Cite as: 526 U. S. 603 (1999)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
basis for a claim by the police that they reasonably relied on judicial recognition of an exception to the basic rule that the purposes of the police intrusion strictly limit its scope.
That the two federal decisions were not officially reported makes such theoretical reliance especially anomalous.6 Moreover, as the Court acknowledges, the claim rejected in each of those cases was predicated on the media's alleged violation of the plaintiffs' "unorthodox non-Fourth Amendment right to privacy theories," ante, at 616, rather than a claim that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment by allowing the press to observe the execution of the warrant. Moncrief v. Hanton, 10 Media L. Rptr. 1620 (ND Ohio 1984); Higbee v. Times-Advocate, 5 Media L. Rptr. 2372 (SD Cal. 1980). As for the other case, Prahl v. Brosamle, 98 Wis. 2d 130, 295 N. W. 2d 768 (App. 1980)—cited by the Court, ante, at 616, for the proposition that the officer's conduct was "not unreasonable"—it actually held that the defendants' motion to dismiss should have been denied because the allegations supported the conclusion that the officer committed a trespass when he allowed a third party to enter the plaintiff's property.7 Since that conclusion was fully consistent with a
6 In the Fourth Circuit, unreported opinions may not be considered in the course of determining qualified immunity. Hogan v. Carter, 85 F. 3d 1113, 1118 (1996).
7 Prahl v. Brosamle, 98 Wis. 2d, at 154-155, 295 N. W. 2d, at 782 ("A new trial must be had with respect to the plaintiffs' claims for trespass against Lieutenant Kuenning and Dane Country . . . . Lieutenant Kuenning had no authority to extend a consent to [the press] to enter the land of another. Although entry by Lieutenant Kuenning was privileged, he committed a trespass by participating in the trespass by [the press]").
The Court is correct that the Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld dismissal of the plaintiff's 42 U. S. C. § 1983 claim against the newscaster because he was not acting under color of state law. As the basis for rejecting the § 1983 action "for invasion of privacy based on disclosure of the incident," the court further held that "[w]e are unwilling to accept the proposition that the filming and television broadcast of a reasonable search and seizure, without more, result in unreasonableness." 98 Wis. 2d, at
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