Most people know instinctively when the police have violated their rights.

New Mexico motorist and car enthusiast Mario Rosales did not need a law degree to understand that an off-duty Chaves County Sheriff’s Office deputy broke the law by following him home and holding him at gunpoint in 2018 simply because Rosales had passed the deputy on the road. Single mother Shaniz West did not need legal training to recognize that a SWAT team crossed a line in 2014 by destroying her home with tear gas grenades in Caldwell, Idaho. And property owners Micah Jessop and Brittan Ashjian did not need expert advice to know that officers trampled the Constitution in 2013 by seizing more than $200,000 in cash and rare coins from them and keeping the property for themselves in Fresno, California.