Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-04046/USCOURTS-ca8-06-04046-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jeff W. Harris
Appellee
Richard M. Stufflebeam
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 06-4046

___________

Richard M. Stufflebeam, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Western District of Arkansas.

Jeff W. Harris, *

*

Defendant - Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: October 19, 2007

Filed: April 4, 2008

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, GRUENDER and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

Near the end of a routine traffic stop in May 2003, Arkansas State Police

Officer Jeff W. Harris asked the vehicle’s passenger, Richard M. Stufflebeam, to

identify himself. When Stufflebeam repeatedly refused, he was arrested for

knowingly obstructing, impairing, or hindering “the performance of any governmental

function.” Ark. Code Ann. § 5-54-102(a)(1). After the criminal charge was nolle

prossed, Stufflebeam filed this § 1983 action against Harris in his individual capacity.

Stufflebeam claims he was arrested without probable cause in violation of his Fourth

Amendment rights. The district court granted Harris’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion to

dismiss. Stufflebeam appeals. We reverse.

Appellate Case: 06-4046 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/04/2008 Entry ID: 3420441
1

Arkansas law requires the display of a valid license plate. See Ark. Code Ann.

§§ 27-14-304, -1005. But after producing the documents requested by Harris,

Stufflebeam’s grandson was not cited for a violation, no doubt because the purchaser

of a vehicle may operate it without a license plate for 30 days so long as the title or

notarized bill of sale is carried in the vehicle. See §§ 27-14-304, 701(c), 903(a)(2).

In any event, Stufflebeam concedes that Officer Harris had probable cause to stop the

vehicle. See Travis v. State, 959 S.W.2d 32, 34-35 (Ark. 1998). 

-2-

We review de novo the grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure

to state a claim, accepting the facts alleged in the complaint as true and granting all

reasonable inferences in favor of Stufflebeam, the nonmoving party. Gilmore v.

County of Douglas, Neb., 406 F.3d 935, 937 (8th Cir. 2005). Stufflebeam’s complaint

alleged few facts, but the parties agree that additional facts are part of the Rule 12

record because Stufflebeam attached Officer Harris’s Incident/Activity Report and the

subsequent criminal citation to his complaint. 

It is undisputed that Harris stopped the car being driven by Stufflebeam’s

grandson because it did not display a license plate. After the grandson produced his

driver’s license, proof of insurance, a bill of sale, and a title document,1

 Harris asked

the passenger, Stufflebeam, for his identification. Stufflebeam angrily replied, “You

can’t do that!” Harris replied that the law permitted him to ask for identification.

Stufflebeam again refused, stating, “You either arrest me and take me to jail or I don’t

have to show you anything!” Harris returned to his vehicle and requested back-up.

When two additional officers arrived, Harris asked Stufflebeam to exit the vehicle.

He complied but still refused to identify himself “with anger in his voice and

expression,” according to Harris’s report. Harris then arrested and handcuffed

Stufflebeam and removed everything from his pockets, including a wallet containing

a driver’s license that identified Stufflebeam. Harris placed Stufflebeam in the back

of the squad car, searched the vehicle “incident to the arrest” over the grandson’s

protest, and then released the grandson and drove Stufflebeam to a local jail where he

was booked for obstructing governmental operations. 

Appellate Case: 06-4046 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/04/2008 Entry ID: 3420441
2

See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

-3-

A warrantless arrest without probable cause violates the Fourth Amendment as

applied to state actors by the Fourteenth Amendment. Walker v. City of Pine Bluff,

414 F.3d 989, 992 (8th Cir. 2005). A state police officer has probable cause to arrest

if the facts and circumstances within his knowledge “are sufficient to warrant a

prudent person, or one of reasonable caution, in believing . . . that the suspect has

committed, is committing, or is about to commit an offense” under state law. United

States v. Brown, 49 F.3d 1346, 1349 (8th Cir. 1995) (quotation omitted). 

Stufflebeam was charged with violating § 5-54-102(a)(1), which prohibits the

knowing obstruction of Harris’s performance of a “governmental function,” which in

turn is defined as “any activity that a public servant is legally authorized to undertake

on behalf of any governmental unit he or she serves.” Ark. Code Ann. § 5-54-101(6).

Stufflebeam’s complaint alleges that he “was not suspected of any criminal activity”

and was arrested “simply because he would not identify himself.” Nothing in the

record suggests any obstruction other than Stufflebeam’s refusal to identify himself.

Thus, the primary question, one not addressed by the district court or carefully

analyzed by the parties on appeal, is whether Arkansas law permits a police officer to

arrest a person for refusing to identify himself when he is not suspected of other

criminal activity and his identification is not needed to protect officer safety or to

resolve whatever reasonable suspicions prompted the officer to initiate an on-going

traffic stop or Terry2

 stop. See Marrs v. Tuckey, 362 F. Supp. 2d 927, 939-46 (E.D.

Mich. 2005). We conclude it does not.

To establish the governmental function that is a necessary predicate for this

arrest, Harris relies exclusively on Rule 2.2 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal

Procedure. This Rule provides in relevant part: 

Appellate Case: 06-4046 Page: 3 Date Filed: 04/04/2008 Entry ID: 3420441
3

 In a case decided after the arrest in this case, the Supreme Court held that a

state law “requiring a suspect to disclose his name in the course of a valid Terry stop,”

and authorizing his arrest for refusal to comply, “did not contravene the guarantees of

the Fourth Amendment.” Hiibel v. Sixth Jud. Dist. Ct., 542 U.S. 177, 188-89 (2004).

The Arkansas criminal statutes and rules contain two provisions that fall within this

“stop and identify” category. See Ark. R. Crim. P. 3.1; Ark. Code Ann. § 5-71-

213(b)(2). However, Harris does not rely on these provisions, nor could he on this

record. 

-4-

Rule 2.2 Authority to request cooperation.

(a) A law enforcement officer may request any person to furnish

information or otherwise cooperate in the investigation or prevention of

crime. The officer may request the person to respond to questions . . . or

to comply with any other reasonable request.

(b) In making a request pursuant to this rule, no law enforcement

officer shall indicate that a person is legally obligated to furnish

information or to otherwise cooperate if no such legal obligation exists.

By threatening to arrest Stufflebeam if he refused to identify himself, Harris

“indicated” to Stufflebeam in no uncertain terms that he was legally obligated to

furnish this information. Yet Harris cites no provision of Arkansas law that created

a “legal obligation” to cooperate in this manner within the meaning of Rule 2.2(b).3

As Stufflebeam had no legal obligation to provide the information, his refusal to

comply with Harris’s improper demand did not obstruct a legitimate “governmental

function” within the meaning of § 5-54-102(a)(1). In other words, on these facts, the

authority conferred by Rule 2.2 did not provide Harris with probable cause to arrest

Stufflebeam for a violation of § 5-54-102(a)(1).

Our interpretation of Rule 2.2 is strongly reinforced by a Supreme Court of

Arkansas decision not cited by either party or by the district court. In Meadows v.

State, 602 S.W.2d 636 (Ark. 1980), narcotics investigators stopped two men for

Appellate Case: 06-4046 Page: 4 Date Filed: 04/04/2008 Entry ID: 3420441
-5-

suspiciously hurrying through the Little Rock airport. The officers asked for

identification, Meadows produced his driver’s license, and a computer check of the

license revealed an outstanding arrest warrant. Meadows was then arrested pursuant

to the warrant, and heroin was found during a search incident to the arrest. Reversing

the trial court, the Supreme Court of Arkansas suppressed the heroin. After rejecting

the State’s argument there was reasonable suspicion for the stop under Rule 3.1, the

Court turned to the State’s alternative argument that the request for identification was

proper under Rule 2.2. After quoting Rule 2.2(a), the Court rejected this contention:

We have emphasized the word “otherwise” [in the quote] because the

insertion of that word shows beyond question that the officer’s request

for information must be in aid of the investigation or prevention of

crime. Here there is nothing in the officers’ testimony to support a belief

that Officer Sanders asked Meadows for identification in the course of

a criminal investigation.

602 S.W.2d at 638. In a decision issued eighteen months after the arrest in this case,

the Arkansas Court reaffirmed its interpretation of Rule 2.2 in Meadows. See Jackson

v. State, 197 S.W.3d 468, 483 (Ark. 2004), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 1039 (2005). Here,

Harris called for back-up and extended the traffic stop in order to demand that a

passenger not suspected of criminal activity identify himself. Rule 2.2 as construed

in Meadows did not support this additional detention nor the arrest. Accordingly,

Harris lacked probable cause to arrest Stufflebeam for obstruction of a governmental

function or any other crime under Arkansas law.

Harris relies heavily on cases establishing that a police officer does not violate

the Fourth Amendment by inquiring into the identity of a vehicle’s passenger during

the course of a lawful traffic stop, even absent reasonable suspicion that the passenger

has committed a crime. United States v. Slater, 411 F.3d 1003, 1005-06 (8th Cir.

2005); see Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93, 100-02 (2005). These cases are not

controlling, because the issue here is whether the subsequent arrest, not the initial

request, violated the Fourth Amendment. Although we decide the probable cause

Appellate Case: 06-4046 Page: 5 Date Filed: 04/04/2008 Entry ID: 3420441
-6-

issue by applying the relevant Arkansas criminal statutes and rules as construed by the

Supreme Court of Arkansas, it is significant that our conclusion is consistent with the

Supreme Court’s recent categorical statement that “an officer may not arrest a suspect

for failure to identify himself if the request for identification is not reasonably related

to the circumstances justifying the stop.” Hiibel v. Sixth Jud. Dist. Ct., 542 U.S. 177,

188 (2004), distinguishing Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52-53 (1979). 

Harris also urges us to affirm the dismissal on the alternative ground of

qualified immunity, an issue the district court did not address. Qualified immunity

protects public officials “from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does

not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable

person would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). This

standard “gives ample room for mistaken judgments by protecting all but the plainly

incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S.

224, 229 (1991) (quotations omitted). Here, Harris acted contrary to the plain

meaning of Rule 2.2(b) and the law of Arkansas as clearly established in Meadows by

prolonging the detention and then arresting Stufflebeam, a passenger not suspected

of criminal activity, because he adamantly refused to comply with an unlawful

demand that he identify himself. Like the local police officers in Walker, 414 F.3d

at 993, Harris invoked § 5-54-102(a)(1) in circumstances in which no reasonable

police officer could believe he had probable cause to arrest this stubborn and irritating,

but law abiding citizen. On this record, Officer Harris is not entitled to dismissal of

Stufflebeam’s claim, either on the merits or based on qualified immunity.

The judgment of the district court is reversed.

______________________________

Appellate Case: 06-4046 Page: 6 Date Filed: 04/04/2008 Entry ID: 3420441