{"id":63101,"date":"2026-02-07T14:54:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T19:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=63101"},"modified":"2026-02-07T14:54:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T19:54:52","slug":"ca5-explaining-clearly-established-law-again-fair-notice-to-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=63101","title":{"rendered":"CA5 explaining clearly established law, again; fair notice to police"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>CA5 explaining clearly established law, again. Elizondo v. Hinote, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 3713 (5th Cir. Feb. 5, 2026)*:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>To demonstrate that a right was clearly established, the Elizondos must &#8220;identify[] a case in which an officer acting under similar circumstances was held to have violated the Fourth Amendment&#8221; and to &#8220;explain[] why the case clearly proscribed the conduct of that individual officer.&#8221; Joseph ex rel. Joseph v. Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319, 345 (5th Cir. 2020). &#8220;The Supreme Court strictly enforces the requirement to identify an analogous case and explain the analogy.&#8221; Id. at 346. &#8220;Abstract or general statements of legal principle untethered to analogous or near-analogous facts are not sufficient to establish a right clearly in a given context; rather, the inquiry must focus on whether a right is clearly established as to the specific facts of the case.&#8221; Vincent v. City of Sulphur, 805 F.3d 543, 547 (5th Cir. 2015). &#8220;If the law did not put the officer on notice that his conduct would be clearly unlawful, summary judgment based on qualified immunity is appropriate.&#8221; Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202 (2001).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here, the cases proffered by the Elizondos are factually inapposite and thus could not possibly have provided Hinote with &#8220;fair notice that h[is] conduct was unlawful.&#8221; Nerio v. Evans, 974 F.3d 571, 574 (5th Cir. 2020) (cleaned up).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CA5 explaining clearly established law, again. Elizondo v. Hinote, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 3713 (5th Cir. Feb. 5, 2026)*:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excessive-force","category-qualified-immunity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63102,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63101\/revisions\/63102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}