Guillory

— LeRoy Guillory and 12 other plaintiffs appeal from the trial court’s entry of judgment after granting Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) Investigator Michelle Hill’s motion for a directed verdict (Code Civ. Proc., § 630) at the close of evidence in a six-week trial on plaintiffs’ civil rights claims ( 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (hereafter section 1983)). Plaintiffs consist primarily of Halloween partygoers who were swept up and detained as long as 14 hours in a 2007 predawn police raid on a mansion by dozens of special weapons and tactics (SWAT) officers in armored vehicles. The party, an annual event with hundreds of costumed attendees, had drawn neighbor complaints over the years. Based in part on a flyer advertising a “Casino Room” at the party, together with information a confidential informant provided and other intelligence Hill gathered, she obtained a warrant to search for evidence of illegal gaming at the mansion.

The search yielded two slot machines that the party host, Carl Vini Bergeman, claimed were unplugged and inoperable, along with three grams of marijuana in a party goer’s purse. After failing in his efforts to challenge the warrant in criminal…