Supreme Court issues summary reversal of 9th Circuit qualified immunity ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court summarily reversed a qualified immunity finding made by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the second time in two years, suggesting the justices are not inclined to revisit the doctrine which has increasingly been the subject of debate in legal academia.

On Monday, the nation's high court issued a per curiam decision saying the San Francisco-based federal appeals court was wrong to deny qualified immunity to an Escondido police officer who responded to a domestic violence call and that the court hadn't done enough analysis to deny it to another.

The terse opinion -- which drew no dissents -- repeatedly cited a decision from last term in which the Supreme Court reversed the 9th Circuit's decision to deny qualified immunity to a police officer who shot a woman after she refused to follow a command to drop a knife.

"As we have explained many times: 'Qualified immunity attaches when an official's misconduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,'" Monday's opinion said, borrowing from the 2018 ruling in Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U.S. ___.

In February, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reversed Senior U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller's decision to grant qualified immunity to two Escondido police officers who had been sued for alleged 4th Amendment violations.

The panel, in a three-page, unpublished memorandum, said Marty Emmons could pursue his claims against Officers Kevin Toth and Robert Craig.

In 2013, several Escondido police officers arrived at Emmons' daughter's house after receiving a domestic violence call regarding the daughter's roommate.

Mistakenly believing Emmons to be an assailant, Craig forced him to the ground and handcuffed him. The officers did not have a warrant for an arrest or to enter the property.

Reversing the qualified immunity ruling regarding Toth and vacating the decision concerning Craig, the justices instructed the 9th Circuit to revisit the case.

"[T]he Court of Appeals' formulation of the clearly established right was far too general," the opinion said. Escondido v. Emmons, 2019 DJDAR 107 (U.S. Jan. 7, 2019).

The 9th Circuit rested its analysis on its own decision from 2013 (released three months after the Emmons incident), which held that the use of a stun gun against a passive bystander violated the 4th Amendment.

The panel, consisting of Circuit Judges Susan P. Graber and Andrew D. Hurwitz as well as visiting U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley of Ohio did little to explain why the case was applicable other than to write, "The right to be free of excessive force was clearly established at the time of the events in question."

Referencing that reasoning, the justices said Monday the 9th Circuit "made no effort to explain how that case law prohibited Officer Craig's actions in this case."

Qualified immunity -- the judge-made doctrine that protects state actors from lawsuits if alleged violations are not contrary to clearly settled law -- has increasingly been the subject of debate among legal academics, like William Baude, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and Joanna C. Schwartz, a dean at UCLA School of Law.

Papers written by the two critical of the doctrine have been cited by federal judges who've expressed skepticism of qualified immunity.

But the decision Monday suggests the Supreme Court might not be ready to jump into that debate.

"The justices are aware of it, yet they keep on doing the thing they've been doing for the last 10 or 15 years, issuing these summary reversals in qualified immunity cases," commented University of Pittsburgh law professor Arthur D. Hellman.

Justice Clarence Thomas cited Baude's work in 2017, saying he and his colleagues should revisit the doctrine. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a blistering dissent in Kisela, saying qualified immunity tells police officers "they can shoot first and think later."

Michael R. McGuinness, Escondido's city attorney who petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene in his case, thinks that's a good thing.

"I'm happy the court is holding to its precedent on qualified immunity," he said in a telephone interview Monday, adding that the decision was another reminder that the 9th Circuit should adopt "a more analytical approach" to conform to the Supreme Court's understanding of the doctrine.

"The underlying opinion is three pages long," he said. "It just blew off the whole concept of undertaking an evaluative approach to determine qualified immunity."

Though beneficial to McGuinness and his client, the victory wasn't a clean sweep. Escondido will have to return to the 9th Circuit now to re-argue qualified immunity's application to Officer Craig.

Gerald Blaine Singleton, a partner at Singleton Law Firm APC who represents Emmons, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.