The Importance of Clearly Established Law in the Court of Appeals

The courts take this sort of somewhat reasonable limitation on section 1983 and they turn it into a massive sprawling loophole. And the result is that we have near complete immunity for police officers when judges feel like giving it to them, frankly. For example, in a case called Thompson v Mar, police were executing a search warrant on a known drug dealer. They saw a pickup truck near his home and they said that they felt that whoever owned that pickup might have tipped him off to their warrant despite having absolutely no reason to believe that. Sure. Because of that, they execute a no knock warrant, meaning they do not knock on his door and wait for him to answer. Instead they shout, police.