Week of November 25, 2020

Affirming denial of preliminary injunction, holding plaintiffs not likely to succeed on claims that aerial surveillance program violated Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy or First Amendment associational claim; program was short-term, involved tracking movements in public, was conducted from navigable airspace, and was not used to target particular individuals, but only those present at a reported shooting, armed robbery, or carjacking; court notes that decision should not be read as endorsing all forms of aerial surveillance.

Reversing summary judgment in favor of defendant, finding issue of fact whether classification officer was deliberately indifferent where decedent with several risk factors had previously attempted suicide at jail, was medically cleared to general population, got into altercation with other inmates, then was placed in solitary where he hung himself; court concludes medical clearance to place someone in general population is not the same as medical clearance to place him in solitary with access to bedsheets and barred windows.

For the first time, First Circuit recognizes state created danger claim, finds it was clearly established by law in other circuits; finds viable claim against state police officers who did not seek to find, but left voice mail for perpetrator, a registered sex offender, who had abducted, threatened, and raped victim two days earlier and then subsequent to voice mail returned to rape and murder victim and those close to her, who had been afforded no protection by officers.

• Plaintiff sues following acquittal on murder charge; court finds probable cause and affirms summary judgment for defendants on malicious prosecution claim, but finds viable due process claim based on witness’s affidavit that officers induced him to identify plaintiff as guilty party, finds district court erred in concluding that affidavit was incredible as a matter of law; probable cause is not a defense to a due process claim based on fabrication of evidence; due process claim does not fail even though witness did not testify at plaintiff’s criminal trial: “Notwithstanding the nomencl