In Jones v. City of North Las Vegas, published September 8, 2025, the 9th Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part summary judgment for the defendant city and two of its officers. While responding to a domestic violence call, one of the responding officers saw a person flee over the wall to the south of the house into a neighboring yard. Rather than pursue the person, the officer ran to his patrol car to request assistance. He drove tow streets south, but did not catch sight of the person again. Multiple units established a multi-block perimeter around the area. A sergeant on scene called for a K-9 unit to search for the suspect. A K-9 officer reported with his dog, which was trained to detect a hormone some people release when afraid. The dog alerted the officer to an odor coming from a position in the direction of the plaintiffs’ walled-off backyard. The gate of the plaintiff’s backyard was locked and posted with a “Beware of Dogs” sign. Another officer knocked on the plaintiffs’ door to request consent to search the yard. The plaintiffs were not home. The K-9 officer saw areas inside the backyard where he thought the suspect could hide. Without a warrant, the K-9 officer hopped over the fence into the yard. Another officer passed the dog over the wall. The plaintiffs’ three dogs emerged from their doghouses. Two of the dogs attacked the police K-9. The K-9 officer shot and killed the attacking dogs. The officers never found the person they were looking for. The plaintiffs sued the K-9 officer, the officer who passed the dog over the wall, and the city, under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, alleging violation of their 4th and 14th Amendment rights.
The 9th Circuit concluded that the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity to the claim that they violated the plaintiffs’ 4th Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable searches by entering the backyard without warrant or consent. The officers asserted that the hot pursuit exception permitted the entrance. But the hot pursuit exception requires that the continuity of the chase not be terminated permanently. Here, the first officer saw the suspect fleeing in a different direction than the plaintiffs’ backyard; then the officers lost sight of the suspect 18 minutes before the entry into the backyard. The dog’s sniff did not salvage the hot pursuit. Even if it created probable cause, probable cause alone is insufficient to permit warrantless entry without exigent circumstances, which were absent here. The law clearly established that the entry was unlawful. The unreasonable search claim challenging the entry, however, must not be conflated with the unreasonable seizure claim based on the officers’ use of force following the warrantless intrusion. No law at the time clearly established that the officers’ decisions within minutes that they had to use force to kill the dogs was unreasonable. The officers were therefore entitled to qualified immunity from the unreasonable seizure claim. The officers may still be liable to the plaintiffs for the death of the dogs as a natural consequence of the warrantless search of the yard. The plaintiffs’ Monell claim against the city for failing to properly train officers on warrantless searches failed because the plaintiffs did not offer evidence of a pattern of warrantless search violations or other evidence of constructive notice showing that the city was deliberately indifferent to the plaintiffs’ 4th Amendment rights.
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