due caution and circumspection

In February 1997, a concerned citizen informed ATF Special Agent Jeff Groh that on multiple visits to the ranch of Joseph Ramirez and his family in Butte-Silver Bow County, Montana, the visitor had observed a large stock of weaponry including an automatic rifle, grenades, a grenade launcher, and a rocket launcher. Groh prepared and signed an application for a warrant to search the ranch for any automatic firearms or parts, destructive devices including grenades, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, and receipts pertaining to their purchase or manufacture. He supported the application with a detailed affidavit setting forth the basis for his belief that the listed items were concealed on the premises. Groh also completed a warrant form that, in the portion calling for a description of the person or property to be seized, contained a description of the respondents' two-story blue house rather than the stockpile of firearms. The warrant did not incorporate the application by reference. The magistrate judge signed the warrant form after reviewing the documents, and the affidavit was placed under seal. The day after the magistrate issued the warrant, Groh led a team of federal agents and local sheriff's deputies in executing the search on the Ramirez ranch while Joseph Ramirez was absent but his wife and children were present. The officers uncovered no illegal weapons or explosives. Groh gave Mrs. Ramirez a copy of the search warrant but not the sealed application. The following day he faxed respondents' attorney a copy of the page of the application listing the items to be seized. Respondents Joseph Ramirez and his family brought this action against Groh and the other officers under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the search violated their Fourth Amendment rights. The District Court entered summary judgment for all defendants on all claims. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment as to all defendants and claims except the Fourth Amendment claim against Groh, on which it reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Fourth Amendment and qualified immunity questions.

On May 22, 1990, at approximately 8:30 p.m., Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy James Everett Smith responded to a call to break up a fight along with another officer, Murray Stapp. Upon returning to his patrol car, Stapp saw a motorcycle operated by 18-year-old Brian Willard carrying 16-year-old Philip Lewis as a passenger approaching at high speed. Neither boy had been involved in the fight that prompted the call. Stapp turned on his overhead rotating lights, yelled to the boys to stop, and pulled his patrol car closer to Smith’s in an attempt to pen the motorcycle in. Instead of pulling over, Willard slowly maneuvered the motorcycle between the two police cars and sped off. Smith immediately switched on his own emergency lights and siren, made a quick turn, and began pursuit at high speed. For 75 seconds over a course of 1.3 miles in a residential neighborhood, the motorcycle wove in and out of oncoming traffic, forcing two cars and a bicycle to swerve off the road, while the vehicles reached speeds up to 100 miles per hour with Smith following at a distance as short as 100 feet. The chase ended after the motorcycle tipped over as Willard tried a sharp left turn. By the time Smith slammed on his brakes, Willard was out of the way, but Lewis was not. The patrol car skidded into him at 40 miles per hour, propelling him some 70 feet down the road and inflicting massive injuries from which Lewis was pronounced dead at the scene. The District Court granted summary judgment for Smith. It reasoned that he was entitled to qualified immunity. Respondents could point to no state or federal opinion published before May 1990 supporting their view of a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right in the context of high-speed police pursuits. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. It held that the appropriate degree of fault to be applied to high-speed police pursuits is deliberate indifference to or reckless disregard for a person’s right to life and personal security. The court concluded that the law regarding police liability for death or injury caused by an officer during the course of a high-speed chase was clearly established at the time of Philip Lewis’s death. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Circuits over the standard of culpability on the part of a law enforcement officer for violating substantive due process in a pursuit case.

Roy Daniels was an inmate at the city jail in Richmond, Virginia. While there, he slipped on a pillow that respondent, a correctional deputy stationed at the jail, had left on the prison stairway. The fall caused Daniels to sustain back and ankle injuries. Daniels filed a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the deputy. He alleged that the deputy's conduct had caused him injury and that the deputy would rely on sovereign immunity as a defense if Daniels pursued a state tort action instead. The District Court granted the deputy's motion for summary judgment. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed that judgment. On rehearing, the en banc Court of Appeals again affirmed the District Court's judgment, although it employed different reasoning from the panel. Because lower courts had taken inconsistent approaches to determining when tortious conduct by state officials rises to the level of a constitutional violation, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

On July 7, 2004, Investigator Mark Anderson of the Coffee County Sheriff's Department learned that Bennie Dean Herring had arrived at the department's impound lot to retrieve items from his truck. Anderson, familiar with Herring from prior encounters, directed the county warrant clerk, Sandy Pope, to check for outstanding arrest warrants. Finding none locally, Pope contacted Sharon Morgan, the warrant clerk in neighboring Dale County, whose database indicated an active warrant for Herring's failure to appear on a felony charge. Anderson and a deputy followed Herring as he left the lot, stopped his vehicle, and arrested him based on the reported warrant. A search incident to the arrest uncovered methamphetamine in Herring's pocket and a pistol in his truck. Shortly thereafter, Morgan discovered that the warrant had actually been recalled five months earlier in February 2004, but the recall had not been entered into the Dale County database. She notified Pope, who alerted Anderson via radio, all within ten to fifteen minutes of the arrest. Herring was indicted in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. He faced charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and possession of methamphetamine under 21 U.S.C. § 844(a). He moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the search, arguing that the arrest was unlawful because the warrant had been rescinded. The Magistrate Judge recommended denying the suppression motion, a recommendation adopted by the District Court in 451 F.Supp.2d 1290 (2005). The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the conviction in 492 F.3d 1212 (2007), concluding that the database error was merely negligent and attenuated from the arrest. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the application of the exclusionary rule in this context.