2012—A Ninth Circuit panel, in an opinion by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, rules that a police officer was not entitled to qualified immunity on a plaintiff’s claim that he had violated her constitutional rights by entering her yard in pursuit of a suspect. Under clearly established law, Reinhardt maintains, the police officer should have known that his entry was unconstitutional.
One year later, the Supreme Court summarily reverses Reinhardt in a per curiam ruling (in Stanton v. Sims). Here’s how the Court summarizes the actual state of this supposedly “clearly established” body of law:
“Two opinions of this Court were equivocal on the lawfulness of his entry; two opinions of the State Court of Appeal affirmatively authorized that entry; the most relevant opinion of the Ninth Circuit was readily distinguishable; two Federal District Courts in the Ninth Circuit had granted qualified immunity in the wake of that opinion; and the federal and state courts of last resort around the Nation were sharply divided.”