Two noteworthy items relating to qualified immunity on today's SCOTUS Orders List.
• The Court summarily reversed the Second Circuit's denial of qualified immunity, over a dissent by Justice Sotomayor for Kagan and Jackson. The order is further evidence that, whatever hope people read into Riojas, the Court is not backing off its maximalist approach to qualified immunity. The Second Circuit relied on circuit precedent written by then-Judge Sotomayor. The majority held that the overlap between that precedent and the current was insufficiently precise.
• If you skip to p.33 of the full Orders List: The Court denied cert in Villeareal v. Alaniz, a closely watched QI case arising from the arrest of a journalist on charges of soliciting benefits from public servants for asking a source questions. Justice Sotomayor dissented from the cert denial, insisting this was a case of obviousness--the right of journalists to ask questions of government employees is "beyond debate" without factually similar precedent. And no judicial precedent was necessary to place officers on notice that they could not attempt to bring the charges they did.
