The opinion
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-2947
JOHNNIE L. SAVORY,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
ALLEN ANDREWS, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Central District of Illinois.
No. 1:23-cv-01184 — Colleen R. Lawless, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED SEPTEMBER 11, 2025 — DECIDED AUGUST 14, 2026
____________________
Before BRENNAN, Chief Judge, and KIRSCH and JACKSON-
AKIWUMI, Circuit Judges.
KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. In 1977, police officers in Peoria, Illi-
nois investigated the murder of two teenagers. As part of the
investigation, they brought Johnnie Lee Savory to the police
department for questioning. Over two days, officers and a pri-
vate polygrapher interrogated him, at times yelling at him.
Eventually, Savory confessed, and he was convicted of two
counts of first-degree murder. On appeal, the state court
2 No. 24-2947
threw out the conviction because it found Savory’s confession
was involuntary. Savory was then retried and again con-
victed. In 2006, he was released on parole, and in 2014, Illinois
Governor Patrick Quinn pardoned him.
Savory then filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, arguing
that 16 former Peoria police officers, the City of Peoria, and
private polygrapher Ed Bowers violated his rights. Relevant
to this appeal, he contended that officers unlawfully detained
him in violation of the Fourth Amendment, that officers and
Bowers coerced his confession in violation of the Fifth
Amendment, and that officers destroyed and fabricated evi-
dence in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The officers and Bowers moved for summary judgment,
arguing that they were entitled to qualified immunity from
liability for the unlawful detention, destruction of evidence,
and coerced confession claims and that they were entitled to
absolute immunity from liability for the fabrication of evi-
dence claim. The district court denied their motion. It found
that disputes of material fact precluded review as to the un-
lawful detention claim, that clearly established law put the of-
ficers and Bowers on notice that their tactics to purportedly
coerce Savory’s confession were unconstitutional, and that a
reasonable jury could find that the officers destroyed and fab-
ricated evidence in violation of clearly established law.
We reverse. The officers are entitled to qualified immunity:
they had arguable probable cause to detain Savory, no facts
show when the missing evidence was destroyed or that they
destroyed it in bad faith, and no clearly established law
showed that their interrogation tactics were beyond a doubt
illegal. Further, because individuals are entitled to absolute
immunity regarding their trial testimony, the officers cannot
No. 24-2947 3
be held liable, even if they testified consistently with fabri-
cated evidence that was not introduced at trial.
I
We recite only the undisputed facts. On January 18, 1977,
Connie Cooper (19 years old) and her brother James Robinson
(14) were murdered in their home. Their bodies were found
by their mother and stepfather around 4:15 pm. The two teen-
agers had been stabbed to death, and Cooper’s autopsy indi-
cated the presence of sperm or seminal fluid, suggesting that
she had been raped. At the crime scene, officers collected evi-
dence, including a black nightstick found on the kitchen floor,
a pipe found next to Robinson’s body, blood near the victims’
bodies, and hairs found on the victims’ hands and in the bath-
room sink and bathtub. An investigation followed. After
about a week, Peoria Police Officers Edgar Haynes and
George Pinkney learned that Johnnie Lee Savory (14 years
old) had been with Robinson the night before the murders.
News footage also showed that Savory was at the scene of the
murders after the murders, and an officer documented Sa-
vory’s presence at the crime scene. Officers Haynes and
Pinkney went to Savory’s school to ask him questions. Alt-
hough Savory initially did not want to speak with the officers,
he agreed to answer questions at the Peoria Police Depart-
ment (PPD).
It was a long interrogation. Officers Haynes and Pinkney
began questioning Savory inside an interrogation room
around 4:00 pm. At a certain point, Detectives Charles Can-
non and John Fiers subbed in. Over the course of the interro-
gation, officers showed Savory photographs of the crime
scene, ignored his question about whether he could go home,
and accused him of lying. Around 9:30 pm, Savory spoke with
4 No. 24-2947
his probation officer. Afterward, the officers asked Savory to
take a polygraph test, with one telling him that he could go
home after the examination. Savory agreed, and they took
him to the polygraph examiner. At 11:30 pm, after the test,
Savory received warnings pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384
U.S. 436 (1966); at that point, he told the officers he didn’t
want to speak with them.
That night, Savory was held in a detention center. Around
midnight, the PPD notified Savory’s father that his son was
being held. Savory fell asleep at about 1:30 am, and around
8:00 am he was taken back to the PPD to resume questioning.
Officers again gave Savory Miranda warnings and then asked
him rapid-fire and confusing questions. At 10:00 am, he met
with his father. Later, at different points, Savory was forced
to remove his clothing so that officers could pluck hairs from
his body and to take another polygraph test. During the test,
the examiner, Ed Bowers, got close to him, raised his voice,
and accused him of being a murderer. After the polygraph,
Savory stood by the window and cried. At 7:35 pm, about 29
hours after the officers met him at his school, Savory con-
fessed to the murders, though he made no mention of rape or
sexual assault.
Later that night, Savory changed his story and denied his
involvement in the murders. Sometime later, the officers col-
lected a knife and pair of pants from Savory’s father (though
the pants were unlikely to have been worn by Savory given
their size). Testing showed blood on a cut-out of the pants.
The officers also conducted interviews with witnesses. One
explained that he’d seen Robinson and Savory with a
nightstick. Further, a news reporter told an officer that Savory
had inquired about whether Robinson was alive before the
No. 24-2947 5
bodies had been removed from the crime scene. And Savory’s
foster mother, Marva Jones, told an officer that Savory had
come to her in an emotional state and described Cooper’s
wounds. His statements suggested that he’d seen them.
On February 15, 1977, Savory was indicted on first-degree
murder charges. Before the 1977 trial, officers interviewed
Tina, Ella, Ruby, and James Ivy. The group told the officers
that Savory was at their house on the day of the murders from
approximately 1:00-3:00 pm, about an hour before the victims’
bodies were found. The officers say the Ivys additionally pro-
vided other, disputed information, but that evidence was not
used at trial. A jury convicted Savory after the Illinois trial
court denied his motion to suppress his confessions. In 1980,
the state appellate court reversed and remanded, finding that
Savory’s confession wasn’t voluntary.
In 1981, Savory was tried again and was again found
guilty. This time, the trial included evidence from the Ivy chil-
dren, with whom the police had reconnected. Tina, Ella, and
Frank Ivy testified that Savory said he had cut Robinson acci-
dentally, but that Robinson was all right when Savory left. Sa-
vory was sentenced to 40-80 years in prison.
In 1983, Tina and Frank Ivy signed affidavits recanting
their testimony. Afterward, Savory filed a post-conviction pe-
tition claiming that he was entitled to a new trial, but it was
denied by the state trial court and affirmed on appeal. A year
later, Savory filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in fed-
eral court, but this too was denied and then affirmed on ap-
peal. United States ex rel. Savory v. Lane, No. 84 C 8112, 1985
WL 2108, at *4 (N.D. Ill. July 25, 1985), aff’d, 832 F.2d 1011 (7th
Cir. 1987). In 2003, Frank Ivy signed another affidavit stating
6 No. 24-2947
his 1981 testimony was incorrect and that he felt pressured by
an officer to make false statements.
In 2006, Savory was released on parole. Six years later, he
filed a motion for post-conviction DNA testing, seeking to
have the hairs from the crime scene and the original cut-out
of the pants taken from Savory’s father tested to prove his in-
nocence. The petition was granted, but testing was impossible
because the department had not preserved the evidence.
(Tests of the remainder of the pants did not indicate the pres-
ence of blood.) In 2014, Savory filed a motion for a new trial,
but as it was pending, Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn par-
doned him.
In 2017, Savory sued 16 former Peoria police officers, the
City of Peoria, and private polygrapher Bowers under 42
U.S.C. § 1983, alleging (as relevant here) that they unlawfully
detained him in violation of the Fourth Amendment, coerced
a confession from him in violation of the Fifth Amendment,
and fabricated and destroyed evidence in violation of the
Fourteenth Amendment. The case was originally dismissed as
untimely, but that determination was overturned by our en
banc court. See Savory v. Cannon, 947 F.3d 409 (7th Cir. 2020)
(en banc). In 2023, the case was transferred to the Central Dis-
trict of Illinois. The officers and Bowers moved for summary
judgment, raising qualified and absolute immunity defenses.
The district court denied their motion. The officers and Bow-
ers now appeal the denials of qualified and absolute immun-
ity.
II
We begin with jurisdiction. See Villalobos v. Picicco, 168
F.4th 1057, 1061 (7th Cir. 2026). Typically, we only have
No. 24-2947 7
jurisdiction over final judgments. 28 U.S.C. § 1291. But be-
cause an entitlement to qualified or absolute immunity “is
an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability,”
we can sometimes review the district court’s denial of sum-
mary judgment on qualified or absolute immunity grounds.
Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526–27 (1985). But we may
only review “where the appeal focuses exclusively on legal
questions about immunity, rather than factual disputes tied
up with the merits of the case.” Mabes v. Thompson, 136 F.4th
697, 705 (7th Cir. 2025) (citation modified). The line between
legal and factual disputes is “not always clear.” Smith v.
Whitsel, 134 F.4th 962, 966 (7th Cir. 2025) (per curiam).
To help us assess whether an appeal focuses on legal ar-
guments, we “closely examine two things.” Smith v. Finkley,
10 F.4th 725, 736 (7th Cir. 2021). We first look at whether the
district court specified disputes of fact as the reason for deny-
ing qualified immunity. Id. Second, we review whether the
officers on appeal take evidence in the light most favorable to
the plaintiff, or whether they instead make back-door efforts
to rely on their own version of disputed facts. Id. At bottom,
the ultimate question is whether “disputed facts affect the
qualified immunity analysis.” Mabes, 136 F.4th at 705. In other
words, so long as we can decide the appeal without looking
at the genuinely disputed facts, we have jurisdiction. Id.
We have appellate jurisdiction to consider the appeal of
Savory’s Fourth Amendment unlawful detention claim. The
district court declared that this claim should go to trial be-
cause of genuine disputes of material fact. And the officers do,
at times, attempt to contest facts that the district court de-
clared disputed. But the officers’ argument doesn’t depend on
genuinely disputed facts. See Brumitt v. Smith, 102 F.4th 444,
8 No. 24-2947
448 (7th Cir. 2024) (separating factual and legal arguments).
Where the district court has expressed that a fact is disputed,
we defer to its judgment. See Via v. LaGrand, 469 F.3d 618, 623–
25 (7th Cir. 2006). But the district court did not go fact by fact
and did not rule on whether certain material facts were dis-
puted. Only where the district court did not express a view
on a particular fact do we conduct “our own careful review of
the record,” and take the facts in a light most favorable to Sa-
vory. Mabes, 136 F.4th at 705 (citing Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S.
304, 319 (1995)). Under this approach, which we utilized in
Mabes, we find that we have jurisdiction and can resolve the
officers’ assertion of qualified immunity on the merits, con-
sidering the undisputed facts in the record. See id.
The district court also denied immunity to the officers as
to the coerced confession and the fabrication and destruction
of evidence claims. In doing so, it did not identify factual dis-
putes as the basis for denying summary judgment. And (with
respect to these claims) the defendants accept plaintiff’s ver-
sion of the facts. Therefore, we have appellate jurisdiction to
decide these claims of immunity on an interlocutory basis.
III
“Qualified immunity protects all but the plainly incompe-
tent or those who knowingly violate the law.” City of
Tahlequah v. Bond, 595 U.S. 9, 12 (2021) (per curiam) (citation
modified). That means when officers don’t “violate clearly es-
tablished statutory or constitutional rights of which a reason-
able person would have known,” they cannot be held liable.
Id. The officers argue they are entitled to qualified immunity
for the unlawful detention, coerced confession, and destruc-
tion of evidence claims. So, Savory must show that the officers
violated the law and that their conduct was clearly
No. 24-2947 9
established as unlawful. District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S.
48, 62–63 (2018); Purtell v. Mason, 527 F.3d 615, 621 (7th Cir.
2008) (showing the plaintiff bears the burden of proving a
right was clearly established). The standard is primarily iden-
tified in objective terms, and it requires courts to look back to
the law at the time of the official’s acts, because “an official
could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent le-
gal developments, nor could he fairly be said to know that the
law forbade conduct not previously identified as unlawful.”
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982) (citation modi-
fied). Thus, we’ll have to analyze the law as it stood back
when the acts occurred. We construe facts in favor of Savory,
and the officers must “accept the district court’s view [when
the court assessed] that there are factual disputes.” Manery v.
Lee, 124 F.4th 1073, 1077–78 & n.5 (7th Cir. 2025) (citation mod-
ified).
A
We first consider the detention liability claim, which Sa-
vory, at oral argument, clarified was for the period between
his indictment and his first conviction. “Nothing is more clear
than that the Fourth Amendment was meant to prevent
wholesale intrusions upon the personal security of our citi-
zenry, whether these intrusions be termed arrests or investi-
gatory detentions.” Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 726–27
(1969) (citation modified). At the same time, in our case, if the
officers had probable cause to detain Savory, the detention
could have been valid. See Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 91 (1964).
Probable cause is a fact-dependent, “nontechnical … compro-
mise” that looks to protect citizens from law enforcement
without “unduly hamper[ing]” its function. Id. “[G]ood faith
is not enough to constitute probable cause.” Dir. Gen. of R.Rs.
10 No. 24-2947
v. Kastenbaum, 263 U.S. 25, 28 (1923). Rather, it must be that a
“prudent man” would “believe that the suspect had commit-
ted or was committing an offense.” Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S.
103, 111–12 (1975) (citation modified). Because “a reasonable
officer could have mistakenly believed that probable cause
existed,” our inquiry to decide qualified immunity is whether
the defendants had “arguable probable cause” to detain Sa-
vory. Schimandle v. Dekalb Cnty. Sheriff’s Off., 114 F.4th 648,
655–56 (7th Cir. 2024) (citation modified).
Whether arguable probable cause existed depends on the
totality of the circumstances. See id. at 656. The district court
held that the parties agreed upon certain facts: that the offic-
ers found a nightstick and pole at the crime scene; that a wit-
ness had seen Robinson and Savory with that nightstick; and
that Savory was placed at the scene of the murders after the
crime by Officer Glen Perkins and others that reviewed the
local news footage. It also said that the “overwhelming ma-
jority of the facts surrounding the arrest are disputed.” This
means that, at the very least, the district court found some
facts were undisputed. Looking through the record, we were
able to determine additional facts that were not genuinely dis-
puted. See Mabes, 136 F.4th at 707 (looking at record evi-
dence); D.Z. v. Buell, 796 F.3d 749, 755–56 & n.2 (7th Cir. 2015)
(rejecting plaintiff’s argument that there was a genuine dis-
pute of fact in the qualified immunity context).
We see no evidence that it was disputed at the district
court that the victims were found dead at 4:15 pm or that the
nightstick was found in the victims’ kitchen. See Fed. R. Civ.
P. 56(e); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249–50
(1986); United States v. Waldrip, 859 F.3d 446, 449 (7th Cir. 2017)
(arguments not made are waived). And Savory did not
No. 24-2947 11
contest at the district court that the police collected hairs from
the bathroom sink that were consistent in color and character-
istic with Savory’s hair. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e); Waldrip, 859
F.3d at 449. To the extent that there is a dispute, it is as to the
scientific validity of the comparison. And even then, challeng-
ing the scientific validity of the comparison is not the same as
challenging what a prudent officer would have thought about
the comparison. See Gerstein, 420 U.S. at 111. Further, in his
Rule 56 motion at the district court, Savory did not properly
controvert the asserted fact—that a news reporter told Officer
Marcella Teplitz that Savory had asked about whether Robin-
son was dead before the bodies were removed from the
house. There’s evidence that Savory did not make the state-
ment to the reporter, but that does not create a genuine dis-
pute of fact as to what the reporter told Officer Teplitz. Fed.
R. Civ. P. 56(e); Waldrip, 859 F.3d at 449. Nor did he ade-
quately controvert that his foster mother, Marva Jones, told
officers that he approached her in an emotional state and told
her that the murderer “slit her stomach wide open, Marva,
you should have seen it.” While there’s evidence that Savory
never made that statement to Jones, Savory’s testimony that
he didn’t make the original statement to Jones doesn’t create
a genuine dispute of fact as to what Jones told the officers be-
cause he had no firsthand knowledge of the interview. See
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
These facts, taken together, are enough to give rise to ar-
guable probable cause. See Schimandle, 114 F.4th at 655–56.
Even if Savory did not ask the reporter about whether Robin-
son was alive or describe Cooper’s wounds to Jones, the offic-
ers could have reasonably trusted the witnesses’ statements.
Williamson v. Curran, 714 F.3d 432, 441 (7th Cir. 2013) (“So long
as an officer reasonably believes [a witness] is telling the
12 No. 24-2947
truth, he may rely on the information provided to him by such
persons in deciding to make an arrest, without having to con-
duct an independent investigation into their accounts.”). And
Savory provided no evidence to suggest that the officers fab-
ricated any of this evidence. The reporter and Jones’s state-
ments to police, along with the other undisputed facts, give
rise to at least arguable probable cause, so the officers are en-
titled to qualified immunity. See Schimandle, 114 F.4th at 655–
56.
B
The officers next ask us to overturn the district court’s de-
nial of qualified immunity for the destruction of evidence
claim. First, the officers argue that the district court did not
address the issue of qualified immunity as to this claim in vi-
olation of Circuit Rule 50. See 7th Cir. R. 50. Circuit Rule 50
requires the district court to state its reasons for resolving a
claim. Id. Our circuit’s “customary approach” to resolving a
violation of this rule is to remand. W. States Ins. Co. v. Wis.
Wholesale Tire, 148 F.3d 756, 759–60 (7th Cir. 1998). But be-
cause we have sufficient information to decide this issue and
the officers do not request a remand given the extensive
length of this litigation, we proceed to the merits.
Savory argues that Detectives Walter Jatkowski and Can-
non destroyed the blue pants cut-out and that Detectives
Pinkney and Fiers, as well as Officer Jatkowski destroyed the
hairs found on the victims’ hands in violation of the Four-
teenth Amendment. The hairs, we note, are not the same as
those found in the sink; because it didn’t look like Savory’s
hair, this evidence would only be relevant insofar as it could
help identify another individual who encountered the mur-
der victims. Officers can violate a criminal defendant’s
No. 24-2947 13
Fourteenth Amendment rights if they destroy evidence in bad
faith, the evidence has apparent exculpatory value, and there
is no way to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably
available means. California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 489
(1984); Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 58 (1988); McCarthy
v. Pollard, 656 F.3d 478, 485 (7th Cir. 2011) (reading Trombetta
and Youngblood together).
Savory’s claim fails at both steps of the qualified immunity
analysis. Savory didn’t show that the officers violated his due
process rights. He failed to offer any evidence that the pants
cut-out or hairs were destroyed in bad faith or that they had
apparent exculpatory value when they were destroyed. As to
bad faith, Savory only argues that because the officers acted
in supposed bad faith in other contexts, they must have acted
similarly with this evidence. But it is not enough to extrapo-
late bad faith from one context into another. Savory cannot
merely speculate: he must offer some evidence that they de-
stroyed that specific evidence in bad faith. See United States v.
Holly, 940 F.3d 995, 1001–02 (7th Cir. 2019). He has also failed
to provide any evidence on when the items were destroyed.
And at summary judgment, the plaintiff cannot rely on “mere
allegations,” but instead must put forth “specific facts” that
we’ll take as true. Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561
(1992); Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e). So, if there isn’t enough evidence
on the record for Savory to meet his burden, the officers are
entitled to summary judgment. Without any evidence sug-
gesting specific facts, we cannot reach any conclusions about
whether the cut-out and hairs had apparent exculpatory
value. Certainly, in the late 1970s or early 1980s, officers were
not required to predict scientific advances in DNA testing
technologies. See Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489 n.10 (the reliability
of available testing bears on the evidence’s exculpatory—and
14 No. 24-2947
therefore its apparent exculpatory—value). And even so, the
evidence “was simply an avenue of investigation that might
have led in a number of directions.” Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 56
n.*; Hubanks v. Frank, 392 F.3d 926, 931 (7th Cir. 2004) (evi-
dence that cannot exonerate the petitioner is not apparently
exculpatory). Surely, without some proof of when the evi-
dence was destroyed, Savory cannot establish the apparent
exculpatory value of the evidence at the time of its destruc-
tion.
Regardless, the officers’ conduct wasn’t clearly estab-
lished as unlawful by either the Supreme Court or this circuit.
In Trombetta, the Supreme Court told us that it was not clearly
established before 1984 that the government had a “duty to
take affirmative steps to preserve evidence on behalf of crim-
inal defendants.” Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 486. And Savory
points us to Armstrong v. Daily, 786 F.3d 529 (7th Cir. 2015), to
show the officers’ actions were shown as clearly established
as early as the 1960s. But that case describes the pretrial de-
struction of evidence. Id. at 532. Since Savory doesn’t argue
when the evidence was destroyed (even conceding at oral ar-
gument that the timing of the supposed destruction of evi-
dence didn’t matter and that the officers had the duty to pre-
serve the evidence indefinitely), he cannot meet his burden to
show that it was clearly established that the officers’ conduct
was unconstitutional.
C
We finally consider the district court’s denial of qualified
immunity as to Savory’s coerced confession claim. Savory un-
derwent many hours of interrogation over two days. He was
repeatedly questioned, told he could go home after taking a
polygraph test, and was told to remove his clothes so that
No. 24-2947 15
officers could collect hair samples. Because no clearly estab-
lished law shows that the officers should have been on notice
that their conduct was unconstitutional, we reverse.
The district court cited a string of cases that it found
should have put the officers on notice that their tactics were
unlawful. But in 1977, it was not beyond debate that the offic-
ers’ conduct was unconstitutional. See Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563
U.S. 731, 741 (2011). At oral argument, Savory cited Haley v.
Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 601 (1948) (plurality) as the precedent with
the facts most analogous to those in this case. But despite
some factual similarities to our case, Haley is not sufficiently
analogous. In that case, the police suspected a 15-year-old boy
of murder and questioned him for five hours in rotating teams
of officers from midnight until 5:00 am. 332 U.S. at 597–98. Be-
fore he had been informed of his rights, he verbally confessed.
Id. at 598; see also id. at 610 (Burton, J., dissenting). Only later
was he provided with a written confession to sign; that con-
fession included a statement informing him of certain consti-
tutional rights. Id. at 598. But at no point was he advised of his
right to counsel. Id. Around 5:00 am, he signed the written
confession. Id. at 598–99.
The Court expressed concern with Haley’s treatment. It
noted that evidence suggested that “he was beaten” by the
police, id. at 597, and that the record showed that after he con-
fessed, “he was kept incommunicado for over three days,” a
period during which the lawyer who was retained on his be-
half was twice denied the opportunity to see and counsel him.
Id. at 600. The Court nonetheless did not weigh the evidence
that the boy was beaten and the evidence that his lawyer was
barred from seeing him. See id. That said, it admonished the
officers and expressed that “[w]hen the police are so
16 No. 24-2947
unmindful of these basic standards of conduct in their public
dealings, their secret treatment of a 15-year-old boy behind
closed doors in the dead of night becomes darkly suspicious.”
Id. The Court additionally highlighted that, especially where
the minor petitioner wasn’t informed of his right to counsel
(and was later denied access to that right), it could not “in-
dulge the assumption” that Haley had “full appreciation” of
his rights. Id. at 601 (citation modified). In the end, the Court
concluded that, considering the combination of factors, “[t]he
Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the police from using the
private, secret custody of either man or child as a device for
wringing confessions from them.” Id. at 600–01.
This case has similarities with Haley, but they are not
enough to overcome our standard. The police gave Savory his
Miranda warnings and, in doing so, informed him of his right
to counsel. When Savory told the officers he did not want to
speak with them, the questioning ended. The next morning,
the officers once again read him his Miranda rights before
questioning resumed. At different points, Savory met with his
father and probation officer. And only after that did he con-
fess. But in Haley, the boy was questioned through the night
and never informed of his right to counsel, he was only in-
formed of his other rights after he verbally confessed, and his
lawyer was restricted from seeing him.
Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U.S. 49 (1962) is also an inapposite
analog. In that case, the “crucial evidence” was a signed con-
fession from the minor suspect. Id. at 50. That confession was
obtained only after the police held the suspect for five days
without a lawyer, parent, or friendly adult, despite at least his
mother’s efforts to see him. See id. 53–54. Savory, like the pe-
titioner in Gallegos, was only 14 years old. But that’s not
No. 24-2947 17
enough: in Gallegos, the Court highlighted that age was just
one factor of many that “combine[d]” to show a Due Process
violation. See id. at 55. The other factors are distinguishable.
Savory confessed to the murders about 29 hours after he was
first questioned and less than a day after he was first given his
Miranda rights. The petitioner in Gallegos was held for nearly
five times as long as Savory was. And Savory met with his
father and probation officer before he confessed; the peti-
tioner in Gallegos was “cut off from contact” with any analo-
gous adult. See id. at 54. These differences show that it is not
clear that had the officers read the Supreme Court’s decision
in Gallegos, they would have known that their specific conduct
was unconstitutional. See Zorn v. Linton, 146 S. Ct. 926, 930
(2026) (per curiam).
Savory points us to other controlling cases, but none put it
beyond debate that the officers acted unlawfully. In Spano v.
New York, 360 U.S. 315 (1959), the officers interrogated the sus-
pect through the night and ignored “his repeated refusals” to
answer their questions as well as “his reasonable requests to
contact the local attorney whom he had already retained.” Id.
at 322–23. In contrast, Savory was given Miranda warnings
and the officers ceased questioning after he told them he
didn’t wish to speak with them. Savory also cites Payne v. Ar-
kansas, 356 U.S. 560 (1958) as evidence that the length of his
interrogation and lack of food and water gave rise to a consti-
tutional violation. See id. at 563–64. But Payne is distinguisha-
ble. There, the Supreme Court considered the totality of the
“course of conduct” that coerced the defendant’s confession,
highlighting that there was a “culminating threat of mob vio-
lence.” Id. at 567. That situation is entirely different from this
one. And in Payne, the petitioner was not fed for a period of
25 hours, while Savory was given a candy bar on the first
18 No. 24-2947
evening and a hamburger on the second day of interrogation.
Id. at 564.
And in Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U.S. 199 (1960), the Court
found that the petitioner’s confession was involuntary be-
cause he was likely “insane and incompetent” when he con-
fessed. Id. at 207. In Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568 (1961),
the Court likewise highlighted the significance that the de-
fendant had “a mental age of nine to nine and a half years,”
that his “request” for counsel was “in effect frustrated,” and
that he was held for five days before he confessed. Id. at 620,
625, 630. And in Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U.S. 191 (1957), mental
capacity was also at issue: the petitioner was schizophrenic
and was denied access to his lawyer. Id. at 193–95, 197. There’s
no evidence that Savory lacked mental capacity, distinguish-
ing our case from those three.
Beyond controlling precedent, plaintiffs can argue that the
violation “was so obvious that no reasonable officer could be-
lieve his actions were constitutional.” Villalobos, 168 F.4th at
1603 n.2. But courts usually “reserve this escape hatch … for
egregious factual scenarios.” Id. And plaintiffs can also look
to “all relevant caselaw” to see “whether there was such a
clear trend in the caselaw that we can say with fair assurance
that the recognition of the right by a controlling precedent
was merely a question of time.” Kemp v. Liebel, 877 F.3d 346,
351 (7th Cir. 2017) (citation modified). But the out-of-circuit
and state precedent Savory points to does not show with any
certainty that we were about to recognize that the officers’ be-
havior was clearly unlawful. The officers’ conduct wasn’t
textbook (certainly not by today’s standards), but it was not
“so egregious and unreasonable that no reasonable official
could have thought he was acting lawfully.” Id. (citation
No. 24-2947 19
modified). As a result, we reverse the district court and hold
that the officers are entitled to qualified immunity as to the
coerced confession claim.
The analysis for the claim against private polygrapher Ed
Bowers is the same. Even if Bowers was a state actor, his acts
were not beyond a doubt unconstitutional. See United States
v. Jones, 359 F.3d 921, 924 (7th Cir. 2004) (yelling at a defendant
until he agrees with the interrogator is not enough to call the
confession coerced). And even if Bowers was part of a con-
spiracy to coerce a confession from Savory, for the reasons we
have expressed, there was no clearly established law showing
that the officers’ behavior was beyond a doubt unconstitu-
tional.
IV
Savory argues that Detectives Cannon and Fiers, and Of-
ficers Teplitz and Pinkney, fabricated police reports of his
confessions; he argues that when officers testified consistently
with those reports, they violated his Fourteenth Amendment
due process right to a fair trial. The detectives and officers as-
serted absolute immunity, which the district court denied.
To begin, we reject Savory’s contention that the allegedly
fabricated reports violated his Fourteenth Amendment right
to a fair trial because they were used to secure charges against
Savory and detain him. Any claim that fabricated reports led
to Savory being unlawfully detained sounds in the Fourth
Amendment, not the Fourteenth. See Patrick v. City of Chicago,
974 F.3d 824, 834 (7th Cir. 2020).
In Patrick, we clarified that for a fabricated evidence claim
to survive, there must be fabricated evidence, the evidence
must have been material, it must have been used against the
20 No. 24-2947
plaintiff at his criminal trial, and he must have been damaged
as a result. Id. at 835. Because the reports were never used,
admitted, or relied upon at trial, even if they were false, their
production did not contribute to a violation of Savory’s right
to a fair trial. See id. Indeed, though law enforcement officers
cannot “retroactively immunize” themselves from liability af-
ter introducing fabricated evidence at trial by testifying con-
sistently with those reports, “if the evidence [was not] used
against the defendant, he would not have been harmed by it.”
Fields v. Wharrie, 740 F.3d 1107, 1114 (7th Cir. 2014). And tes-
timony consistent with the reports is not enough to deny them
absolute immunity. As we said in Avery v. City of Milwaukee,
847 F.3d 433 (7th Cir. 2011), “trial testimony, standing alone”
cannot subject officers to liability. Id. at 443. At worst, the false
testimony—but not the reports—caused Savory harm. But
testimony is covered by absolute immunity. Briscoe v. LaHue,
460 U.S. 325, 336 (1983).
REVERSED
No. 24-2947 21
JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and
dissenting in part. I agree that controlling precedent entitles
the police officer defendants to qualified immunity on John-
nie Savory’s Fourteenth Amendment destruction of evidence
claim. But I would resolve this claim differently than my col-
leagues do, so I concur only in the judgment as to Part III.B of
the majority opinion. Furthermore, I agree that the officers are
entitled to absolute immunity on Savory’s Fourth Amend-
ment false testimony claim. So I join Part IV of the majority
opinion in full.
As to the remaining claims, I part ways with the majority.
My colleagues err procedurally by reversing the district
court’s denial of qualified immunity to the officers on Sa-
vory’s Fourth Amendment unlawful detention claim. And
they err substantively by concluding it was not clearly estab-
lished by 1977 that the officers’ interrogation techniques vio-
lated the Fifth Amendment. It clearly was, so the officers are
not entitled to qualified immunity on this claim. I therefore
respectfully dissent from Parts III.A and III.C of the majority
opinion.
I
I begin with Savory’s Fourteenth Amendment destruction
of evidence claim. The majority reaches the correct conclu-
sion—that is, that the officers are entitled to qualified immun-
ity—but I depart from its reasoning. I take issue with two as-
pects of the majority’s analysis.
First, the majority incorrectly implies that the government
no longer has an obligation to preserve exculpatory evidence
once a criminal defendant’s trial begins. This mischaracterizes
the governing preservation-of-evidence caselaw, namely
22 No. 24-2947
Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51 (1988). In Youngblood, the
Supreme Court neither explicitly nor implicitly limited its
holding to the pre-trial context—the case’s reasoning applies
with equal force to a criminal defendant’s post-trial rights. In-
deed, at least one of our sister circuits has held as much. See
Yarris v. Cnty. of Delaware, 465 F.3d 129, 142 (3d Cir. 2006)
(“[T]he Youngblood decision did not indicate that it was lim-
ited to its temporal context.”); id. (applying Youngblood to po-
lice detectives’ “post-conviction conduct”). This approach
makes sense. The government’s destruction of exculpatory
evidence during or after trial prevents a defendant from
meaningfully availing himself of his post-conviction legal
remedies. This is no less insidious than the government vio-
lating its obligation under Brady v. Maryland to disclose excul-
patory evidence before trial. Cf. Cannon v. Burge, 752 F.3d
1079, 1098 (7th Cir. 2014) (“[E]fforts by state actors to impede
an individual’s access to courts may provide the basis for a
constitutional claim under section 1983.”). That’s why this
court has never held that the government’s obligation to pre-
serve exculpatory evidence runs only to the moment of trial.
Second, the majority makes two problematic declarations
about the evidence at issue in this appeal—the hairs police
found in the victim’s hand and the sample fabric from Sa-
vory’s pants. The majority says that “we cannot reach any
conclusions about whether the [fabric] cutout and hairs had
exculpatory value.” Ante at 13. And it says “that it was not
clearly established before 1984 that the government had a
‘duty to take affirmative steps to preserve evidence on behalf
of criminal defendants.’” Id. at 14 (quoting California v. Trom-
betta, 467 U.S. 479, 486 (1984)). Both assertions are dubious.
For starters, my colleagues are wrong to equivocate about
whether the evidence was exculpatory. The majority insists
No. 24-2947 23
that the evidence was merely “an avenue of investigation,”
and therefore not exculpatory. Id. at 14 (quoting Youngblood,
488 U.S. at 56 n.*). Yet two pages earlier, the majority concedes
that, at the very least, the hairs found in the victim’s hand were
exculpatory by acknowledging that they “didn’t look like Sa-
vory’s hair” and “could help identify another individual”
who might have committed the murders. Id. at 12. That alone
shows that the hairs destroyed by the state had exculpatory
value in 1977.
Moreover, it’s irrelevant whether the government had a
duty before 1984 to preserve exculpatory evidence for crimi-
nal defendants. Savory does not tell us when the officers de-
stroyed the hair and fabric. The evidence could have been de-
stroyed immediately after Savory’s first conviction, in the late
1970s. Or the evidence could have been destroyed sometime
between 1984, when the Supreme Court decided Trombetta,
and 2012, when Savory won his petition for post-conviction
DNA testing. If the exculpatory evidence was destroyed in
that nearly 30-year period, then its destruction likely violated
clearly established law. But as it stands, there’s not enough
information in the record for us to determine whether Sa-
vory’s rights were violated when the evidence was destroyed.
Savory’s claim therefore cannot be decided on this basis.
That said, the officers are entitled to qualified immunity
on Savory’s destruction of evidence claim for a different rea-
son. Bad faith is a required element of the claim. See, e.g.,
Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 488; Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 58. But Sa-
vory offers no evidence that the officers exhibited bad faith in
destroying the hairs and fabric. Without proof of bad faith,
Savory’s claim fails. That’s the narrowest, most sound way to
resolve this part of Savory’s appeal.
24 No. 24-2947
II
Next, the majority’s procedural error. The district court
found that genuine disputes of fact precluded summary judg-
ment for the officers on Savory’s Fourth Amendment unlaw-
ful detention claim. These disputes, the court continued,
meant that the officers were not entitled to qualified immun-
ity on that claim, either. The officers filed this interlocutory
appeal, and the majority now reverses the district court. Ante
at 11. “Looking through the record,” my colleagues say, “we
were able to determine additional facts that were not genu-
inely disputed.” Id. at 10. Using these facts, the majority con-
ducts what is essentially a de novo review of the district
court’s summary judgment order. Id. at 10–11. The majority
then concludes that because the officers had arguable proba-
ble cause to detain Savory, they are entitled to qualified im-
munity on his unlawful detention claim. Id. at 11.
This approach disregards the jurisdictional limits imposed
on us by Congress and the Supreme Court. Generally, our ju-
risdiction is limited to deciding appeals from final decisions
of the district courts. 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Interlocutory appeals,
like this one, are the exception to the rule. Johnson v. Jones, 515
U.S. 304, 309 (1995). Still, our jurisdiction is limited: “we may
review district court orders denying qualified immunity on
interlocutory appeal only when the appellant brings a purely
legal argument that does not depend on disputed facts.” Stew-
ardson v. Biggs, 43 F.4th 732, 734 (7th Cir. 2022) (citation mod-
ified)). “[I]f the district court finds a genuine issue of material
fact exists, appellate courts lack jurisdiction to review the rec-
ord, even if the appellate court perceives an error in the dis-
trict court’s reading of the summary judgment record.” Via v.
LaGrand, 469 F.3d 618, 623 (7th Cir. 2006) (citing McKinney v.
No. 24-2947 25
Duplain, 463 F.3d 679, 689–90 (7th Cir. 2006)). In these circum-
stances, “we may only consider whether the defendant is en-
titled to qualified immunity given the factual disputes found
by the district court.” Id. at 625.
Via and Johnson illustrate this approach. In Via, this court
was faced with an interlocutory appeal from the denial of
qualified immunity at summary judgment. See id. at 619–21.
Johnson, the Supreme Court case from which Via drew its rea-
soning, had the same posture. See 515 U.S. at 307. In both
cases, dismissal for lack of jurisdiction was the answer. Via,
469 F.4th at 625 (“Under Johnson, this court lacks jurisdiction
to determine whether the summary judgment record sets
forth a genuine issue of fact for trial.”); Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319
(“[W]e hold that a defendant, entitled to invoke a qualified
immunity defense, may not appeal a district court’s summary
judgment order insofar as that order determines whether or
not the pretrial record sets forth a ‘genuine’ issue of fact for
trial.”).
Despite this binding authority, the majority justifies its
jurisdiction-flouting approach by pointing to our opinion in
Mabes v. Thompson. It’s true that in Mabes our court
“conduct[ed] our own review of the factual record.” 136 F.4th
697, 702 (7th Cir. 2025). But the panel did so because the
district court erred in its qualified immunity analysis. Instead
of going “defendant-by-defendant and claim-by-claim,” the
district court grouped ten dissimilar defendants together, did
a single qualified immunity analysis for all of them, and
concluded none was entitled to qualified immunity on any of
the plaintiffs’ claims. Id. at 706. The district court’s error in not
stating which facts were in dispute as to each defendant or
26 No. 24-2947
claim led the panel to review the record and undertake its
own qualified immunity analysis. See id. at 705–06.
The district court in Savory’s case did not repeat the dis-
trict court’s error in Mabes. In this case, the district court cor-
rectly determined that there were genuine disputes of fact
precluding summary judgment—and qualified immunity—
for each of the officers implicated in Savory’s unlawful deten-
tion claim. That ends the matter. Our limited jurisdiction pro-
hibits us from disturbing this holding. See Via, 469 F.4th at 625;
Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319. The majority has no authority to dig
through the record, pull out new facts, and use them to usurp
the district court’s summary judgment finding.
III
Lastly, the majority’s substantive error. In its qualified im-
munity analysis for Savory’s Fifth Amendment coerced con-
fession claim, the majority disregards the similarities between
Savory’s case and the cases he and the district court cite. In-
stead, it zeroes in on minute differences between the cases.
Based on these differences, my colleagues conclude that “in
1977, it was not beyond debate” that police officers violate the
Constitution by browbeating children into confessing to mur-
der. Ante at 15. I disagree.
The officers in this case are entitled to qualified immunity
only if their interrogation techniques did not violate Savory’s
clearly established right to due process. Rivas-Villegas v. Cor-
tesluna, 595 U.S. 1, 5 (2021) (per curiam). For a right to be
clearly established, an officer must have been able to “‘read’
the relevant precedent beforehand and [must have] ‘known’
that it proscribed their specific conduct.” Zorn v. Linton, 607
U.S. 568, 572 (2026) (per curiam) (quoting City and Cnty. of San
No. 24-2947 27
Francisco v. Sheehan, 575 U.S. 600, 616 (2015)). Time and again,
the Supreme Court has made clear that a litigant can establish
that his constitutional right was clearly established by prece-
dent even without “a case directly on point.” Rivas-Villegas,
595 U.S. at 5; see also District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48,
64 (2018); White v. Pauly, 580 U.S. 73, 79 (2017) (per curiam);
Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011). The fundamental
question is whether there is precedent showing that “an of-
ficer acting under similar circumstances … was held to have
violated the Constitution.” Zorn, 607 U.S. at 572 (emphasis
added) (citation modified).
In at least two Supreme Court cases decided before 1977,
Haley v. Ohio and Gallegos v. Colorado, police officers violated
the Constitution by behaving similarly to the officers who in-
terrogated Savory. In Haley, a 1948 decision, a 15-year-old was
interrogated by police who “work[ed] in relays” to “ques-
tion[] him hour after hour.” 332 U.S. 596, 599–600 (1948).
There was no adult present to help the boy avoid confessing
out of “fear” or “panic.” Id. at 600. The Court held that the
police violated the boy’s constitutional rights, reasoning that:
[t]he age of the petitioner, the hours when he
was grilled, the duration of his quizzing, the fact
that he had no friend or counsel to advise him,
[and] the callous attitude of the police towards
his rights combine to convince us that this was
a confession wrung from a child by means
which the law should not sanction.
Id. at 600–01. Though the boy had been “advised of his consti-
tutional rights before he signed the confession,” the Court re-
versed Haley’s conviction. Id. at 601.
28 No. 24-2947
So too in Gallegos, a 1962 decision. There, police extracted
a murder confession from a 14-year-old boy after holding him
for five days, during which he had no “adult protection”
against his interrogators. 370 U.S. 49, 50, 54 (1962). This lack
of protection, the Court observed, rendered the boy unable
“to know, let alone assert,” his constitutional rights. Id. at 54.
Considering the “totality of the circumstances,” including
“[t]he length of the questioning, the use of fear to break a sus-
pect, [and] the youth of the accused,” the Court concluded
that Gallegos’s confession “was obtained in violation of due
process.” Id. at 52, 55. The Court reached this conclusion even
though the boy had been advised of his right to counsel. See
id. at 54. “To allow this conviction to stand would, in effect, be
to treat him as if he had no constitutional rights.” Id. As it had
done in Haley, the Court reversed Gallegos’s conviction. Id. at
55.
Had the officers in this case read Haley or Gallegos before
questioning Savory, they would have known that their ac-
tions were unconstitutional. Recall what the officers did to Sa-
vory: After collaring the 14-year-old at school, the officers per-
suaded the reluctant child to go with them to the police sta-
tion. There, at least four officers interrogated Savory across
two days. Savory repeatedly faced “rapid-fire, confusing
questions” from “two or three officers at a time,” which he
“struggled to answer.” The officers’ questions shifted from
chaotic to hostile. Although Savory was advised of his Mi-
randa rights, at no point during his interrogation was he ac-
companied by an adult.
Police held and questioned Savory for more than eight
hours before they called his father and told him that Savory
was in custody. Before that call, Savory had sat for the first of
No. 24-2947 29
two polygraph tests the officers would convince him to take.
Savory agreed to the polygraph after briefly speaking with his
probation officer, because a police officer told Savory that if
he took the test, he would be allowed to go home. But the of-
ficers did not release Savory once the test was over. Instead,
they sent him to a juvenile detention center, where they
picked him up the following morning and brought him back
to the station for more questioning.
On the morning of his second day in custody, Savory saw
and spoke to his father for the first time since being detained.
Their conversation was brief. Savory’s father abruptly left the
station before Savory’s interrogation resumed. After Savory’s
father left, officers took Savory to a bathroom and forced him
to strip naked. Then, they plucked hair from his head, torso,
and genitals.
The officers fed Savory only twice during his two days in
custody: He was given a candy bar and soda for dinner on
day one (the first food he had eaten all day) and a hamburger
for lunch on day two. Throughout his interrogation, the offic-
ers repeatedly accused Savory of committing the murders, an
accusation he denied. Only on his second night in custody did
he break down and confess. As Savory testified in a deposi-
tion years later, an officer was “wording him along.” Later
that day, Savory recanted his confession.
All told, there is little daylight between Haley, Gallegos, and
Savory’s case. And the majority’s efforts to distinguish Haley
and Gallegos are wanting.
Start with Haley. The majority devotes outsized attention
to the few differences between Haley’s and Savory’s situa-
tions instead of crediting the ways they are similar. For
30 No. 24-2947
example, the majority says that while Haley’s “lawyer was re-
stricted from seeing him,” “Savory met with his father and
probation officer.” Ante at 16. That’s true, but irrelevant. The
problem in Haley was that a boy faced a multi-hour police in-
terrogation by himself. Savory did too. Like Haley, Savory
was never accompanied by an adult while being interrogated.
And while Savory had brief conversations with both his fa-
ther and probation officer outside of the interrogation room,
neither served as “counsel” to aid him in understanding his
constitutional rights. Haley, 332 U.S. at 601. So in stressing that
Haley was isolated but Savory had fleeting interactions with
non-officer adults, the majority makes too much of a differ-
ence that’s ultimately peripheral.
My colleagues also point out that Savory was given a Mi-
randa warning and Haley was not. That’s also immaterial. One
of the main takeaways from Haley is that whether a teenaged
suspect is read his rights does not matter if he is facing the
police by himself. The Haley Court rejected the idea “that a
boy of fifteen, without aid of counsel, would have a full ap-
preciation” of his rights or would feel “a freedom of choice”
to decline questioning. Id. at 601. Telling a suspect about his
constitutional rights is not a check-the-box exercise, the Court
explained, and it refused to “give any weight to recitals which
merely formalize constitutional requirements.” Id. So even if
Savory was given a Miranda warning and Haley was not, that
fact has little importance. The boys are similarly situated be-
cause both were alone during their interrogations and, be-
cause they were boys, neither could fully understand his con-
stitutional rights as told to him by police.
Finally, and most fundamentally, the majority’s paring of
Haley—stressing the Miranda warning difference and focusing
No. 24-2947 31
on Haley’s isolation—misses the larger point of the case. The
Haley Court did not hold that Haley’s confession was ob-
tained unconstitutionally because the police did not tell him
he could speak with a lawyer, or because “not even a gesture
toward getting a lawyer for him was made.” Id. at 600. In-
stead, the case turned on a combination of facts—Haley’s age,
his being interrogated through the night, and the length of his
questioning, in addition to the fact he was alone throughout
the ordeal. Id. at 600–01. The majority’s fixation on Savory be-
ing given a Miranda warning, and on his briefly speaking with
his father and probation officer, is therefore a red herring.
Considering all the facts, it’s apparent that Haley’s and Sa-
vory’s circumstances are sufficiently similar for Haley to
clearly establish that the officers in this case unconstitution-
ally extracted a confession out of Savory.
The majority’s attempt to distinguish Gallegos is equally
unconvincing. My colleagues measure Savory’s detention in
hours, noting that he was held for “about 29 hours after he
was first questioned” whereas Gallegos “was held for nearly
five times as long.” Ante at 17. I would put it more plainly:
Savory confessed on his second day in custody, and Gallegos
confessed on his fifth day in custody. Regardless, focusing on
this difference is too myopic an approach given that Savory
need only present similar—not identical—cases to satisfy
qualified immunity’s “clearly established” requirement. The
commonalities between Gallegos and Savory put the officers
on notice that their behavior violated the law. Both boys were
fourteen years old when questioned by police. Gallegos, 360
U.S. at 54. Both were advised of their right to counsel, yet their
youth made them unable to fully appreciate those rights with-
out an adult’s help. See id. Both were tried for murder based
on confessions obtained outside of the presence of a lawyer,
32 No. 24-2947
parent, or friend. See id. at 50, 55. Again, it’s of little im-
portance that Savory briefly spoke with his father and proba-
tion officer—both he and Gallegos lacked an adult at their
side during their interrogations. Id. at 53–55.
All told, the only way to deem Haley, Gallegos, and Sa-
vory dissimilar is by taking a slice-and-dice approach to their
cases. But the truth is that had any of the officers in this case
read Haley or Gallegos, that officer would have known his
treatment of Savory violated the Constitution. And that’s
enough for Savory to defeat the officers’ qualified immunity
defense to his coerced confession claim.
IV
It was clearly established in 1977 that police could not
spend days berating a teenage boy into confessing to murder.
Further, the majority’s analysis of Savory’s destruction of ev-
idence claim is untethered from the record. And we have no
jurisdiction to consider, let alone disturb, the district court’s
finding that Savory’s unlawful detention claim should pro-
ceed. Because the majority flouts our jurisdictional limits, and
because it disregards the unmistakably similar cases that de-
feat the officers’ qualified immunity defense, I respectfully
dissent in part.