United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for a trained police dog to sniff of a person's luggage or property in a public place.
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), was a case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that an implied cause of action existed for an individual whose Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizures had been violated by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The victim of such a deprivation could sue for the violation of the Fourth Amendment itself despite the lack of any federal statute authorizing such a suit. The existence of a remedy for the violation was implied by the importance of the right violated.
In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle of federal constitutional law that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from lawsuits for damages unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". It is comparable to sovereign immunity, though it protects government employees rather than the government itself. It is less strict than absolute immunity, by protecting officials who "make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions", extending to "all [officials] but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law". Qualified immunity applies only to government officials in civil litigation, and does not protect the government itself from suits arising from officials' actions.
William Alan Fletcher is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Fletcher was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1998. Fletcher is a Professor (Emeritus) at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where he still teaches federal courts.
Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered the qualified immunity of a police officer to a civil rights case brought through a Bivens action.
United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873 (1975), was a case in which the Supreme Court determined it was a violation of the Fourth Amendment for a roving patrol car to stop a vehicle solely on the basis of the driver appearing to be of Mexican descent. A roving patrol car must have articulable facts that allow for an officer to have a reasonable suspicion that the person is carrying illegal aliens beyond their ethnicity. The Court handed down a 9–0 decision that affirmed the Circuit Court's ruling in the case. This case was also the final case that William O. Douglas presided on, as he retired shortly after this case, ending his record 36 years as an Associate Justice.
Ziglar v. Abbasi, 582 U.S. ___ (2017), is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court determined, by a vote of 4–2, that non-U.S. citizens detained in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks cannot recover monetary damages from high level federal officials for the conditions of their confinement. The case was consolidated with Hastey v. Abbasi, and Ashcroft v. Abbasi. It was argued on January 18, 2017.
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court dealing with the doctrine of qualified immunity.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down nineteen per curiam opinions during its 2009 term, which began on October 5, 2009, and concluded October 3, 2010.
United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down eight per curiam opinions during its 2013 term, which began October 7, 2013 and concluded October 5, 2014.
Hernandez v. Mesa was a pair of United States Supreme Court cases in which the court held that the precedent established under the 1971 Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents decision did not extend to claims based on cross-border shootings.
Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (2014), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, ruling that a police officer's reasonable mistake of law can provide the individualized suspicion required by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution to justify a traffic stop. The Court delivered its ruling on December 15, 2014.
Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391 (2019), was a civil rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States decided that probable cause should generally defeat a retaliatory arrest claim brought under the First Amendment, unless officers under the circumstances would typically exercise their discretion not to make an arrest.
Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, No. 17-647, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case before the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with compensation for private property owners when the use of that property is taken from them by state or local governments, under the Due Process Clause and the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The immediate question asks if private land owners must exhaust all state-offered venues for mediation before seeking action in the federal courts. The case specifically addresses the Court's prior decision from the 1985 case Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, which had previously established that all state court venues must be exhausted first, but which has since resulted in several split decisions among circuit courts. The Supreme Court ruled in June 2019 to overturn part of Williamson County that required state venue action be taken first, allowing taking-compensation cases to be brought directly to federal court.
Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the use of force by police officers during high-speed car chases. After first holding that it had jurisdiction to hear the case, the Court held that the conduct of the police officers involved in the case did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
United States v. Vaello Madero, 596 U.S. ___ (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the constitutionality of the exclusion of United States citizens residing in Puerto Rico from the Supplemental Security Income program. In an 8–1 decision, the Court ruled that as Congress had been granted broad oversight of United States territories by Article Four of the United States Constitution, the exclusion of the territories by Congress from programs like Supplemental Security Income did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held, 6–3, that the government, while following the Establishment Clause, may not suppress an individual from engaging in personal religious observance, as doing so would violate the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court of the United States has so far handed down multiple per curiam opinions during its 2023 term, which began October 2, 2023, and will conclude October 6, 2024.
Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678 (1946), was a Supreme Court case in which the court held that individuals have an implied cause of action under the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment to recover damages against federal government officials who violate those rights. The court further held that federal courts must entertain such suits unless they are frivolous, or solely for the purpose of that court gaining jurisdiction over the suit.
