Pearson v. Callahan

Pearson v. Callahan
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 14, 2008 Decided January 21, 2009
Full case name	Cordell Pearson, et al., Petitioners v. Afton Callahan
Docket no.	07-751
Citations	555 U.S. 223 (more) 129 S. Ct. 808, 172 L. Ed. 2d 565; 2009 U.S. LEXIS 591
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	District court granted summary judgment to defendants, Callahan v. Millard County, No. 2:04-CV-00952 (D. Utah, May 18, 2006), 2006 WL 1409130; appeals court affirmed in part and reversed in part, 494 F.3d 891 (10th Cir. 2007); cert. granted, 552 U.S. 1279 (2008).
Subsequent	On remand, appeals court affirmed district court's grant of summary judgment, 557 F.3d 1140 (10th Cir. 2009).
Holding
Saucier v. Katz's two-step process is no longer mandatory. Courts using that test may analyze the two steps in whatever order is most appropriate in a particular case.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinion
Majority	Alito, joined by unanimous
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Saucier v. Katz (2001)

Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court dealing with the doctrine of qualified immunity.^[1]

The case centered on the application of mandatory sequencing in determining qualified immunity as set by the 2001 decision, Saucier v. Katz, in which courts were to first ask whether a constitutional right was clearly violated by a government official at the time of the action before evaluating if a law had clearly been broken. The Court took to the unusual step of asking the parties to argue whether past precedent should be overturned.^[2] The theory under Saucier is that without courts first ruling on constitutional questions, the law would go undeveloped in many areas.^[3] Many legal commentators have criticized the ruling in Saucier.^[4]

The Supreme Court, in its opinion, withdrew the mandatory sequencing required under Saucier, giving courts the discretion of asking the constitutional or law question first. While this discretionary approach can free resources of the court, it has led to additional criticism, as it can often favor defendants, particularly in cases involving excessive force and police brutality.^[5]