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Donald E. Craig, et al. v. Janet Turner O'Kelley, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of John Harley Turner, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, No. 18-14512 · judgment July 16, 2019


Certiorari denied · April 6, 2020
Pre-decision estimate: 2% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Questions presented

  1. Whether a panel decision decided nine days before the relevant conduct in question constitutes clearly established law to deprive government officers of qualified immunity. See D. C. v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 591 (2018) (“We have not yet decided what precedents—other than our own—qualify as controlling authority for purposes of qualified immunity.”).

  2. Whether timing constitutes an extraordinary circumstance as articulated by Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982), such that a police officer may nonetheless be entitled to qualified immunity despite the law being clearly established nine days earlier.

  3. Whether the Eleventh Circuit erred in holding that a general principal of law announced in Moore v. Pederson, 806 F.3d 1036 (11th Cir. 2015), firmly established with the requisite degree of particularity that the officers violated clearly established law in the particular circumstances they faced.

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Russell Alan Britt
Hall Booth Smith, P.C.

For respondent
Sidney Leighton Moore III
The Moore Law Firm, PC

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Amicus briefs
1 cert-stage

Proceedings

  1. Apr 06 2020
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Mar 18 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/3/2020.
  3. Mar 17 2020
    Reply of petitioners Sheriff Donald Craig, et al. filed.
  4. Mar 02 2020
    Brief of respondents Janet O'Kelley, et al. in opposition filed.
  5. Mar 02 2020
    Brief amicus curiae of International Municipal Lawyers Association filed.
  6. Feb 19 2020
    Record requested from the U.S.C.A. 11th Circuit.
  7. Jan 27 2020
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 2, 2020)