Circuit Courts of Appeal Archives - Page 3 of 6

Kilos and Following Your Intuition: United States v. Ahmad

Today’s case from the Seventh Circuit reviews a Fourth Amendment seizure that occurred during a suspicious conversation that arose after Deputy Derek Suttles followed his intuition when two gentlemen were acting strangely at a truck stop. As a reminder, a person is seized under the Fourth Amendment when, viewing the totality of the circumstances surrounding the encounter, a reasonable person would have believed that

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Mouthy Detainees and Excessive Force: Johnson v. City of Miami Beach

Today’s case from the Eleventh Circuit examines an excessive use of force that ultimately ended in an officer being denied qualified immunity. Qualified immunity protects officers from civil liability unless their conduct violates clearly established constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. In excessive force cases, whether a plaintiff’s constitutional rights were violated is governed by the Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness

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Anticipations Rise: Fifth Circuit’s Reconsidered Ruling on Pivotal Case for Citizen Journalism, Free Speech, and Qualified Immunity Awaited

The recent case of Villarreal v. City of Laredo has brought attention to the First Amendment rights of citizens and the validity of qualified immunity to law enforcement officers.1 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard arguments regarding the case of a controversial citizen journalist from Laredo Texas, Priscilla Villarreal, who was arrested in 2017. Priscilla Villarreal is facing a felony

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Always Follow the Suspect Holding Their Phone

The Eleventh Circuit case of United States v. Sanchez involved a warrant for the seizure of a cell phone. The court cited Riley v. California, which held that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data contained in their cell phone, including the call log. The court in Riley declined to extend the incident to lawful custodial arrest exception to the

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“Kettling” and Keeping the Peace

Baude v. Leyshock from the Eighth Circuit has a lot of legal issues that we have discussed and a new term that we have not, which is “kettling.” First let’s start with what we have discussed before: our case today brings to question excessive use of force during a protest. As a reminder, a court evaluates the reasonableness of the force by examining the

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United States v. Ambriz-Villa: The Right Way to Conduct a Traffic Stop

In United States v. Ambriz-Villa, the Seventh Circuit Court dealt with a case involving a traffic stop and consent to search a suspect’s vehicle based on suspicion of drug trafficking. The suspect argued that their consent to search the vehicle was not voluntary. To evaluate the voluntariness of consent, the court considers various factors, such as the person’s age, intelligence, and education, whether they

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Witness’s Change of Story Causes Qualified Immunity Decision to Change

The case of Gambrel v. Knox County, 25 F.4th 391 (6th Cir. 2022) brings to light the complex issue of qualified immunity and the use of deadly force by law enforcement. The Sixth Circuit overturned a decision on qualified immunity in this case, due to a tricky aspect of determining credibility of witness statements. In this case, a witness initially supported the officers’ portrayal

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Weighing Qualified Immunity Against Several Versions of the Same UOF Incident

In the Seventh Circuit case of Bayon v. Berkebile, qualified immunity was denied for officers who mistakenly believed that the plaintiff had a gun. The incident became complicated due to the numerous conflicting versions from both the plaintiff and the officers about the use of force. As a reminder, qualified immunity balances the need to hold public officials accountable for irresponsible use of power

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Does a 911 Tip Count as Reasonable Suspicion?

Our case of the day comes from the Seventh Circuit in Illinois. The suspect in the case was charged under an Illinois-specific law with possessing a firearm in a place licensed to sell alcohol. It is important to note that the location is relevant because the law that the suspect was charged under may not apply in other states. The case before us involves

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Would You Use the “Stalking Horse” Maneuver?

Today’s case arises from the Seventh Circuit and introduces new terminology in the context of parolee rights. The distinguishable context of parolee rights is justified by the notion that insists- if you have broken the law once; the state has a special interest and right to check in on the individual, to assure the prevention of repeat offending instances. In Griffin v. Wisconsin, the

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