CA8: Use of SWAT team for no-knock drug warrant not clearly established as unreasonable

The use of the SWAT team to execute a no-knock drug warrant was not clearly established to be unreasonable in 2017 when this happened. Davis v. City of Little Rock, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 30415 (8th Cir. Dec. 3, 2024):

This court need not determine whether the detectives violated Davis’s rights because the alleged right was not clearly established at the time of the challenged conduct. See, e.g., Z.J. by & through Jones v. Kansas City Bd. of Police Commissioners, 931 F.3d 672, 687 (8th Cir. 2019) (avoiding the unnecessary question whether the detectives’ decision to use the SWAT team to execute a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment because the law was not clearly established). In Z.J., this court held as of 2010, it was not clearly established that “using a SWAT team to execute a search warrant,” without reason to believe a SWAT team was necessary, violated the Constitution. Z.J., 931 F.3d at 688 (“[Plaintiff] pointed to no cases in this circuit, or a consensus of cases from other circuits, that would have put the detectives on notice ….”); id. at 692 (Gruender, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (agreeing that “authorizing the SWAT team did not violate clearly established law”).

Davis does not identify any law clearly establishing that as of September 2017, it was unreasonable to execute a no-knock warrant using a SWAT team. Detectives Bell and Ison are entitled to qualified immunity as to the execution of the no-knock warrant.

[For what it’s worth, I represented a man who raised a gun at the SWAT team at his window, and he was nearly killed.]

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