Shaniz West was rushing to register one of her children for school when she found five local police officers surrounding her house in Caldwell, Idaho. They were looking for her ex-boyfriend, who was wanted on firearms charges. Ms. West told them she didn’t think he was in the house—he wasn’t supposed to be—but she said they could go inside to check. She handed over her keys and left.
The officers didn’t go inside to check. They called in the SWAT team and launched an hour’s long siege, repeatedly using shotguns to blast tear-gas grenades into every living space in the home. Afterward, the place was a wreck. There were broken windows, holes in the walls and ceilings, and a sticky yellow film that covered all of Ms. West’s possessions. The ex-boyfriend was nowhere in sight. The police had spent the day bombarding a house that was empty except for Ms. West’s dog, Blue.
The home was uninhabitable, and Ms. West and her children spent the next two months homeless. She sued the officers responsible, arguing that the warrantless destruction of her home violated her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
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Of course, Shaniz West won the law suit. She has used the significant monetary judgment to buy a much nicer house in a much nicer neighborhood. She, her children and their dog have put this awful episode behind them and have moved on with their lives.
The above paragraph above is a Fella Fabrication. No such outcome has come out. This saga got worse and worse and went on and on.
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The officers’ defense was that they didn’t need a warrant because they had Ms. West’s consent: When she said it was OK to enter the house, they argued, that was the end of things: Once a person gives consent to enter a home they “cannot limit the tactical plan and safety precautions used by police officers to conduct the consent search”.
No judge has held that what the officers did to Ms. West was legal.
Go back and read the above sentence again and push your bulging eyes back into their empty sockets so you can read on.
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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected her claim. Ms. West lost because of a rule called Qualified Immunity: A government official can be held liable for civil-rights violations only if the constitutional rule he broke was “clearly established”.
It seems unfair to punish someone for breaking a rule he could not have known about. But the earlier standard also required that the official’s action be objectively reasonable. And judges often apply an absurd level of precision in defining the rule before asking if it is “clearly established”.
Take Ms. West’s case. Nobody seriously believes that consent to enter a home is permission to lob grenades into it. But no court has ever decided the question because this is the first time anybody has made the argument. Since no court has considered it, Qualified Immunity means Ms. West loses. As long as an official’s conduct is Uniquely Outrageous, it’s impossible to hold him liable for it.
Yes, my dear readers, the law makes a distinction between “outrageous” and “uniquely outrageous”.
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I have been sitting here at my silly computer trying to come up with a bit of Foolishness to close out this Blog Posting but I am stumped. If you have been waiting for the day when Fella was speechless, your wait is over.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe: Wait…Wait…I have come up with a Bit of Foolishness after all. Has anyone determined that it is permissible under the law to Sue a Judge for being Uniquely Outrageous?
