Key points
- A federal judge in Kentucky refused to dismiss a wrongful-arrest suit over a facial recognition match.
- The court held that a detective cannot hand the probable cause decision to AI.
- It denied the detective qualified immunity at the pleading stage.
- A status conference is set for November 19, 2026.
A federal court in Kentucky has allowed a wrongful-arrest lawsuit over a facial recognition arrest to go forward. Judge S. Chad Meredith of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky signed the order on November 9, 2026. It was issued in Osorio v. Kilmer.
The court held that the Fourth Amendment does not let a detective delegate the probable cause determination to AI. It denied the detective’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and refused qualified immunity at this stage, according to the court order.
What happened in the case
On August 30, 2024, a man tried to cash a suspected fraudulent check at Heritage Bank in Florence, Kentucky, using a Texas license. The teller believed the license was fake and refused the check. Florence Police Detective Ryan Kilmer took a still image from the bank’s security footage and ran it through AI facial recognition, which returned a booking photo and a Facebook profile.
Kilmer’s criminal complaint named Alain Vizcay Osorio, who lives in Nebraska. Osorio was arrested in Florida on January 9, 2025, and extradited to Kentucky. The charges were dismissed with prejudice on May 7, 2025, after Osorio showed he was working in Nebraska when the check was presented.
What the court decided
Taking Osorio’s allegations as true, the court found he had stated claims for false arrest and malicious prosecution. The claims rest on alleged intentional or reckless misstatements and omissions in the warrant affidavit. Osorio alleges Kilmer relied only on the AI output and that the suspect and Osorio look different in the photos.
The court applied the “obvious case” exception to qualified immunity. It reasoned that relying solely on AI to establish probable cause is unlawful beyond debate. It also stressed that discovery may change the picture. Kilmer has denied wrongdoing, and Florence police policy describes AI facial recognition as “advisory.”
Why it matters
The order is an early ruling at the pleading stage, not a final judgment on the facts. Kilmer has 14 days to answer, and a status conference is set for November 19, 2026, in Covington. For background on how the technology is used, see our guide to face recognition uses and limits.
Open questions
What will discovery show about how the match was checked before the warrant was sought? How will other courts and police departments treat an AI result that is not corroborated? Should departments require a documented human review before any arrest?
