Kyle Cardenas v. Josiah Saladen, et al.

Regularizing qualified immunity. In 42 U.S.C. § 1983 excessive-force and unlawful-arrest litigation, should this Court regularize the process for using the qualified-immunity defense by adopting this two-step analysis: First, did the police officer’s conduct violate clearly established precedent? Second, if not, was it an “obvious case” where it can be regarded as clearly established that a constitutional violation has occurred even without a body of relevant case law? See Estate of Aguirre v. County of Riverside, 29 F.4th 624, 629 (9th Cir. 2022), cert. denied, 143 S.Ct. 426 (2022) (quoting Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna, 142 S.Ct. 4, 8 (2021)). Would the public benefit by having this Court impose a consistent two-step analysis that maintains the defense of qualified immunity while allowing flexibility to deny qualified immunity in cases where it should have been obvious to any reasonable police officer that the conduct the police officer undertook violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, even without clearly established precedent precisely fitting the unique facts of a particular case?