No probable cause to detain motorist with lawful firearm in the car

In this case, the Fourth Amendment meets the Second Amendment. The Court of Appeals holds that a motorist who was searched by the police following a routine traffic stop can sue the police over the unlawful search, prompted by the officer's discovery during the stop that the driver had a legal firearm.

The case is Soukaneh v. Andrzejewski, issued on August 12, nearly two years after the Court of Appeals heard oral argument. The officer approached plaintiff's car, which was parked with the engine running as plaintiff tried to fix his GPS. The Court says this was a high-crime area in Connecticut. Plaintiff gave the officer his drivers license and his firearms permit and said he had a legal firearm in the car. The officer dragged plaintiff from the car, handcuffed and pat-searched him, threw him into the police vehicle, and searched the car. Plaintiff was eventually released.

The trial court denied the officers' qualified immunity motion, which brings this case to the Second Circuit  (Lynch, Lee and Robinson), which holds that the officer had subjected plaintiff to a de facto arrest in detaining him at the traffic stop but that the officer lacked probable cause to do so. We have a good discussion of when a Terry stop, requiring only reasonable suspicion, turns into to an arrest, which requires probable cause. 

The Court holds that the jury could find there was no probable cause because the presence of a lawful firearm in the car is not enough to detain someone for 30 minutes in handcuffs. Courts hold that you cannot assume reasonable suspicion solely on the basis of a lawful firearm in the car, and that logic extends to probable cause for arrest. 

What about qualified immunity? Many cases are dismissed on this basis when the plaintiff cannot find a precedent that resembles their case and therefore cannot show the officers violated clearly-established law. The lack of factually-similar precedent can entitle the defendant officer to qualified immunity. The Court of Appeals recognizes there is no case on all fours, but it states nonetheless that "the ubiquity of Fourth Amendment protections established in the plethora of traffic stop cases put [the officer] on notice of the protected rights at issue during the de facto arrest of [plaintiff] in the absence of probable cause." This is a broad qualified immunity holding in the plaintiff's favor, something we do not see very often.