Armstrong v. Asselin, No. 10-35777 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit pro se under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against police officers for violations of his Fourth Amendment right in their searches and seizures and plaintiff's arrest pursuant to warrants. Defendant was arrested for disseminating indecent materials to minors. The court concluded that the officers demonstrated their entitlement to the Messerschmidt v. Millender "shield of immunity" from suit and that the claims against them should be dismissed. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's denial of the officer's motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity and remanded.
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel reversed the district court’s order denying qualified immunity to police officers and remanded for dismissal of an action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by a pro se plaintiff who alleged that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when his home, workplace, and car were searched and he was arrested for disseminating indecent materials to minors. Plaintiff’s claim against the defendants was that a reasonable officer would know that the warrant applications failed to establish probable cause. The panel held that given the circumstances of this case, the police officers, prosecutors, and judicial officials were not plainly incompetent in concluding that there was a fair probability that the searches would turn up evidence of stalking and dissemination of indecent material to minors. The panel noted that police officers subjected every step of their invasions of plaintiff’s privacy to evaluation both by prosecutors and by neutral judicial officials before they acted. The panel held that such prior review of proposed searches and arrests supported qualified immunity, shielding police officers from liability under the line of cases reaffirmed and broadened most recently by Messerschmidt v. Millender, 132 S. Ct. 1235 (2012).
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