Soza v. Demsich

Officers entered plaintiff’s front porch with guns drawn, handcuffed him, and patted him down as part of a burglary investigation and found a weapon and drugs; on appeal of his criminal case, 10th Circuit held that the forceful measures used by the officers to effectuate detention elevated to an arrest and they had reasonable suspicion but not probable cause for an arrest so that motion to suppress should have been granted; on appeal from summary judgment in civil case, 10th Circuit says that law was not clearly established and affords officers qualified immunity; although use of forceful measures such as handcuffs and guns might normally transform an investigative detention into an arrest, this is not necessarily the case; not all reasonable police officers would have known that the forceful measures used here were clearly unreasonable.