Tim Wood and Rob Savage, Petitioners v. Michael Moss (SCOTUS 2014)

Summary

The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and held that two Secret Service agents who, during President George W. Bush's unscheduled 2004 dinner stop in Jacksonville, Oregon, had anti-Bush protesters moved twice as far from him as his supporters were entitled to qualified immunity. No clearly established law put crowd-controlling agents on notice of a First Amendment obligation to keep opposing demonstration groups at comparable distances from the President, and the complaint's own map showed the protesters—unlike the building-shielded supporters—were within weapons range of the open-air patio, undermining the allegation that the agents acted solely to suppress disfavored viewpoints. The Court assumed without deciding that a Bivens-style damages remedy extends to First Amendment claims and expressly limited its decision to the qualified immunity question.

Holding

Whether the agents are entitled to qualified immunity against the claim that moving the protesters farther from the President than the supporters violated clearly established First Amendment rights.. Yes. No decision of which the Court was aware would alert Secret Service agents engaged in crowd control that they bear a First Amendment obligation to ensure that groups with different viewpoints are at comparable locations at all times; faced with a security situation not earlier anticipated, the agents' on-the-spot actions did not violate any clearly established right.

Whether the protesters plausibly alleged that the agents acted with the sole intent to discriminate based on viewpoint, without any objectively reasonable security rationale.. No. The map attached to the complaint itself undermines the allegation of viewpoint discrimination as the sole reason for the agents' directions, because it corroborates that the protesters, because of their location, posed a potential security risk to the President while the supporters, because of theirs, did not; the protesters therefore cannot plausibly urge that the agents had no valid security reason to request or order their eviction.

Summary

Holding

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