Adam Brooks v. Clark County

We must decide whether a courtroom marshal is entitled to invoke absolute immunity as a defense to the allegation that he used excessive force when executing a judge’s order to remove a disruptive individual from her courtroom. If he is not, we must decide whether qualified immunity insulates him from having to pay damages for his allegedly unconstitutional conduct.

I

A

Adam Brooks is a bail enforcement agent who owns Las Vegas Fugitive Recovery, a bail enforcement agency licensed in Nevada. On October 4, 2011, Brooks and two fellow bail agents — John Kevin Smith and Matthew Penny — arrived at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas. They were in pursuit of Malena Reed and Mary Beth Lourcey, two women charged with conspiracy to make a bomb threat who were then appearing in the Justice Court, in the courtroom of Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis, to waive their right to a preliminary hearing.

Brooks and his two compatriots were intent on taking Reed and Lourcey into custody, apparently at the behest of AIA Surety, a bail bond insurance company, because the ladies had allegedly failed to keep the company apprised of their whereabouts. Judge Lippis was having none of…