Civil Rights — qualified immunity

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Rights — qualified immunity

Where the plaintiff submitted an affidavit that the defendant made false statements to obtain a warrant, the defendant’s motion for qualified immunity was properly denied.

“The question is whether, at the time of the violation in this case, a ‘reasonably well-trained police officer would have known that the arrest was illegal.’ Olson, 771 F.2d at 281. In 1985, we held in Olson that immunity does not extend ‘[w]here the judicial finding of probable cause is based solely on information the officer knew to be false or would have known was false had he not recklessly disregarded the truth.’ Id. In 1992, in Juriss v. McGowan, we stripped an officer of qualified immunity where only his false and misleading statements provided probable cause to arrest a woman for aiding a fugitive. 957 F.2d 345, 349-50 (7th Cir. 1992). We reiterated this point in Knox, 342 F.3d at 658 (‘We have held in previous cases that a warrant request violates the Fourth Amendment if the requesting officer knowingly, intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, makes false statements in requesting the warrant and the false statements were necessary to the determination that a warrant should issue.’). And this principle has been firmly established in the criminal context since the Supreme Court decided Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978). See also United States v. Whitley, 249 F.3d 614, 621-22 (7th Cir. 2001). The Court held in Franks that a search violates the Fourth Amendment if after setting aside the false or misleading statements in the affidavit submitted to obtain the warrant, the ‘“remaining content is insufficient to establish probable cause.”’ See United States v. Spears, 673 F.3d 598, 604 (7th Cir. 2012) (quoting Franks, 438 U.S. at 156). In the civil context, the plaintiff need only ‘point to a closely analogous case decided prior to the challenged conduct in order to defeat qualified immunity.’ Sonnleitner v. York, 304 F.3d 704, 716 (7th Cir. 2002). We think there are plenty. So Officer Gomez is not entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law.”

Affirmed.

11-3009 Betker v. Gomez

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Adelman, J., Williams, J.