This has to do with qualified immunity. It's not so much that his rights weren't violated, as that, per qualified immunity, it doesn't matter, because there is

This has to do with qualified immunity. It's not so much that his rights weren't violated, as that, per qualified immunity, it doesn't matter, because there is not a very close precedent (like, once upon a time, some sheriffs cut apart a stage coach interior with a bowie knife and got charged) that can be used to base a ruling on. If that seems like a strange doctrine to you, you're not alone! https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-finally-decide-whether-hear-cases-calling-abolition-qualified https://www.cato.org/blog/may-15th-supreme-court-will-finall... I wonder if this ruling does not have an impact on qualified immunity as a sustainable doctrine. In this ruling, SCOTUS has recognized a claim against law enforcement for rights violations not by finding a matching precedent but by reasoning from (recent) positive law.