Week of February 18, 2021

Officer who fired tear gas at Al Jazeera America reporters during Ferguson protest had no probable cause for doing so and violated their clearly established First Amendment rights.

Plaintiff had car trouble, stopped at side of road, officer initially stopped to assist, then he and other officers arrested plaintiff when he refused to produce identification; incident became investigatory stop when officer told plaintiff he could not leave until he furnished identification; officer lacked sufficient suspicion to justify stop; arrest was unlawful because ordinance requiring identification was unconstitutional when applied outside the context of a valid investigatory stop; officer not entitled to qualified immunity for investigatory stop, but officers were entitled to qual

Eleventh Amendment did not bar relief against individual corrections officer for failing to protect plaintiff from attack from another prisoner; State voluntarily undertook to satisfy judgment on behalf of officer, then recouped more than half of it based on cost-of-incarceration lien and public defender costs; State’s actions were preempted by § 1983 because they conflicted with the statute’s purpose of deterring constitutional violations; held that judgment against defendant Marinelli remained unsatisfied and noted that State remained free to recover its payments to plaintiff in state cou

Following a high speed chase, plaintiffs stopped, then made a three-point turn in a controlled manner and their vehicle was moving slowly forward, not accelerating and not pointed directly at officers; officers who fired upon them “seized” both driver and passenger; court rejects officers’ claim that passenger was not seized because they intended to shoot only driver, because stopping car would have seized passenger; construing facts in favor of plaintiffs, seizure of slowly moving car was unreasonable where officers could have easily stepped out of vehicle’s path to avoid danger; officers