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity in the specific civil rights [*127] case of Alton Callahan. The Court ruled that lower court judges could decide qualified-immunity questions by avoiding the often difficult issue of whether there was a constitutional violation and proceed directly to the inquiry of whether such a right was clearly established. n17 Previously, in Saucier v. Katz, n18 the Court had determined that the initial questions to be addressed in a qualified-immunity case were (1) whether there was a violation of a constitutional right and (2) whether that right was clearly established at the time of defendants' conduct. n19 Some Justices, however, criticized the Saucier approach. Justice Stephen Breyer referred to it as the "failed Saucier experiment." n20 The problem with the "rigid order of battle" n21 mandated by Saucier was that the first question - whether there has been a constitutional violation - is often a much more difficult question to resolve than the second question of whether the law was clearly established. n22 In Pearson, Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. explained that before Saucier, judges had the option of whether to apply the steps sequentially or to proceed directly to the clearly established prong. n23 Justice Alito then explained that the experience with Saucier showed that it was too inflexible and should be abandoned in favor of giving the judges needed discretion. n24 He stated: "On reconsidering the procedure required in Saucier, we conclude that while the sequence set forth there is often appropriate, it should no longer be regarded as mandatory." n25 Justice Alito quoted one complaint which regarded Saucier as a ""puzzling misadventure in constitutional dictum.'" n26 He also cited numerous colleagues on the Court who questioned the mandatory sequence of Saucier. n27 However, Justice Alito wrote that, even though no longer mandatory, the two-step protocol is "often beneficial" in part because it "promotes the development of constitutional precedent." n28 He reasoned that lower federal district and circuit court judges are in the best position to determine how to analyze qualified-immunity cases. n29 Scholars have questioned whether Pearson would impede the development of constitutional law. For example, law professor Michael Wells has stated that the decision "will make it easier for courts to decide that the law is unsettled, grant qualified immunity and not get to the merits of important constitutional questions... . Now there is always an argument against facing them." n30 Professor John Jeffries, Jr. warned that the Pearson decision, at times, could lead to the "degradation of constitutional rights." n31 As one commentator wrote, "Pearson's holding has, if anything, intensified the debate over the proper procedural framework for addressing qualified-immunity claims." n32 Other scholars have identified the "post-Pearson" period as crucial to studying the vitality of § 1983 civil rights litigation. Court has eliminated the first step – determining if it is a constitutional violationRichard Thompson, legislative attorney, Congressional Research Service, October 30, 2015, Police Use of Force: Rules, Remedies, and Reforms, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44256.pdf The process for applying this doctrine has evolved in recent years. Under older precedent, the Court mandated a two-step sequence for qualified immunity claims.163 First, a reviewing court had to decide whether the facts alleged by the plaintiff amounted to a constitutional violation. Second, if the plaintiff made this showing, the court had to decide whether the right was “clearly established” at the time of the misconduct. The Court noted that skipping ahead to the “clearly established” prong of the test would deprive future courts of case law defining the parameters of the right in question. However, lower courts frequently criticized this “rigid order of battle” on “practical, procedural, and substantive grounds.”164 Under the older regime, lower courts were required to fully litigate the constitutional merits when in many instances it was obvious that the law relied upon was not clearly established at the time. In an effort to give courts more flexibility, in the 2009 case Pearson v. Callahan, the Court overruled its prior rule and held that lower courts “should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand.”165 That being said, the Court noted that following the Saucier order is “often beneficial.”166 Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! 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