CA3: Presumption of QI where magistrate issues SW

There is a presumption qualified immunity applies where a magistrate has signed off on a search warrant. Handy v. Palmiero, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 37862 (3d Cir. Dec. 4, 2020):

In the Fourth Amendment context, defendants are “presumptively entitled to qualified immunity from … claims premised on a lack of probable cause,” where they “relie[d] in good faith on a prosecutor’s legal opinion,” id. at 255-56, or the approval of a neutral magistrate, Messerschmidt v. Millender, 565 U.S. 535, 546, 132 S. Ct. 1235, 182 L. Ed. 2d 47 (2012). Of course, such circumstances do not automatically confer immunity because the touchstone is “the ‘objective reasonableness’ of [their] belief in the lawfulness of [their] actions.” Sherwood v. Mulvihill, 113 F.3d 396, 399 (3d Cir. 1997). Thus, a plaintiff may rebut the reasonableness of the officers’ reliance—and therefore their presumptive immunity—by establishing that “the warrant was based on an affidavit so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable.” United States v. Pavulak, 700 F.3d 651, 663-64 (3d Cir. 2012).

Handy, however, has failed to meet the “high” threshold to rebut this presumption. Id. at 664. He raises several challenges to the validity and contents of the probable cause affidavit, but none casts doubt on Appellees’ reliance on the prosecutor’s legal opinion and the Magistrate Judge’s approval of the warrant as “the clearest indication that the officers acted in an objectively reasonable manner.” Messerschmidt, 565 U.S. at 546-47. For example, despite Handy’s objections to the strength of the evidence in the affidavit, he makes no claim that the affidavit was merely a “bare bones” submission. Pavulak, 700 F.3d at 664. Indeed, far from “rely[ing] [solely] on an officer’s unsupported belief that probable cause exists,” the affidavit “had been prepared using first-hand information,” including Handy’s admission that he owned and stored at his home a handgun matching the cartridge casings recovered from the scene. Id. at 664. And although the affidavit is not in the record, we have no reason to doubt the Magistrate’s acknowledgment or the evidence supporting the document’s existence, such as the reference to its attachment in the warrant itself and Detective Palmiero’s testimony regarding its contents.

In short, it was “objectively reasonable,” Messerschmidt, 565 U.S. at 555, for Appellees to rely on the prosecutor’s and Magistrate’s endorsements that there was probable cause to search Handy’s home and, in the absence of a “genuine issue as to any material fact” on that subject, Kelly, 622 F.3d at 253, Appellees are entitled to qualified immunity.