Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-09-03675/USCOURTS-ca7-09-03675-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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*

After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is

unnecessary.  Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.  See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2)(C).

  

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted June 23, 2010*

Decided August 5, 2010

Before

JOHN L. COFFEY, Circuit Judge

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

No. 09‐3675

CLAY E. RUSSELL,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

DALE DEVEREAUX, et al.,

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 07‐C‐621

Rudolph T. Randa,

Judge.

O R D E R

Clay E. Russell filed a civil rights complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging

that two officers of the Milwaukee Police Department, Dale Devereaux and Andrew

Deptula, violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they arrested him in connection with

a burglary and searched his vehicle on June 18, 2006.  Russell was taken to the police station

for questioning and released that same day without being charged.  The parties filed cross‐

motions for summary judgment and the district court granted summary judgment in favor

of the defendant police officers.  The judge determined that the defendants had probable

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 09‐3675 Page 2

1 A Milwaukee Police Department Investigative Alert is a Milwaukee Police

Department memorandum which is filled out by an officer and provides information

concerning a crime and a description of the suspect.  The memo is for internal use within

the police department.

cause to arrest Russell based on the inculpatory statement of a known thief and Russell’s co‐

conspirator, and thus were entitled to qualified immunity from Russell’s suit.  Plaintiff‐

appellant Russell appeals.  We affirm the trial judge’s grant of summary judgment.

Prior to defendants’ search of Russell’s vehicle on June 18, 2006, defendants had

information that Russell had been involved in a burglary and in the sale of stolen property.

Specifically, on August 11, 2005, after receiving information regarding Russell’s

involvement in a May 9, 2005 burglary from Darnell Bankhead, a known thief and Russell’s

co‐conspirator, the Milwaukee Police Department created a police department

memorandum entitled Milwaukee Police Department Investigative Alert (Not a Basis For

Arrest)1 which identified Russell as a suspect in the May 2005 burglary.  The officer who

prepared the memo cautioned that, to date, he had not confirmed the information from

Bankhead connecting Russell to the May 2005 burglary.  On August 15, 2005, after receiving

additional information from Bankhead concerning property he and Russell had stolen,

defendants went to the home of Roy Berry, a purchaser of the property Bankhead and

Russell stole.  Berry consented to a search of his home and identified for the police the

property that Bankhead and Russell sold to him.  The police recovered the stolen property

from Berry and Berry related that Bankhead and Russell brought him stolen property

almost every day between April and June of 2005.  Armed with this information, on June 18,

2006, while on patrol, Devereaux and Deptula observed Russell sitting in his car, confronted

him, placed him under arrest at the scene, and searched his vehicle without a warrant.  The

search uncovered drug paraphernalia and power tools matching the description of tools a

confidential informant told them Russell had been attempting to trade for drugs or money.

Officers Devereaux and Deptula also searched Russell’s vehicle on July 27, 2006,

after an informant told them that Russell had again been attempting to trade stolen property

for drugs.  When the officers approached Russell sleeping in his car, they observed bolt

cutters, which Russell admitted were not his.  According to the officers, Russell consented to

the search of his vehicle and the bold cutters were confiscated.  Russell alleges that the July

27, 2006 search was also illegal but failed to explain why that search was illegal.  Because he

failed to develop any legal argument to support his claim that the July 27, 2006 search of his

vehicle was illegal, that claim is waived.  See Fredricksen v. United Parcel Serv., Co., 581 F.3d

516, 523‐24 (7th Cir. 2009).  Russell’s appeal briefs also make reference to Detective Donald

Laura, but presented no information to support a claim concerning Det. Laura and the

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No. 09‐3675 Page 3

record contains no evidence that Det. Laura was involved in any search of Russell’s vehicle.

Thus, any claims against Det. Laura concerning the alleged illegal search of Russell’s vehicle

are waived.

In granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant police officers, the trial

court concluded that it was reasonable for the officers to believe their arrest and search of

Russell’s vehicle on June 18, 2006 was lawful, and thus they were entitled to qualified

immunity.  In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that, under New York v. Belton, 453

U.S. 454, 460 (1981), and Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615, 617 (2004), the defendants’

warrantless search of Russell’s car shortly after he was in custody was constitutional so long

as his arrest was lawful.  The district judge further explained that recently the United States

Supreme Court held in Arizona v. Gant, 129 S. Ct. 1710, 1714 (2009) that once an arrestee is in

custody, a warrantless search of his recently occupied car is permitted “when it is

reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest might be found” inside the

vehicle.  The judge noted that because “a broad reading” of Belton and Thornton had been

“widely accepted” in 2006, the time defendants searched Russell’s vehicle, the defendants

were legally permitted to search Russell’s vehicle so long as they had probable cause to

arrest him. See Gant, 129 S. Ct. at 1722 n.11.  The district judge ruled that Bankhead’s

inculpatory statement made to the police and included in the police department memo

provided the officers with probable cause to arrest Russell.  Thus, the trial court concluded

that the defendants’s search of Russell’s vehicle was lawful and they are entitled to qualified

immunity.

On appeal, Russell argues that the trial court erred when concluding that Bankhead’s

inculpatory statement concerning Russell’s involvement in a burglary given to the police

provided the officers with probable cause to arrest him and thus they should not be granted

qualified immunity.  Specifically, Russell notes that almost one year had passed since

Bankhead leveled his accusations, that over one year had passed since the burglary itself,

and that the police department memorandum, without more, was not supposed to be the

basis of an arrest.  He insists that without additional information from further investigation

or fresh corroboration, no reasonable officer would have thought that Bankhead’s “stale”

charges constituted probable cause for his arrest.

When reviewing the grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants‐

appellees, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff‐appellant,

Russell.  See Gayton v. McCoy, 593 F.3d 610, 620 (7th Cir. 2010).  We review de novo the

question of qualified immunity; as the parties have framed it, that question is whether the

officers violated Russell’s “clearly established” right not to be arrested without probable

cause.  See Sandra T.E. v. Grindle, 599 F.3d 583, 587 (7th Cir. 2010).

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No. 09‐3675 Page 4

Qualified immunity “protects police officers ‘who act in ways they reasonably

believe to be lawful.’”  Wheeler v. Lawson, 539 F.3d 629, 639 (7th Cir. 2008) (quoting Anderson

v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638‐39 (1987)).  It also “provides ‘ample room for mistaken

judgment.’”  Id. (quoting Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227 (1991)).

At the time of the incident in question, June 18, 2006, the law was that when a police

officer makes a lawful arrest, “the Fourth Amendment allows the officer to search the

passenger compartment of [a] vehicle as a contemporaneous incident of arrest.”  Thornton,

541 U.S. at 617; see also Belton, 453 U.S. at 460.  The United States Supreme Court recently

limited the scope of Belton to instances “when it is reasonable to believe that evidence of the

offense of arrest might be found in the vehicle.”  Gant, 129 S. Ct. at 1714.  The Supreme

Court further explained in Gant that since Thornton and Belton had been widely accepted,

qualified immunity shields “officers from liability for searches conducted in reasonable

reliance” on the understanding that officers are legally permitted to search a vehicle

subsequent to a lawful arrest.  Id. at 1723 n. 11.

To establish that an arrest was unlawful in violation of the Fourth Amendment, a

plaintiff must prove he/she was arrested without probable cause. See Williams v. Rodriguez,

509 F.3d 392, 398 (7th Cir. 2007). An officer has probable cause to make an arrest “if at the

time of the arrest, the officers possess knowledge from reasonably trustworthy information

that is sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing that a suspect has committed, or is

committing, a crime.”  United States v. Brown, 366 F.3d 456, 458 (7th Cir. 2004).  It “does not

require evidence sufficient to support a conviction, nor even evidence demonstrating that it

is more likely than not that the suspect committed a crime.”  Wheeler, 539 F.3d at 634

(quoting United States v. Sawyer, 224 F.3d 675, 679 (7th Cir. 2000)).

Based on the record before us, it is clear that a reasonable officer would have

believed that probable cause supported Russell’s arrest in June of 2006.  The police

department memorandum dated August 11, 2005 contained a statement from Russell’s co‐

conspirator, Bankhead, implicating Russell in a May 2005 burglary.  The officers

corroborated Bankhead’s statement regarding Russell’s involvement in the May 2005

burglary through their conversation with Berry and their search of Berry’s home.

Particularly, Berry confirmed that in mid‐2005 Russell and Bankhead were working as a

team in jointly committing burglary.  Furthermore, the officers’ search of Berry’s home

turned up stolen property; property that Berry stated he had purchased from Bankhead and

Russell.  Finally, a confidential informant told the officers that Russell had been attempting

to trade power tools for drug money.

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No. 09‐3675 Page 5

Russell argues that the police department memorandum alone could not be the basis

of the arrest.  However, the officer’s further investigation, namely Berry’s statement that

Bankhead and Russell brought him stolen property every day from April to June of 2005

and their search of his home which uncovered stolen property, shows that the police

department memorandum alone was not the basis for the arrest.  Russell also contends that

the probable cause became stale because nearly one year had passed since the defendants’

investigation.  But probable cause to make an arrest grows “stale only if it emerges that it

was based on since discredited information.”  United States v. Bizier, 111 F.3d 214, 219 (1st

Cir. 1997).  There is no evidence in the record and Russell failed to produced any evidence

that discredits the information the officers received during their investigation.  Thus, we

hold that the officers had probable cause to arrest Russell at the time of his apprehension

and the district court appropriately granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

AFFIRMED.

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