I think there are two relatively separate issues in this case, one is the procedure the lower courts were expected to use in determining qualified immunity, and the other is whether the officers are actually entitled to qualified immunity. In the first part, the procedure was supposed to be strictly based on the Saucier case, but they overturned that standard and broadened the discretion of lower court judges beyond the Saucier test. I don't know enough about the repercussions of Saucier to say whether this would generally benefit the government agents or the civil rights plaintiffs, but I suppose it's now up to the lower courts to determine that.
The second part doesn't have much to do with the first part because the Supreme Court can apply whatever the hell test they feel like to determine qualified immunity. In this case, they ruled that the officers could not have reasonably expected that their conduct violated the appellee's constitutional rights because the consent-once-removed issue hadn't been decided in the Tenth Circuit and in other jurisdictions it was decided the opposite way that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals would eventually decide.
Apparently, unless I'm missing something, the Court discreetly sidestepped the issue of whether an undercover INFORMANT, not an officer, with consent can allow the police to perform a warrantless search, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is now illegal in the Tenth Circuit and legal or undecided everywhere else?
(Not a lawyer.)
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Last edited by n0nsensical; 01-22-2009 at 11:50 AM..
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