{"id":63953,"date":"2026-04-28T16:24:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=63953"},"modified":"2026-04-28T16:24:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:24:57","slug":"ca3-in-seeking-arrest-warrants-officers-need-not-present-all-exculpatory-evidence-to-issuing-magistrate-unless-its-conclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=63953","title":{"rendered":"CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Being tried and acquitted of murder, plaintiff sued the police who arrested her. She had an affirmative defense which led to the acquittal. Failure to present conclusive evidence of an affirmative defense to the issuing magistrate would be a probable cause violation. Here, however, there is no clearly established authority for that, and the officer gets qualified immunity. Kendig v. Stolar<\/a>, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 12170 (3d Cir. Apr. 28, 2026):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

Our holding here is straightforward: An officer is not required to evaluate the merits of every potential affirmative defense before filing charges or making an arrest. But when the officer gathers information bearing on the validity of the affirmative defense of self-defense, which he conclusively knows negates the requisite mental state of the charged offense or excuses the offending conduct, he must provide that information to the magistrate so that the probable cause determination remains with the magistrate judge, not the officer. In short, the Fourth Amendment does not allow an officer to open the window to this exculpatory defense only to draw the blinds before the magistrate can look through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accordingly, because a reasonable officer would have known that self-defense negates the requisite mens rea for homicide, aggravated assault, and recklessly endangering another person, Stolar’s affidavit should have included all known facts that supported Kendig’s self-defense. This would have realistically involved considering to some degree Kendig’s criminal intent in shooting Jones, but even so, Stolar only needed to comprehensively present–not draw legal conclusions from–those facts, allowing the magistrate judge to consider them in making a well-informed decision to grant or deny the warrant application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the law as it stood at the time of the incident provided Stolar no “clearly established” reason to believe that excluding this information from his affidavit of probable cause would violate Kendig’s legal rights. He is therefore entitled to qualified immunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being tried and acquitted of murder, plaintiff sued the police who arrested her. She had an affirmative defense which led to the acquittal. Failure to present conclusive evidence of an affirmative defense to the issuing magistrate would be a probable … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,91,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arrest-or-entry-on-arrest","category-neutral-and-detached-magistrate","category-qualified-immunity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63953","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=63953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63954,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63953\/revisions\/63954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}