Phil Plummer, et al. v. David M. Hopper, Special Administrator of the Estate of Robert Andrew Richardson, Sr.

The Sixth Circuit upheld the denial of qualified immunity to a Montgomery County sheriff and jail officers on a claim that their restraint of a detainee who appeared to be having a seizure violated the constitutional rights of the detainee who died even though medical staff was present at the scene for the entirety of the twenty-two minute event monitoring and attempting to treat the detainee. In determining that the rights to be free from excessive force and deliberate indifference under the Fourteenth Amendment were “clearly established,” the court of appeals cited no existing precedent that would have placed petitioners on clear and unambiguous notice that their actions violated a clearly established right: This case presents the following question: 1. Whether the Sixth Circuit defined the constitutional rights in question at too high a level of generality contrary to this Court’s teachings on qualified immunity?