Bobby Bland v. B. Roberts

I concur in Chief Judge Trader’s excellent opinion, with one exception. The majority concludes that, at the relevant time, “a reasonable sheriff could have believed he had the right to choose not to reappoint his sworn deputies for political reasons,” Maj. Op. at 391, and, on this basis, it determines that Sheriff Roberts is protected by qualified immunity with respect to his discharge of Carter, Dixon, and McCoy. In my view, when these deputies were discharged in December 2009, the law was clearly established that a sheriffs deputy with the job duties of a jailer could not be fired on the…