SCOTUS decides Camreta v. Greene is moot. The case “promised” to decide whether there was a privacy interest in a child at school being interrogated. The Court does reiterate that § 1983 cases could [not should] be decided on the merits before turning to qualified immunity so the constitutional claims will be decided for the future [not something many courts care to do; after all, it is a way of protecting government officials from lawsuits]. Here, however, the case was moot. From the Syllabus:
To begin with the nature of these suits: Under § 1983 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, a plaintiff may seek money damages from government officials who have violated her constitutional or statutory rights. But if those officials are entitled to qualified immunity, a court can dismiss the damages claim without ever deciding its merits—and so the qualified immunity situation threatens to leave standards of official conduct permanently in limbo. To prevent that problem, this Court has permitted lower courts to determine whether a right exists before examining whether it was clearly established. See, e.g., Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 237. Here, the Ninth Circuit followed exactly this two-step process so that it could settle a question of constitutional law and thereby guide the future conduct of officials.
Given its purpose and effect, such a decision is reviewable in this Court at an immunized official’s behest. If the Court’s usual prevailing party rule applied, the official would either have to acquiesce in a ruling he had no opportunity to contest in this Court, or defy the lower court’s view, adhere to what has been declared an illegal practice, and invite further law suits and possible punitive damages. Id., at 240–241. And applying this Court’s usual bar on review would undermine the purpose of the two-step process, “which is to clarify constitutional rights without undue delay.” Bunting v. Mellen, 541 U. S. 1019, 1024 (SCALIA, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). Just as that purpose may justify an appellate court in reaching beyond an immunity defense to decide a constitutional issue, so too may it support this Court in reviewing the correctness of the lower court’s decision. This holding is limited in two respects. First, it addresses only this Court’s authority to review cases in this procedural posture. The Court need not decide if an appellate court can also entertain an appeal from a party who has prevailed on immunity grounds. Second, the holding concerns only what the Court may review, not what the Court actually will choose to review. Going forward, the Court will consider prevailing parties’ petitions one by one in accord with its usual standards for granting certiorari. Pp. 7–14.
2. A separate jurisdictional problem requires the Court to dismiss this case at the threshold: The case is moot. In a dispute of this kind,both the plaintiff and the defendant ordinarily retain a stake in the outcome. That is true of Camreta, who remains employed as a child protective services worker, and so has an interest in challenging the Ninth Circuit’s ruling requiring him to obtain a warrant before conducting an in-school interview. But S. G. can no longer claim the plaintiff’s usual stake in preserving the court’s holding because she no longer needs protection from the challenged practice. She has moved to Florida and is only months away from her 18th birthday and, presumably, from her high school graduation. When “subsequent events ma[ke] it absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur,” there is no live controversy to review. United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Export Assn., Inc., 393 U. S. 199, 203.
When a civil suit becomes moot pending appeal, this Court has authority to “direct the entry of such appropriate judgment, decree, or order, or require such further proceedings … as may be just under the circumstances.” 28 U. S. C. § 2106. The Court’s “established” practice is to vacate the judgment below, see, e.g., United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36, 39, to ensure that “those who have been prevented from obtaining the review to which they are entitled [are] not … treated as if there had been a review,” ibid. The point of vacatur is to prevent an unreviewable decision “from spawning any legal consequences.” Id., at 40–41. A constitutional ruling in a qualified immunity case is a legally consequential decision. When happenstance prevents this Court’s review of that ruling, the normal rule should apply: Vacatur rightly “strips the decision below of its binding effect,” Deakins v. Monaghan, 484 U. S. 193, 200, and clears “the path for future relitigation,” Munsingwear, 340 U. S., at 40. Because mootness has frustrated Camreta’s ability to challenge the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that he must obtain a warrant before interviewing a suspected child abuse victim at school, that part of the Ninth Circuit’s decision must be vacated. Pp. 14–18.
Why would four members of the Court decide to take a case that they should have seen was likely going to become moot? This is the second time this Term they have dodged a case: Remember Tolentino v. New York? Cert dismissed as improvidently granted.
Every cert grant in a Fourth Amendment case by the Roberts Court creates serious risk of damage to the Fourth Amendment and individual privacy in America. Herring v. United States‘s gutting of the exclusionary rule is Exhibit 1. It takes four votes for a cert grant, and the conservative bloc [the Death STAR*] seems willing to do anything to advance the power of government over the citizen.
It is just bad form to take a case and then dodge it. This tells me that their cert grants are slanted to aid the government. Maybe I’m just overly cynical, but that’s what I feel in my heart of hearts.
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* Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts.
