request legal opinions please
 

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-751.pdf

PEARSON ET AL. v. CALLAHAN

The supreme court just reversed Saucier v. Katz 2 step process for determining qualified immunity to government agents in rights violation lawsuits.

Read the opinion and tell me if the USSC just gave law enforcement agents super immunity in rights violation lawsuits or if they placed the power of lower court judges the authority to determine 'on their own' without a two step process to deny qualified immunity as those judges see fit.

what? nobody can answer this? or noone cares to?

I can't speak to it because I'm not knowledgeable enough to forecast the possible outcome from this reversal. Only a hand full of people on TFP would likely have the expertise necessary to do so, I suspect, and even less without political bias.

For the time being, it's something to keep an eye on. If it does mean less immunities or less fair immunities, then we'll have a problem.

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.)

and someone needs to point out to me WHERE that is written in the constitution. :mad:

Well you won't get an argument from me there. The use of informants (and other private entities) by law enforcement is an end run around the constitution entirely.

I don't practice criminal law, and therefore know little constitutional law. That said, I find this unanimous opinion to be pretty crappy law. Putting aside the consent-once-removed doctrine, which makes no sense, the reversal of the 10th Circuit was premised upon the unfairness of law enforcement having to guess whether on not Saucier would be adopted in their jurisdiction. I can see it now...officers are getting ready to do the bust, but they huddle up first, to debate potential civil liability if Saucier isn't adopted. Uh huh.

This serves as an example of how the same set of facts can yield different results. If this opinion means what it says, then the search was possibly lawful, in which event the plaintiff in the 1983 action maybe shouldn't have had his criminal conviction vacated...even though the Utah attorney general conceded on appeal that no exigent circumstances existed. The Supremes most likely would not have allowed the conviction to stand, but on the other hand, they weren't about to let the meth dealer prevail against the good guys on the civil claim.

There was no reason to not go get a warrant. No evidence suggested that the dealer and his freezer full of meth were going anywhere. The 10th Circuit got it right.