Milan v. Bolin

Thinking about contemporary American policing requires thinking about danger: the danger that police officers risk in service to citizens, and the growing fear among citizens that it is dangerous for them to be near police. This toxic combination yields mutual mistrust, as well as contentious uses of police force. Civil claims arising from such force are governed by the Fourth Amendment's objective reasonableness standard; police officers are further protected, however, by the doctrine of qualified immunity, which precludes liability whenever there is not already clearly established law prohibiting their conduct. Recently, in Milan v. Bolin, the Seventh Circuit held that qualified immunity did not protect Evansville, Indiana, police from liability for a SWAT raid on a woman's home following online threats traced to her IP address. The court's emphasis on the officers' failure to investigate sufficiently could point future courts toward recognizing a new rule as part of clearly established qualified-immunity law.