CA7: “Police officers owe judges candor when seeking search warrants.”

“Police officers owe judges candor when seeking search warrants.” This officer’s wrong guess as to the place to be searched for a search warrant exposed the officer to liability. Taylor v. Hughes, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 4276 (7th Cir. Feb. 16, 2022):

Police officers owe judges candor when seeking search warrants. This case presents a troubling example of an officer violating that duty. Acting on the tip of a John Doe informant, Chicago police officer Ricky Hughes secured a warrant to search Robert Taylor’s apartment for a gun. The informant knew where Taylor lived, but not his address. And Hughes did not take steps to learn it. He instead took a guess, and that guess was wrong. A months-long ordeal followed, which included Taylor spending 128 days in jail. He eventually sued Hughes and other CPD officers for violating his constitutional rights. The district court granted summary judgment for all defendants, but we see some aspects of this case differently, especially those relating to Officer Hughes’s misconduct in obtaining the search warrant. So we affirm parts of the district court’s ruling and reverse others.

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