Thomas E. Terrell v. Steve Smith

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• explaining that in the first step of the qualified immunity analysis, a defendant must show that he was acting within his discretionary authority
• reversing denial of summary judgment to officer on excessive-force claim where record conclusively demonstrated that the use of lethal force was objectively reasonable
• citations and internal USCA11 Case: 23-12178 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 05/08/2025 Page: 16 of 17 16 Opinion of the Court 23-12178 quotation marks omitted
• “Qualified immunity affords complete protection to government officials sued individually . . . .” (citation omitted)
• decisions issued after the events in dispute occurred cannot clearly establish the law for purposes of overcoming qualified immunity
• a case is “not materially similar and, thus, provide[s] insufficient notice . . . to clearly establish the law” when it is “fairly distinguishable” from the circumstances here

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).