From Hughes v. Few, decided yesterday by Judge Andrew Oldham, joined by Judges E. Grady Jolly and Kurt Engelhardt; for the details, read the opinion itself:
For those who worry that qualified immunity can be invoked under absurd circumstances: Buckle up.
Austin Thompson Hughes is a Good Samaritan. After 2:30 a.m., Hughes called 911 to report a pickup truck swerving violently across a four-lane highway in Houston. While Hughes was on the phone with emergency dispatchers, the drunk driver crashed. Still on the phone with 911, Hughes pulled behind the drunk driver and effectuated a citizen's arrest in accordance with Texas law. But when police officers arrived at the scene, they let the drunk driver go and then arrested Good Samaritan Hughes. (Seriously.) Piling insanity on irrationality, the officers then charged Hughes with a felony for impersonating a peace officer. Hughes spent thousands of dollars defending against the frivolous criminal charges before the City of Houston dropped them. Then Hughes brought this § 1983 suit against the two officers who victimized him. The district court denied qualified immunity. We affirm. (Obviously.) …
In the context of split-second excessive force cases, the Supreme Court has "repeatedly told courts not to define clearly established law at too high a level of generality." That is so because in the typical excessive-force case, officers must make life-or-death split-second decisions, often at night or in the chaos of a deadly chase or both. This case does not involve excessive force, or split-second decisions, or the chaos of a chase. Rather, it involves a simple, clearly established rule that all officers should know at all times under Franks and Winfrey: Do not lie….
