Matthew Wayne Minard, Individually and in His Official Capacity as a Taylor Police Officer v. Debra Lee Cruise-Gulyas
SocialSecurity DueProcess FirstAmendment FourthAmendment CriminalProcedure
Whether a police officer can immediately initiate a second traffic stop in response to a driver's offensive speech to change the original discretionary citation, given the clearly established constitutional rights at the time
QUESTIONS PRESENTED I. Did the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals define the “clearly established” constitutional rights at issue in this qualified immunity case at too high a level of generality? II. A Michigan police officer initiated a traffic stop of a vehicle for speeding. Exercising his discretion, the police officer issued a ticket to the driver for a lesser citation, known as a “non-moving” violation. As she was driving away from the traffic stop, the driver displayed her raised middle finger at the police officer. In response to this offensive speech, the police officer immediately initiated a second traffic stop — within 100 yards of the first traffic stop — for the purposes of amending the traffic citation to the original speeding charge. Was it clearly established at the time of the second traffic stop that a police officer could not immediately initiate a second traffic stop, in response to a driver’s offensive speech, to change his original, discretionary decision and issue a citation for the original speeding violation? (i)