Sause v. Bauer

Mary Anne Sause was praying in her apartment in Louisburg, Kansas, when police officers Brandon Bauer and Joshua Weiser responded to a noise complaint. The officers entered her home, ordered her to stop praying, and threatened her with arrest. Sause sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of her First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. The district court granted qualified immunity to the officers, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding that the unlawfulness of the officers' conduct was not clearly established because no prior case involved the specific command to cease prayer. On June 28, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a per curiam decision reversing the Tenth Circuit and remanding the case, concluding that it was clearly established that government officials may not interfere with private religious practices without a compelling justification.

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Tenth Circuit and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion, ruling that any reasonable officer would have known that commanding a person to stop praying in her residence violated the First Amendment, and that the lower courts erred by requiring a factually identical precedent.

Whether the police officers were entitled to qualified immunity after allegedly ordering a woman to stop praying in her own home, and whether the right to engage in private prayer free from such governmental interference was a clearly established constitutional right at the time of the incident.

The ruling reinforced the robust protection of religious exercise under the First Amendment, clarified that qualified immunity does not require a prior case with identical facts when core constitutional rights are obviously violated, and served as a significant reminder for law enforcement agencies to respect private religious practices and the sanctity of the home.