> The panel held that at the time of the incident, there was no clearly established law holding that officers violate the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment when they steal property seized pursuant to a warrant. For that reason, the City Officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
And handed down in only one circuit, so the other 80% of cops in the country can say "well, in my circuit there was no established case law that said stealing the property was a constitutional violation."
That's not exactly consistent with the given scenario. Use of force issues tend to have much better case law at both the federal and state levels than property related issues.
> Corbitt v. Vickers, 929 F.3d 1304 (11th Cir. 2019): Qualified immunity granted for officer who, hunting
a fugitive, ended up at the wrong house and forced six children, including two children under the age of
three, to lie on the ground at gunpoint. The officer tried to shoot the family dog, but missed and shot a
10-year-old child that was lying face down, 18 inches away from the officer. The court held that there
was no prior case where an officer accidentally shot a child laying on the ground while the officer was
aiming at a dog.
> Young v. Borders, 850 F.3d 1274 (11th Cir. 2017): Qualified immunity granted to officers who, without
a warrant, started banging on an innocent man’s door without announcing themselves in the middle of
the night. When the man opened the door holding his lawfully-owned handgun, officers opened fire,
killing. One dissenting judge wrote that if these actions are permitted, “then the Second and Fourth
Amendments are having a very bad day in this circuit.”
> Estate of Smart v. City of Wichita, 951 F.3d 1161 (10th Cir. 2020): Qualified immunity granted for
officer who heard gunshots and fired into a crowd of hundreds of people in downtown Wichita, shooting
bystanders and killing an unarmed man who was trying to flee the area. The court held that the shooting
was unconstitutional but there was no clearly established law that police officers could not “open fire on
a fleeing person they (perhaps unreasonably) believed was armed in what they believed to be an active
shooter situation.”
(And a bunch of others.)
And a matching case has to be very specific:
> Baxter v. Bracey, 751 F. App’x 869 (6th Cir. 2018): Qualified immunity granted for officers who sent a
police dog to attack a man who had already surrendered and was sitting on the ground with his hands in
the air. The court held that a prior case holding it unconstitutional to send a police dog after a person
who surrendered by laying on the ground was not sufficiently similar to this case, involving a person
who surrendered by sitting on the ground with his hands up.
The prior opinion in this case, found at Jessop v. City of Fresno , 918 F.3d 1031 (9th Cir. 2019), is hereby withdrawn. A superseding opinion will be filed concurrently with this order. Plaintiffs-Appellants’ petition for rehearing en banc remains pending.
I picked the second one to start. So I don't think that's a great source.
What was the outcome of the lawsuits against the agencies? You don't have to win a suit against an individual. Most of the big payouts have to come from the cities.
I would probably say that both the city and the cop should, independently, be liable. Given the position of authority the city provides, it is ultimately responsible to hire and properly train people who will use that authority well, while the individual is also responsible for their own actions.
If the cop is following procedure, the city and others who set the procedure should be liable. If the cop is breaking procedure, then they should be liable. If there is no clear procedure, then they should both be liable.
Sadly, yes. They're also the populace that voted for that leadership. There are many leaders of major cities that continually push policies that are highly probably to result in legal action due to their conflict with existing law and case law. I don't like it, but its true.
