qualified immunity

In January 1970 respondent A. Ernest Fitzgerald lost his job as a management analyst with the Department of the Air Force when his position was eliminated during a departmental reorganization and reduction in force. One year earlier, on November 13, 1968, Fitzgerald had testified before the Subcommittee on Economy in Government of the Joint Economic Committee that cost overruns on the C-5A transport plane could approximate $2 billion. Concerned that the dismissal might constitute retaliation for the congressional testimony, the subcommittee held public hearings. At a December 8, 1969 news conference President Richard Nixon promised to look into the matter and directed White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman to arrange for Fitzgerald's reassignment to another administration position. An internal White House memorandum from aide Alexander Butterfield recommended that Fitzgerald "bleed, for a while at least" because of perceived disloyalty, and no further White House efforts to reemploy him occurred. Fitzgerald complained to the Civil Service Commission alleging unlawful retaliation. The Examiner held that Fitzgerald's dismissal had offended applicable civil service regulations based on a finding that the departmental reorganization was motivated by reasons purely personal to respondent. The Examiner recommended Fitzgerald's reappointment to his old position or to a job of comparable authority. The Commission explicitly found that the evidence did not support Fitzgerald's allegation of retaliation for his 1968 testimony. At a January 31, 1973 news conference President Nixon stated that he had approved Fitzgerald's dismissal. A day later the White House press office issued a retraction of the President's statement. In 1978 Fitzgerald filed a second amended complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia naming Nixon as a defendant and alleging violations of the First Amendment and two federal statutes. The District Court denied Nixon's motion for summary judgment on absolute immunity grounds. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the collateral appeal. Shortly after Nixon petitioned for certiorari the parties agreed that Nixon would pay Fitzgerald $142,000 immediately and an additional $28,000 if the Supreme Court ruled he was not entitled to absolute immunity.

On October 3, 1974, at approximately 10:45 p.m., Memphis Police Officers Elton Hymon and Leslie Wright responded to a prowler inside call at a residence in Memphis. Upon arrival, a woman standing on the porch of the adjacent house gestured toward the house and told the officers she had heard glass breaking and that someone was breaking in next door. While Officer Wright radioed the dispatcher, Officer Hymon went behind the house, heard a door slam, and saw Edward Garner running across the backyard. Garner stopped at a six-foot-high chain link fence at the edge of the yard. With the aid of a flashlight, Hymon saw Garner's face and hands, observed no sign of a weapon, and was reasonably sure that Garner was unarmed. Hymon called out police halt and took a few steps toward Garner, who then began to climb the fence. Convinced that Garner would elude capture if he made it over the fence, Hymon shot him in the back of the head. Garner was taken by ambulance to a hospital where he died on the operating table, and ten dollars and a purse taken from the house were found on his body. At the time of the shooting, Hymon was acting under the authority of Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-7-108, which provided that if after notice of the intention to arrest the defendant he either flees or forcibly resists, the officer may use all the necessary means to effect the arrest. The Memphis Police Department policy was slightly more restrictive than the statute but still permitted the use of deadly force in cases of burglary. The incident was reviewed by the Memphis Police Firearms Review Board and presented to a grand jury, neither of which took any action. Garner's father brought an action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee seeking damages under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 against Officer Hymon, the Police Department, its Director, the Mayor, and the City of Memphis for asserted violations of Garner's constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. After a 3-day bench trial, the District Court entered judgment for all defendants. It then concluded that Hymon's actions were authorized by the Tennessee statute, which in turn was constitutional. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded, holding that the Tennessee statute authorizing the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect was unconstitutional and that the Memphis Police Department's policies on the use of deadly force were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Richard Ceballos has been employed since 1989 as a deputy district attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. During the period relevant to this case, Ceballos was a calendar deputy in the office’s Pomona branch, and in this capacity he exercised supervisory responsibilities over other lawyers. In February 2000, a defense attorney contacted Ceballos about a pending criminal case. The defense attorney said there were inaccuracies in an affidavit used to obtain a critical search warrant. The attorney informed Ceballos that he had filed a motion to traverse, or challenge, the warrant, but he also wanted Ceballos to review the case. After examining the affidavit and visiting the location it described, Ceballos determined the affidavit contained serious misrepresentations. The affidavit called a long driveway what Ceballos thought should have been referred to as a separate roadway. Ceballos also questioned the affidavit’s statement that tire tracks led from a stripped-down truck to the premises covered by the warrant. Ceballos spoke on the telephone to the warrant affiant, a deputy sheriff from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but he did not receive a satisfactory explanation for the perceived inaccuracies. He relayed his findings to his supervisors, petitioners Carol Najera and Frank Sundstedt, and followed up by preparing a disposition memorandum. The memo explained Ceballos’ concerns and recommended dismissal of the case. On March 2, 2000, Ceballos submitted the memo to Sundstedt for his review. A few days later, Ceballos presented Sundstedt with another memo, this one describing a second telephone conversation between Ceballos and the warrant affiant. Based on Ceballos’ statements, a meeting was held to discuss the affidavit. Attendees included Ceballos, Sundstedt, and Najera, as well as the warrant affiant and other employees from the sheriff’s department. The meeting allegedly became heated, with one lieutenant sharply criticizing Ceballos for his handling of the case. Despite Ceballos’ concerns, Sundstedt decided to proceed with the prosecution, pending disposition of the defense motion to traverse. The trial court held a hearing on the motion. Ceballos was called by the defense and recounted his observations about the affidavit, but the trial court rejected the challenge to the warrant. Ceballos claims that in the aftermath of these events he was subjected to a series of retaliatory employment actions. The actions included reassignment from his calendar deputy position to a trial deputy position, transfer to another courthouse, and denial of a promotion. Ceballos initiated an employment grievance, but the grievance was denied based on a finding that he had not suffered any retaliation. Unsatisfied, Ceballos sued in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, asserting, as relevant here, a claim under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983. He alleged petitioners violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by retaliating against him based on his memo of March 2. Petitioners moved for summary judgment, and the District Court granted their motion. Noting that Ceballos wrote his memo pursuant to his employment duties, the court concluded he was not entitled to First Amendment protection for the memo’s contents. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that Ceballos’s allegations of wrongdoing in the memorandum constitute protected speech under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the FBI dedicated more than 4,000 special agents and 3,000 support personnel to an investigation that by September 18 had received more than 96,000 tips or potential leads from the public. In the ensuing months the FBI questioned more than 1,000 people with suspected links to the attacks or to terrorism in general. Of those individuals, 762 were held on immigration charges, and a 184-member subset of that group was deemed to be of high interest to the investigation and held under restrictive conditions designed to prevent communication with the general prison population or the outside world. Javaid Iqbal, a citizen of Pakistan and a Muslim, was arrested in November 2001 by agents of the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service on charges of fraud in relation to identification documents and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Pending trial, he was housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. In January 2002 he was designated a person of high interest and placed in the Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit, where detainees were kept in lock-down 23 hours a day and spent the remaining hour outside their cells in handcuffs and leg irons accompanied by a four-officer escort. Iqbal pleaded guilty to the criminal charges, served a term of imprisonment, and was removed to Pakistan. He then filed a Bivens action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against 34 current and former federal officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, as well as 19 John Doe corrections officers. The complaint concentrated on his treatment while confined to the ADMAX SHU and alleged that petitioners designated him a person of high interest on account of his race, religion, or national origin. The complaint alleged that the FBI under Mueller’s direction arrested and detained thousands of Arab Muslim men as part of the September 11 investigation, that the policy of holding post-September-11 detainees in highly restrictive conditions until cleared by the FBI was approved by Ashcroft and Mueller in discussions in the weeks after September 11, and that petitioners each knew of, condoned, and willfully agreed to subject Iqbal to harsh conditions solely on account of his religion, race, and national origin. It named Ashcroft as the principal architect of the policy and identified Mueller as instrumental in its adoption, promulgation, and implementation. Petitioners moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state sufficient allegations showing their own involvement in clearly established unconstitutional conduct. The District Court denied the motion. Petitioners brought an interlocutory appeal, and while the appeal was pending the Supreme Court decided Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the District Court’s decision. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.