Case Law Blog

Vision Bank v. Avery, No. 25-6140 (10th Cir. Oct. 13, 2026) TL;DR The Tenth Circuit affirmed the denial of qualified immunity to an Oklahoma police officer who fatally shot a man holding an aluminum baseball bat during a civil standby. Although the man was intoxicated, verbally confrontational, armed with a potentially deadly weapon, and failed to comply with repeated commands to put the bat down, the court concluded that a reasonable jury could find that he did not pose an i

Martin v. United States, No. 23-10062 (11th Cir. Oct. 7, 2026) TL;DR An FBI SWAT team conducting an early-morning operation against a suspected gang member mistakenly raided an innocent family's home, three houses away from the intended target and on an entirely different street. Agents forced entry, detonated a flashbang grenade, and handcuffed an occupant before realizing they had entered the wrong residence. The SWAT team leader blamed his personal GPS device for directing

United States v. Martinez, No. 24-1890 (7th Cir. July 7, 2026) TL;DR An Illinois State Police K-9 trooper received information from another law-enforcement agency that a specific semitruck was transporting a large quantity of narcotics. The trooper was not on routine patrol. He called another K-9 trooper, and the two waited along the interstate for at least 30 minutes for the truck to arrive. When it appeared, the trooper stopped it—not based on a traffic violation or reasona

Navejas v. City of El Paso, No. 25-51061 (5th Cir. Oct. 8, 2026) United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Affirmed — Summary judgment in favor of the officer and municipality. TL;DR The Fifth Circuit upheld qualified immunity for an El Paso police officer who deployed his Taser once against a 70-year-old man suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease during a domestic violence investigation. Although the man died after falling following the deployment, the co

United States v. Carson, No. 25-4200 (4th Cir. July 8, 2026) TL;DR Police stopped a vehicle because the driver had a suspended license. Within seconds of arriving, another officer smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle and then observed a digital scale with white residue inside. Officers searched the vehicle and ordered the occupants out. One passenger, Jermaine Carson, was frisked. During the frisk, Carson told the officer he had a gun, and officers recovered a loaded Glo

United States v. Belmonte Cardozo, No. 25-4239 (4th Cir. July 13, 2026) TL;DR A traveler arriving at Washington Dulles International Airport from Bolivia was stopped for a customs inspection. A CBP officer asked him to unlock two iPhones. He complied. The officer manually opened the photo galleries, navigated to the phones’ hidden-photo folders, and discovered illegal images within approximately two minutes. The defendant moved to suppress, arguing that the significant privac

United States v. Drayton, No. 24-2519 (8th Cir. July 13, 2026) TL;DR Police investigating a suspected methamphetamine trafficker watched him engage in what appeared to be multiple drug transactions throughout the day. Later, officers saw another person place a bag into his vehicle. An officer involved in the surveillance followed the suspect onto the interstate, observed him hit the fog line three times, and initiated a traffic stop. While the stopping officer was still proce

United States v. Williams, No. 24-4512 (4th Cir. July 7, 2026) TL;DR Police received an anonymous 911 report that a light-skinned male with braids was sitting in a white Mercedes near an apartment-complex pool and “appears to be making drug transactions.” Two officers responded in separate marked police vehicles. The officers intended to make a voluntary encounter. But instead of parking in available spaces, they simultaneously stopped their patrol vehicles in the roadway, wi

Steger v. Willis, No. 25-6006 (6th Cir. July 21, 2026) TL;DR Police responded to a theft complaint and encountered the suspect standing behind an iron gate on his own front porch. The encounter became heated. The suspect refused to provide identification, told officers to get off his property, and ultimately yelled, “Fuck you!” at one of the officers. According to the plaintiff’s version of events—which the court was required to accept at the qualified-immunity stage—the offi

Hayat v. Diaz, No. 25-1235 (4th Cir. Aug. 20, 2026) TL;DR Police received a priority kidnapping call after an eyewitness reported seeing a man put three children into the trunk of a vehicle. Officers traced the vehicle to Fareed Hayat's home and approached him while he and his wife were outside. The encounter initially was consensual. But after officers questioned Hayat about the reported kidnapping, he refused to answer certain questions, prevented his wife from continuing t

Massimino v. Benoit, No. 25-1104 (2d Cir. Aug. 17, 2026) TL;DR The Second Circuit held that the First Amendment protects the right to record law enforcement activity in public, including publicly visible areas of a police station from a public sidewalk. But that did not mean officers were prohibited from investigating the person doing the recording. Recording a police station, standing alone, was not enough to establish reasonable suspicion. Here, however, additional circumst

United States v. Randle, No. 25-2278 (7th Cir. July 29, 2026) TL;DR The Seventh Circuit held that officers who had already developed probable cause through a controlled drug investigation were authorized to search a suspect's vehicle under the automobile exception—even though they had enough time beforehand to obtain a search warrant. The court also reaffirmed that a properly conducted traffic stop is not unlawfully prolonged when officers continue working on the traffic miss

United States v. Banks, No. 24-2227 (7th Cir. June 30, 2026) TL;DR The Seventh Circuit upheld a firearm conviction after rejecting multiple Fourth Amendment challenges arising from a traffic stop. The court held that officers had reasonable suspicion for the initial stop, did not unlawfully prolong the detention while the driver attempted to obtain updated insurance information, and lawfully searched the vehicle after a certified drug-detection dog alerted—even though no narc

Punxsutawney Hunting Club, et al. v. Pennsylvania Game Commission, No. 23 WAP 2023 (Pa. July 21, 2026) TL;DR In one of the most significant Fourth Amendment-related decisions of 2026, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution does not permit warrantless searches of posted or enclosed private lands under the federal Open Fields Doctrine. In doing so, the court expressly overruled its 2007 decision in Commonwealth v. Russo an

Lakey v. Bryant, No. 25-7068 (10th Cir. July 7, 2026) TL;DR The Tenth Circuit affirmed judgment in favor of an Oklahoma sheriff following the death of Jared Lakey, who died after being tased 53 times over approximately nine minutes by municipal officers before an assisting sheriff's deputy applied a lateral vascular neck restraint (LVNR). Although the individual municipal officers were ultimately found civilly liable for excessive force and guilty in the criminal proceeding,

Searles v. City of Houston, No. 25-20383 (5th Cir. July 9, 2026) TL;DR The Fifth Circuit affirmed qualified immunity for a Houston police officer who fatally shot a felony suspect less than two seconds after ordering him to "show me your hands." Although the court acknowledged the suspect had essentially no opportunity to comply with the command, it held that no clearly established law prohibited the officer's actions under the highly specific facts confronting him. The Fact

The Eleventh Circuit reminds officers that it's not always the weapon—it may be the environment that determines whether force is constitutionally "deadly." Over the past decade, courts have routinely described conducted energy weapons (CEWs), commonly referred to as TASERs, as intermediate force, not deadly force. That classification has shaped countless use-of-force decisions and training programs. But as every use-of-force instructor knows, no force option exists in a vacuu

Morgan v. City of Charlotte, No. 23-1748 (4th Cir. June 29, 2026). TL;DR The Fourth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for officers who shot a mentally ill man after he repeatedly threatened neighbors, fired what appeared to be a real handgun into a residential neighborhood, and refused commands to disarm. The court held that the use of deadly force was objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and that the City did not violate the ADA because officers made reasonable

State v. Times, No. SC2024-0647 (Fla. June 25, 2026) TL;DR In a major shift in Florida search-and-seizure law, the Florida Supreme Court held that evidence will no longer be suppressed solely because officers violate Florida's statutory knock-and-announce requirement while executing a valid search warrant. In doing so, the Court expressly overruled its 2010 decision in State v. Cable, aligning Florida with the United States Supreme Court's decision in Hudson v. Michigan. Why

Chatrie v. United States, 609 U.S. ___ (2026) TL;DR The Supreme Court held that law enforcement conducts a Fourth Amendment search when it compels Google to disclose a user's historical Location History data through a geofence warrant. The Court concluded that individuals maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in this highly detailed location information, despite Google's possession of the data. Importantly, however, the Court did not decide whether the geofence warrant