Hamner v. Burls

Issue: (1) Whether qualified immunity is an affirmative defense that state actors must assert, as nine U.S. Courts of Appeals hold, or whether federal appellate courts may raise the defense sua sponte, as three U.S. Courts of Appeals hold; and (2) whether the Supreme Court should reconsider Pearson v. Callahan in light of empirical evidence that bypassing the constitutional prong results in a constitutional catch-22, increasingly leaving pressing questions unanswered simply because they have not been answered before.