The case was before the 1st Circuit a second time because, in 2008, the appeals court found that district court “erroneously adopted the defendants’ characterization of the day’s events.” In that prior ruling in Asociación de Periodistas de Puerto Rico v. Mueller, the 1st Circuit reversed a summary judgment for the defendants on the plaintiffs’ excessive-force claims.
The current appeal is of an August 2009 summary judgment ruling by Chief Judge José Antonio Fuste of the District of Puerto Rico. Fuste determined that it wasn’t clearly established that the Fourth Amendment would apply in cases in which officers used force to control a potentially unruly crowd and remove protesters: “Plaintiffs have not cited, nor have we discovered, controlling cases from this circuit or the Supreme Court prior to the events in this case holding that when police use force to remove individuals from an area, without arresting them, they have seized them for Fourth Amendment purposes.”
