Week of November 21, 2023

Where county jail employees opened and scanned legal mail into computer that contained memory chip, they could access mail outside of detainee’s presence in the future in violation of his First Amendment rights.

Plaintiff had posted a “joke” on Facebook claiming that deputies would shoot “the infected” with Covid on sight; was arrested for terrorism; language was protected by First Amendment, deputies not entitled to qualified immunity.

Detainee died from asthma related breathing difficulties; observing detainee having breathing problems over course of six and a half hours and deciding not to request emergency assistance, where detainee had an inhaler and was within bounds of prescribed breathing treatments, was not so deliberately indifferent to medical needs as to amount to a constitutional violation.

Clearly established that it was excessive force to slam person into a car during arrest for relatively minor offense when suspect did not endanger anyone else, did not resist, and did not attempt to escape, and that officers could not engage in additional unnecessary force, such as gratuitously overtightening handcuffs and refusing to adjust them in response to complaints of “excruciating pain” followed by numbness; no qualified immunity.

Not clearly established that officer acted with deliberate indifference to arrestee's complaints that handcuffs were causing numbness and injury if he drove about 25 minutes to jail where arrestee could receive medical attention, instead of stopping on road or driving to a nearby hospital for medical assistance; qualified immunity.

Clearly established in 2018 that unarmed driver who had come to a stop and did not pose a threat to safety of officers or others had right to be free from unreasonable use of lethal force.