Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56857/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56857-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MARIO ALBERTO GARCIA,

individually and as class

representative,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

COUNTY OF RIVERSIDE,

Defendant,

and

COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; LOS

ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S

DEPARTMENT; LEE BACA, in his

personal and individual capacity,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 13-56857

D.C. No.

5:13-cv-00616-

JGB-SP

ORDER AND

AMENDED

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Jesus G. Bernal, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

December 11, 2015—Pasadena, California

Filed February 3, 2016

Amended April 8, 2016

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2 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

Before: Ronald M. Gould and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit

Judges, and Jack Zouhary,

*

 District Judge.

Order;

Opinion by Judge Gould

SUMMARY**

Civil Rights

The panel amended its prior opinion, published at

811 F.3d 1220, and denied the petition for rehearing and

rehearing en banc. In the amended opinion the panel

affirmed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity,

absolute (quasi-judicial) immunity, and immunity under two

California statutes in an action brought by Mario A. Garcia

pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law alleging that he

was wrongfully incarcerated by the Los Angeles County

Sheriff’s Department based on the misapplication of a felony

warrant issued in 1994 for Mario L. Garcia, who has the same

date of birth as plaintiff.

The panel first held that former Los Angeles Sheriff Lee

Baca in his individual capacity may appeal the denial of

absolute quasi-judicial immunity for the same reasons he

may appeal denial of qualified immunity in his individual

* The Honorable Jack Zouhary, District Judge for the U.S. District Court

for the Northern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 3

capacity. The panel held that Los Angeles County and the

Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department could not appeal denial of

quasi-judicial immunity because they could not assert an

absolute immunity in the first place. The panel held that it

had jurisdiction over defendants’ appeals from denial of statelaw immunity because the district court’s denial determined

rights collateral to those asserted in the action, and like the

denial of qualified immunity, the district court’s decision was

effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.

The panel held that plaintiff had sufficiently pleaded a

Fourteenth Amendment violation arising from law

enforcement’s failure to investigate his claim of mistaken

identity after he was arrested. The panel stated that an

obvious physical discrepancy between a warrant subject and

a booked individual, such as a nine-inch difference in height,

accompanied by a detainee’s complaints of misidentification,

should prompt officers to engage in readily available and

resource-efficient identity checks, such as a fingerprint

comparison, to ensure that they are not detaining the wrong

person. The panel further held that Sheriff Baca was not

entitled to qualified immunity because at the time of

plaintiff’s November 2012 incarceration, the standards for

determining whether alleged police conduct violated the

Fourteenth Amendment were clearly established.

The panel held that Sheriff Baca was not entitled to

absolute, quasi-judicial immunity because plaintiff

challenged not just the fact of his incarceration but also the

lack of procedures to prevent the misidentification. Finally,

the panel rejected defendants’ contention that they were

immune from plaintiff’s state-law claims because of

immunities provided in California Penal Code § 847 and

California Civil Code § 43.55. The panel held that those

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4 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

statutes do not shield defendants from liability under state law

because their application is premised on reasonable beliefs,

and the crux of plaintiff’s claim is that it was unreasonable

for officers to believe that he was the person who was

described in the warrant without greater investigation.

COUNSEL

Scott E. Caron (argued), Paul B. Beach, and Michael D.

Allen, Lawrence Beach Allen & Choi, P.C., Glendale,

California, for Defendants-Appellants.

Donald W. Cook, Los Angeles, California, for PlaintiffAppellee.

ORDER

The opinion filed on February 3, 2016, and published at

811 F.3d 1220, is hereby amended as follows:

1. Slip op. at 18–19, delete “These statutes do not shield

Defendants from liability under state law because Plaintiff is

not asserting claims “arising out of an[] arrest” or against the

arresting officer. See Cal. Pen. Code § 847(b). According to

these statutes’ text, they apply only to arresting officers. 

Moreover, these statutory immunities are premised on

reasonable beliefs, and the crux of Plaintiff’s claim is that it

was unreasonable for officers to believe that he was the

person who was described in the warrant without greater

investigation.” Replace deleted text with “These statutes do

not shield Defendants from liability under state law because

their application is premised on reasonable beliefs, and the

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 5

crux of Plaintiff’s claim is that it was unreasonable for

officers to believe that he was the person who was described

in the warrant without greater investigation.”

With this amendment, the panel has voted to deny the

petition for rehearing. Judge Gould and Judge Berzon have

voted to deny the petition for rehearing en banc, and Judge

Zouhary has so recommended. The full court has been

advised of the petition for rehearing en banc, and no judge

has requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter en banc. 

Fed. R. App. P. 35. The petitions for rehearing and rehearing

en banc are DENIED. No future petitions for rehearing or

rehearing en banc will be entertained.

OPINION

GOULD, Circuit Judge:

Los Angeles County, LA County Sheriff’s Department

(LASD), and former LA Sheriff Lee Baca appeal the district

court’s denial of qualified immunity, absolute (quasi-judicial)

immunity, and immunity under two California statutes in this

suit by Plaintiff Mario A. Garcia. Plaintiff asserted claims

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the California Constitution, and state

tort law, alleging that he was wrongfully incarcerated by

LASD based on the misapplication of a felony warrant issued

in 1994 for Mario L. Garcia, who has the same date of birth

as Plaintiff. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

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6 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

I

Plaintiff was arrested for driving under the influence in

Riverside County, California, on November 26, 2012. He

was booked in a Riverside County jail. A booked individual

is electronically fingerprinted through a system called

“Livescan.” The Livescan image is then sent to the

California Department of Justice (CDOJ), which responds in

one of two ways. If the arrestee’s fingerprints are already on

file, the subject’s criminal identification and information

(CII) number and criminal history are sent to the arresting

agency. If the arrestee’s fingerprints are not on file, a new

CII number is assigned. This number is linked to

fingerprints, name, birth date, address, and other identifiers

such as Social Security number. Los Angeles County

agencies also assign a fingerprint-based “LA Main” number

to their warrants. CII and LA Main numbers are often used

to generate an arrestee’s criminal history, which can include

the subject’s full name, birth date, residential addresses, and

Social Security and driver’s license numbers. The numbers

are also searched in a warrant database, such as the LA-based

Countywide Warrant System (CWS) or the statewide Wanted

Persons System (WPS), to determine whether the arrested

individual has an outstanding warrant.

When Riverside County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD)

officers searched for Plaintiff “Mario Garcia” in WPS, they

found a felony warrant for Mario L. Garcia issued by the Los

Angeles Superior Court in 1994. The warrant described

Mario L. Garcia using only his first and last name, date of

birth, height, and weight. The first and last name and birth

date matched Plaintiff’s own. But Plaintiff alleges that when

RCSD contacted LASD personnel to report the “hit,” LASD

did not forward information on Mario L. Garcia’s biometric

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 7

identifiers, middle name, or criminal record, all of which

differed from Plaintiff’s. RCSD matched Plaintiff to the

warrant and told him that he would be detained, despite

Plaintiff’s protests that he was not Mario L. Garcia and that

he had been mistakenly detained before based on the same

warrant.

The next day Plaintiff was transferred to an LA County

jail, where he alleges that he repeated his complaints to

LASD officers. Plaintiff contends that LASD knew or should

have known that he was not Mario L. Garcia for several

reasons: (1) their middle names do not match; (2) their height

and weight differ considerably (Mario L. Garcia is listed as

5'1", 130 lbs. Plaintiff is 5'10", 170 lbs.); (3) Plaintiff’s

biometric identifiers, including fingerprints and CII number,

did not match the subject’s; and (4) Plaintiff’s criminal

history, which was linked in the system to his fingerprints,

did not match the subject’s. Plaintiff contends that it is the

policy of LASD to ignore CII numbers for identification

purposes, to ignore prisoners’ complaints of

misidentification, and to accept an outside agency’s

determination that an arrestee is the subject of a warrant

rather than conduct an independent identity check upon

booking in LA County.

Plaintiff sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations

of the Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment by

LASD, LA County, Baca, and several Doe defendants. He

also brought state-law claims against LASD and LA County.

1

The district court denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss

Plaintiff’s section 1983 claim of wrongful incarceration in

1 Plaintiff settled his claims against Riverside County and the Riverside

County Sheriff’s Department, which are no longer parties to this action.

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8 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause,

concluding that Plaintiff had alleged detention beyond the

point when LASD officers should have known to release him. 

The district court denied Baca’s request for qualified

immunity and Defendants’ request for quasi-judicial

immunity and state-law immunity. Defendants appealed via

28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II

Plaintiff contests jurisdiction over Defendants’ appeals

from denial of immunity. He concedes that we have

jurisdiction over Baca’s appeal of denial of qualified

immunity. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 526

(1985). Baca may only assert qualified immunity in his

individual capacity, not in his official capacity. See Eng v.

Cooley, 552 F.3d 1062, 1064 n.1 (9th Cir. 2009); Owen v.

City of Independence, Mo., 445 U.S. 622, 638 (1980)). 

However, we hold that Baca in his individual capacity may

appeal denial of absolute quasi-judicial immunity, for the

same reasons he may appeal denial of qualified immunity in

his individual capacity. See Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 526–27

(noting that absolute immunity, like qualified immunity, is

immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine).

LA County and LASD may not appeal denial of

quasi-judicial immunity, because they may not assert an

absolute immunity in the first place. See Monell v. Dep’t of

Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 701 (1978) (holding that

“municipal bodies sued under § 1983 cannot be entitled to an

absolute immunity, lest our decision that such bodies are

subject to suit under § 1983 ‘be drained of meaning’”)

(quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 248 (1974)). 

However, our cases do not foreclose Defendants’ appeal of

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 9

the district court’s denial of state-law statutory immunity. 

We have jurisdiction over Defendants’ appeals from denial of

state-law immunity because the district court’s denial

determined rights collateral to those asserted in the action,

and like the denial of qualified immunity, the district court’s

decision is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final

judgment. See Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp.,

337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949); Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 527. In sum,

LA County and LASD may only appeal denial of state-law

statutory immunity. See Owen, 445 U.S. 622, 650 (1980);

Monell, 436 U.S. at 701. Baca, in his individual capacity,

may appeal denial of qualified immunity and of quasi-judicial

immunity. See Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 528. Baca did not assert

state-law immunity because Plaintiff’s state-law claims were

against LA County and LASD only.

III

Defendants contend that Baca is entitled to qualified

immunity as to the alleged violation of Plaintiff’s due process

rights. Qualified immunity applies unless the facts alleged

make out (1) a violation of a constitutional right, which

(2) was “clearly established” at the time of the defendant’s

alleged misconduct. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236

(2009). Baca asserts that both stages of the Pearson analysis

entitle him to qualified immunity.

The parties disagree whether Plaintiff has alleged a

Fourteenth Amendment violation. Defendants argue that

Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137 (1979), forecloses

Plaintiff’s claim. That is not so.

In Baker, a warrant was issued under the plaintiff’s name

because the plaintiff’s brother, the warrant subject, had

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10 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

obtained a copy of the plaintiff’s driver’s license and had

replaced the plaintiff’s photo with his own. When the

plaintiff was stopped for running a red light, he was taken

into custody on the warrant intended for his brother. Id. at

141. He was released several days later after officials

compared his appearance to a file photograph of his brother. 

Id. The Supreme Court held that although the plaintiff had

been falsely imprisoned, his detention was not a

constitutional violation because, without more, “a person

arrested pursuant to a [valid] warrant . . . is not

constitutionally entitled to a separate judicial determination

that there is probable cause to detain him pending trial.” Id.

at 143–45.

While the facts in Baker did not amount to a due process

violation, Baker did not create a categorical bar on due

process claims arising from law enforcement’s failure to

investigate an arrestee’s claim of mistaken identity. To the

contrary, as we have noted, Baker “suggested that

incarceration based on mistaken identity might violate the

Due Process Clause in some circumstances.” Rivera v.

County of Los Angeles, 745 F.3d 384, 390 (9th Cir. 2014)

(emphasis added). And we have found such violations in

several cases. See, e.g., Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d

668, 684 (9th Cir. 2001). Lee held that a group of plaintiffs

had alleged a Fourteenth Amendment violation based on city

officials’ “conscious failure to train their employees in the

procedures necessary to avoid” mistaken misidentifications. 

Id. According to Lee, a plaintiff’s burden is to show that

defendants did not give him “minimum due process

appropriate to the circumstances to ensure that his liberty was

not arbitrarily abrogated.” Id. (quoting Oviatt v. Pearce,

954 F.2d 1470, 1475 (9th Cir. 1992)) (internal alterations

omitted). Our cases holding that a mistaken incarceration

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 11

violated the Due Process Clause fit into at least one of two

categories. Either “(1) the circumstances indicated to the

defendants that further investigation was warranted, or (2) the

defendants denied the plaintiff access to the courts for an

extended period of time.” Rivera, 745 F.3d at 391. Because

Plaintiff does not allege that he was denied access to the

courts, he must allege that “further investigation was

warranted” based on the facts of his detention. Id.

As observed in Rivera, the “further investigation” cases

have involved significant differences between the arrestee

and the true warrant subject. Id. For instance, in Fairley v.

Luman, 281 F.3d 913, 915 (9th Cir. 2002) (per curiam), the

plaintiff and the true warrant subject (who were twins) had

different first names and differed in weight by 66 pounds. 

The booking sergeant knew that the plaintiff had a twin

brother, but approved the plaintiff’s booking based on a

similarity in physical descriptions alone, without performing

a readilyavailable fingerprint comparison. Id. We concluded

that the plaintiff had pleaded a due process violation in light

of his detention “without any procedural safeguard in place

to verify the warrant he was detained on was his and in the

face of his repeated protests of innocence.” Id. at 918. In

light of the plaintiff’s liberty interest, and the “minimum

burden” to the city of instituting procedures to verify identity,

the city’s procedures violated the Due Process Clause. Id.

More recently, in Rivera, plaintiff Santiago Rivera was

misidentified and detained on a warrant meant for a different

person with the same name, same date of birth, and similar

physical characteristics (within one inch in height and ten

pounds in weight). Rivera, 745 F.3d at 387. Holding that

Rivera’s detention did not violate the Due Process Clause, we

distinguished Fairley, which involved circumstances that

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12 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

could alert the defendants to a misidentification, such as

differences in first name and weight. Id. at 390–91. Rivera,

by contrast, had not presented any evidence that the

defendants knew he was not the true subject of the warrant,

or that further investigation into his identity was called for

based on what defendants did know. Id. at 391. Instead, as

in Baker, deputies reasonably concluded that Rivera was the

true warrant subject. Id.; see also Baker, 443 U.S. at 141.

Finally, in Gant v. County of Los Angeles, 772 F.3d 608,

622–23 (9th Cir. 2014), we held that plaintiff Jose Ventura,

who was detained based on a warrant meant for another man

with the same name, had plausibly alleged that one of the

defendants, LA County, violated his due process rights

because “they should have known that he was not the subject

of the ‘Jose Ventura’ warrant.” The plaintiff and the warrant

subject differed by seven inches in height and 120 pounds in

weight. Id. at 618. The district court dismissed the claim

against LA County, finding that the plaintiff had not

sufficiently complained to officers that he was wrongfully

detained. We reversed, holding that the conflicting evidence

about whether the plaintiff had complained that he was the

wrong person raised a genuine issue of material fact. Id. at

623.

Whether LASD had to investigate in the face of Plaintiff’s

protests and complaints that he wasn’t the person described

in the outstanding warrant is an important question. No

person deserves to be incarcerated without good reason, and

incarceration on a warrant without a reasonable investigation

of identity, when the circumstances demand it, is subject to

review under the Due Process Clause. The issue is whether

LASD’s treatment of Plaintiff’s contention that he was not

the warrant subject was so superficial, under the

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 13

circumstances, that it ignored a duty to investigate and

offended due process.

Defendants contend that according to Baker, LASD had

no duty to investigate Garcia’s identity, even though he

complained that he was not the subject of the warrant, even

though the physical description in the warrant was far off

from Garcia’s, and even if LASD had or could have easily

obtained information that would have exonerated him. 

Garcia’s allegations are, however, significantly different than

those in Baker. The detention in Baker followed an arrest

pursuant to a valid warrant, where the warrant exactly

matched the plaintiff’s identifying information because the

suspect had obtained a copy of the plaintiff’s driver’s license. 

Because the warrant did not contain the suspect’s photograph,

the arresting officers “understandablyconcluded that theyhad

their man.” Baker, 443 U.S. at 141. This is not true for

Garcia. Although Garcia’s arrest for driving under the

influence was valid, the warrant on which he was later held

matched only his first and last name and date of birth. Garcia

is nine inches taller and forty pounds heavier than the warrant

subject. Even a cursory comparison of Garcia to the warrant

subject should have led officers to question whether the

person described in the warrant was Garcia. Information that

raised questions about Garcia’s identity should have

prompted the LASD to investigate more deliberately.

Furthermore, in denying the plaintiff’s constitutional

claim in Baker, the Supreme Court expressed reluctance to

impose the expense of an “error-free investigation” of claims

of mistaken identity on sheriff’s departments nationwide. Id.

at 146. But those concerns are de minimis here. Plaintiff has

alleged that LASD knew that his fingerprint-matched CII

number did not match the warrant subject’s, and within a few

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14 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

seconds could have used his CII number to check his criminal

history, which also did not match the warrant subject’s. A

simple procedure to check individuals’ basic information

upon transfer and booking in a county jail, to certify it

matches the warrant subject, is not the type of costly

“error-free investigation” the Supreme Court was reluctant to

impose in Baker. Id.

Similarly, like the plaintiffs in Lee, Garcia has alleged

Defendants’ “failure to train their employees in the

procedures necessary to avoid” misidentifications. Lee,

250 F.3d at 684. Garcia alleges that it is the policy of LASD

to ignore CII numbers for identification purposes and to

ignore a prisoner’s complaints of misidentification, thereby

denying him “minimum due process appropriate to the

circumstances to ensure that his liberty was not arbitrarily

abrogated.” Id. (internal quotation marks and alterations

omitted). And like the plaintiff in Fairley, Garcia has alleged

that his jailers had reason to know that he had been mistaken

for the true warrant subject, and that Defendants’ deficient

procedures are to blame for the misidentification. See

Fairley, 281 F.3d at 918. As in Fairley, Garcia’s allegations

highlight the procedures Defendants could have used, with

“minimum burden,” to distinguish him from the warrant

subject. Id.

Rivera does not foreclose Plaintiff’s Fourteenth

Amendment claim either. Here, even limiting officers to the

information on the warrant, they could not have

“understandably concluded that they had their man.” Baker,

443 U.S. at 141. The extreme difference in height of nine

inches between the warrant subject and Garcia, which could

not be explained as a normal growth process for an adult, was

a red flag, as was, to a lesser degree, the forty pound weight

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 15

differential. These differences, coupled with Garcia’s

protests, should have “indicated to the defendants that further

investigation was warranted.” Rivera, 745 F.3d at 391.

Rivera, of course, held that officers do not have a duty to

independently investigate “all uncorroborated claims of

innocence” if the suspect will soon have an opportunity to

appear in court. Id. at 384. However, an obvious physical

discrepancy between a warrant subject and a booked

individual, such as a nine-inch difference in height,

accompanied by a detainee’s complaints of misidentification,

should prompt officers to engage in readily available and

resource-efficient identity checks, such as a fingerprint

comparison, to ensure that they are not detaining the wrong

person. Here Plaintiff’s claim of mistaken identity was not

uncorroborated, because of the height and weight differences,

and he also alleges that officers already had all the

information they needed to differentiate him from the warrant

subject. See Rivera, 745 F.3d at 391 n.4.

This case also differs from Rivera because there, it took

several days for LA County staff to locate the true subject’s

fingerprints; when they found them and performed a

comparison, the court released the plaintiff. Rivera, 745 F.3d

at 387. Here, Plaintiff alleges that LA County had the

warrant subject’s fingerprints and CII number on file during

the entirety of his detention, and neither forwarded that

information to arresting officers in Riverside County nor

compared it to Plaintiff’s identifying information when they

booked him.2

2 Although Defendants contend that “it is clear from the allegations of

the complaint that LASD personnel could not have had actual knowledge

ofthe warrant subject’sCII and LA Main numbers,” the Second Amended

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16 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

While Defendants contend that differences in height and

weight are not sufficient, by themselves, to trigger a duty to

investigate a detainee’s identity, the authority cited in their

brief involves circumstances different than those alleged here. 

For example, in Johnson v. Miller, 680 F.2d 39, 40 (7th Cir.

1982), the plaintiff was arrested on a warrant matching her

name and year of birth, but not her height, day and month of

birth, or race. The Seventh Circuit held that there was no

constitutional violation, despite the discrepancies in

information. Id. at 41. We have cited Johnson for the

proposition that “arresting officers do not have a

constitutional obligation to review warrants for discrepancies

between the description in the warrant and the appearance of

the person to be arrested.” Arnsberg v. United States,

757 F.2d 971, 981 (9th Cir. 1985). That may make some

sense when dealing with arresting officers in the field who

cannot always pause to make inquiries on a warrant. But

Garcia was not initially arrested pursuant to a warrant. 

Riverside County officers booked him on the Mario L. Garcia

warrant after he had already been arrested and booked for

driving under the influence in Riverside County.

Defendants contend that in the face of many similarities,

one material difference will not make an arrest unreasonable,

citing the Eleventh Circuit decision Rodriguez v. Farrell,

280 F.3d 1341, 1346 (11th Cir. 2002). That principle might

apply where no single material difference would lead

reasonable law enforcement personnel to question the

identification. But here, the nine-inch difference in height,

even if standing alone, is so inexplicable except by

misidentification that the booking officers clearly had a duty

Complaint alleges that LASD had actual knowledge of the true warrant

subject’s CII number, LA Main number, and full name.

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 17

to make readily available inquiries. And those further

inquiries would have shown more material differences, such

as different arrest record, middle initial, and home address. 

Moreover, like Johnson, Rodriguez involved claims against

arresting officers in the field, who are under different

demands than booking officers. Id. at 1343.

IV

Because we hold that Garcia has sufficiently pleaded a

Fourteenth Amendment violation, whether Baca is entitled to

qualified immunity depends on whether the right that Garcia

asserts was “clearly established” at the time of the alleged

misconduct. Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232. Defendants contend

that until Rivera, our cases have applied Baker unevenly and

inconsistently. However, the holdings of Lee, Fairley,

Rivera, and Gant are explained by differences in the facts, not

by inconsistent statements of law. Rivera, decided after the

district court’s second order, summarizes existing law:

officers violate the Fourteenth Amendment if they wrongly

detain a person where “the circumstances indicated to [them]

that further investigation was warranted.” Rivera, 745 F.3d

at 391.

Gant also reinforces this statement of law as having been

clearly established at the time Garcia was arrested and held

on the warrant. We affirmed summary judgment for the San

Bernardino County defendants because plaintiff Jose Ventura

had not raised a material issue of fact as to whether those

defendants had a policy of not requiring fingerprint

comparisons, and affirmed summaryjudgment for LA County

on plaintiff Kelvin Gant’s Fourteenth Amendment claims

because Gant had not called his case of mistaken identity to

the defendants’ attention and was given a prompt hearing. 

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18 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

Gant, 772 F.3d at 620–23. But we reversed summary

judgment on Ventura’s claims against LACounty, concluding

that a factual issue existed whether Ventura complained to the

LA defendants that they had the wrong person. Id. Rivera

and Gant apply precedent from the Supreme Court and our

circuit to different allegations by different plaintiffs. They do

not make new law. In sum, at the time of Plaintiff’s

November 2012 incarceration, the standards for determining

whether alleged police conduct violates the Fourteenth

Amendment were clearly established. Baca is not entitled to

qualified immunity.

V

Defendants also collectively assert that they are entitled

to absolute, quasi-judicial immunity. As explained above,

LA County and LASD cannot assert quasi-judicial immunity

at all. Monell, 436 U.S. at 701. This appeal of the district

court’s denial of quasi-judicial immunity applies only to

Baca.

Baca claims that because there was lawful authority for

Plaintiff’s detention, by way of a “presumptively reasonable”

seizure, he should not be penalized for any constitutional

violation that may have occurred. Law enforcement officers,

Baca asserts, have no duty to “go behind [a] judicial order . . .

to inquire into the validity of the procedure leading up to its

issuance.” Francis v. Lyman, 216 F.2d 583, 585 (1st Cir.

1954). But Plaintiff is not challenging the validity of the

warrant itself, or its issuance in 1994; he is claiming that it

was wrongfully applied to him. Taking simple, readily

available steps to verify that they had booked the man they

sought, in the presence of marked physical differences and

Plaintiff’s protestations of misidentification, does not require

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GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE 19

officers to “inquire into the validity” of a warrant or its

issuance. Rather, the question is whether the LASD

procedures were reasonably calculated to determine that an

arrestee was the person described in the outstanding warrant.

It is true that “prison officials charged with executing

facially valid court orders enjoy absolute immunity from

section 1983 liability for conduct prescribed by those orders.” 

Engebretson v. Mahoney, 724 F.3d 1034, 1039 (9th Cir.

2013). However, absolute immunity applies “only to the fact

of a prisoner’s incarceration pursuant to a facially valid court

order—i.e., the prison official in question must act within his

or her authority and strictly comply with the order.” Id. at

1041 (emphasis in original). Here, according to Plaintiff’s

allegations, Baca did not strictly comply with the order, as it

was applied to the wrong person, and Plaintiff challenged not

just the fact of his incarceration, but also the lack of

procedures to prevent the misidentification. Because the facts

Plaintiff has alleged go beyond the limits of quasi-judicial

immunity, this immunity does not apply to Baca.

Finally, LA County and LASD assert that they are

immune from Plaintiff’s state-law claims (wrongful

incarceration pursuant to Cal. Const., Art. I § 13, and false

imprisonment) because of immunities provided in California

Penal Code § 847 and California Civil Code § 43.55. The

first provision, section 847, prohibits causes of action against

any peace officer, acting within his authority, “for false arrest

or false imprisonment arising out of any arrest,” if the officer

at least “had reasonable cause to believe the arrest was

lawful.” Cal. Penal Code § 847(b). The second, section

43.55, precludes causes of action against “any peace officer

who makes an arrest pursuant to a warrant of arrest regular

upon its face,” if the officer “acts without malice and in the

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20 GARCIA V. CTY. OF RIVERSIDE

reasonable belief that the person arrested is the one referred

to in the warrant.” Cal. Civ. Code § 43.55(a). These statutes

do not shield Defendants from liability under state law

because their application is premised on reasonable beliefs,

and the crux of Plaintiff’s claim is that it was unreasonable

for officers to believe that he was the person who was

described in the warrant without greater investigation. 

Plaintiff has not challenged his arrest for driving under the

influence; rather, he challenges Defendants’ decision to

detain him based on a warrant for another person.

Whether the officers who subjected Plaintiff to

imprisonment on the warrant acted reasonably is a question

that must be determined in this litigation assessing the

boundaries of due process. There is at this time no applicable

state or federal law immunity.

AFFIRMED.

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