{"id":5614,"date":"2011-06-22T08:05:18","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T00:11:37","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T00:17:39","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=5614","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS: Ashcroft gets immunity for arrest with probable cause but improper motive"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCOTUS decides Ashcroft v. al-Kidd<\/a>, 2011 U.S. LEXIS 4021 (May 31, 2011), that the former Attorney General has qualified immunity for an arrest of a material witness admittedly with probable cause, but for an alleged improper motive, ending just as I expected. The syllabus:<\/p>\n

Respondent al-Kidd alleges that, after the September 11th terrorist attacks, then-Attorney General Ashcroft authorized federal officials to detain terrorism suspects using the federal material-witness statute, 18 U. S. C. \u00a7 3144. He claims that this pretextual detention policy led to his material-witness arrest as he was boarding a plane to Saudi Arabia. To secure the warrant, federal officials had told a Magistrate Judge that information \u201ccrucial\u201d to Sami Omar al-Hussayen\u2019s prosecution would be lost if al-Kidd boarded his flight. Prosecutors never called al-Kidd as a witness, and (as he alleges)never meant to do so. Al-Kidd filed suit pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388, challenging the constitutionality of Ashcroft\u2019s alleged policy. The District Court denied Ashcroft\u2019s motion to dismiss on absolute and qualified immunity grounds. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the Fourth Amendment prohibits pretextual arrests absent probable cause of criminal wrongdoing, and that Ashcroft could not claim qualified or absolute immunity.<\/p>\n

Held:<\/p>\n

1. The objectively reasonable arrest and detention of a material witness pursuant to a validly obtained warrant cannot be challenged as unconstitutional on the basis of allegations that the arresting authority had an improper motive. Pp. 3\u20139.<\/p>\n

(a) Qualified immunity shields a government official from money damages unless (1) the official violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that right was \u201cclearly established\u201d at the time of the challenged conduct. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818. Where, as here, a court considers both prongs of this inquiry, this Court has the discretion to correct the lower court\u2019s errors at each step. P. 3.<\/p>\n

(b) Whether a detention is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment \u201cis predominantly an objective inquiry.\u201d Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32, 47. Courts ask whether \u201cthe circumstances, viewed objectively, justify [the challenged] action.\u201d Scott v. United States, 436 U. S. 128, 138. Except for cases that involve special-needs, e.g., Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 653, or administrative searches, e.g., Michigan v. Clifford, 464 U. S. 287, 294, this Court has almost uniformly rejected invitations to probe subjective intent. The Court of Appeals was mistaken in believing that Edmond established that \u201c \u2018programmatic purpose\u2019 is relevant to Fourth Amendment analysis of programs of seizures without probable cause.\u201d 580 F. 3d 949, 968. It was not the absence of probable cause that triggered Edmond\u2019s invalidating-purpose inquiry, but the checkpoints\u2019 failure to be based on \u201cindividualized suspicion.\u201d 531 U. S., at 47. Here a neutral Magistrate Judge issued a warrant authorizing al-Kidd\u2019s arrest, and the affidavit accompanying the warrant application gave individualized reasons to believe that he was a material witness who would soon disappear. A warrant based on individualized suspicion grants more protection than existed in most of this Court\u2019s cases eschewing inquiries into intent, e.g., Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806, 813, and Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 21\u201322. Al-Kidd\u2019s contrary, narrow reading of those cases is rejected. Because he concedes that individualized suspicion supported the issuance of the material-witness arrest warrant; and does not assert that his arrest would have been unconstitutional absent the alleged pretext; there is no Fourth Amendment violation here. Pp. 3\u20139.<\/p>\n

2. Ashcroft did not violate clearly established law and thus is entitled to qualified immunity. A Government official\u2019s conduct violates clearly established law when, at the time of the challenged conduct, \u201c[t]he contours of [a] right [are] sufficiently clear\u201d that every \u201creasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.\u201d Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U. S. 635, 640. Here, the asserted constitutional right falls far short of that threshold. At the time of al-Kidd\u2019s arrest, not a single judicial opinion had held that pretext could render an objectively reasonable arrest pursuant to a material-witness warrant unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit\u2019s reliance on a District Court\u2019s footnoted dictum, irrelevant cases from this Court, and the Fourth Amendment\u2019s broad purposes and history is rejected. Because Ashcroft did not violate clearly established law, the question whether he enjoys absolute immunity need not be ad-dressed. Pp. 9\u201312.<\/p>\n

580 F. 3d 949, reversed and remanded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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