Court Opinion

ID: 9556746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-18 16:01:51.759726+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:01:14.838511
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eighth Circuit
                     ___________________________

                             No. 23-1557
                     ___________________________

                           Harold Moses Covert

                                   Plaintiff - Appellee

                                      v.

James Plummer, Captain (Originally named J Plummer); Mary Lloyd, Lieutenant
  (Originally names M Lloyd); Laquista Swopes, Sergeant (Originally named L
                                  Swopes)

                                 Defendants - Appellants

                             Hampton, Sergeant

                                 Defendant
                               ____________

                  Appeal from United States District Court
                for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Central
                               ____________

                         Submitted: August 2, 2023
                          Filed: August 18, 2023
                              [Unpublished]
                              ____________

Before LOKEN, ERICKSON, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
                           ____________

PER CURIAM.
      Prison guards searched Harold Covert’s cell right after he called a tipline to
report drug activity. Although their comments suggested the search was not a
coincidence, we reverse the denial of summary judgment because qualified
immunity applies. See Morgan v. Robinson, 920 F.3d 521, 523 (8th Cir. 2019) (en
banc) (reviewing a district court’s summary-judgment determination de novo).

       Only when a right is clearly established do officers lose the protection of
qualified immunity. See id. For a right to meet that standard, it must have been
“clear,” to “a high degree of specificity,” that the officers’ actions were “unlawful in
the situation [they] confronted.” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 590
(2018) (citations omitted).

       Even assuming the officers violated Covert’s constitutional rights, “existing
precedent” did not place it “beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741
(2011). A First Amendment retaliation claim requires an “adverse action . . . that
would chill a person of ordinary firmness from continuing.” Molina v. City of St.
Louis, 59 F.4th 334, 338 (8th Cir. 2023) (alteration in original) (citation omitted).
There is no case or “robust consensus . . . of persuasive authority” that would have
put the officers on notice that a one-time cell search violated the First Amendment.
Wesby, 138 S. Ct. at 590 (citation omitted); cf. Scher v. Engelke, 943 F.2d 921, 923–
24 (8th Cir. 1991) (holding that ten retaliatory searches over nineteen days, three of
which “left the cell in disarray,” could be a violation). And it is far from “obvious,”
Wesby, 138 S. Ct. at 590 (citation omitted), that a single search would chill an
inmate’s speech to that degree. They are, after all, a routine part of prison life and
“essential” to security. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 529 (1984).

       In short, the search was not clearly unconstitutional even if Covert’s call was
the reason for it. We accordingly reverse the district court and remand for the entry
of summary judgment.
                         ______________________________

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