Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56122/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56122-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Magnolia Becerra
Appellant
Johnny Cervantes
Appellee
Nicholas Cho
Appellee
City of Los Angeles
Appellee
Javier Cortez
Appellant
Sasha Costanza-Chock
Appellant
Joseph Holliday
Appellant
Elizabeth Lopez
Appellant
James Duff Lyall
Appellant
Jessica Rodriguez
Appellant
David Ross
Appellee
Benjamin Wood
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JAMES DUFF LYALL, individually

and as class representatives; JAVIER

CORTEZ, individually and as class

representatives; MAGNOLIA

BECERRA, individually and as class

representatives; SASHA COSTANZACHOCK, individually and as class

representatives; JOSEPH HOLLIDAY,

individually and as class

representatives; BENJAMIN WOOD,

individually and as class

representatives; ELIZABETH LOPEZ,

individually and as class

representatives; JESSICA RODRIGUEZ,

individually and as class

representatives,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, a public

entity; DAVID ROSS, (#33632),

individually and in his official

capacity; JOHNNY CERVANTES,

(#27374), individually and in his

official capacity; NICHOLAS CHO,

(#39259), individually and in his

official capacity,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 13-56122

D.C. No.

2:09-cv-07353-

MAN

OPINION

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2 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Margaret A. Nagle, Magistrate Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

June 5, 2015—Pasadena, California

Filed December 4, 2015

Before: Jay S. Bybee and Carlos T. Bea, Circuit Judges,

and Elizabeth E. Foote,*

 District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Bybee

SUMMARY**

Civil Rights

The panel affirmed the district’s judgment entered

following a jury verdict, affirmed the district court’s

summary judgment in favor of defendants on the basis of

Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), and reversed the

district court’s summary judgment in favor of defendants

with respect to a warrantless-entryclaim, in an action brought

pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

* The Honorable Elizabeth E. Foote, District Judge for the U.S. District

Court for the Western District of Louisiana, 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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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 3

Plaintiffs alleged that police officers violated their First

andFourteenth Amendment rights when theyentered, without

a warrant, a warehouse where plaintiffs were attending a

musical event and subsequently searched and detained them. 

Affirming the district court, the panel held that the majority

of the plaintiffs, who were merely attending the event, lacked

standing to challenge the warrantless entry because they had

no grounds upon which to claim a reasonable expectation of

privacy in the warehouse. The panel further held that event

organizer Javiar Cortez was subject to the Heck bar regarding

his unreasonable seizure claim because he had not challenged

the validity of his California Penal Code § 415 disturbing the

peace conviction, arising from the encounter with the officers. 

The panel rejected all of the plaintiffs’ claims of error

regarding the jury instructions given at trial. 

The panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary

judgment with respect to Cortez’s and plaintiff Elizabeth

Lopez’s warrantless-entry claims. The panel held that Cortez

and Lopez, who were organizers of the event and thus were

in possession of the warehouse on the night of the event, had

standing to challenge the officers’ entry into the warehouse. 

The panel accordingly remanded their warrantless-entry

claims for trial.

COUNSEL

Donald W. Cook (argued), Los Angeles, California, for

Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Lisa S. Berger (argued), Deputy City Attorney, Michael N.

Feuer, City Attorney, Amy Jo Field, Supervising City

Attorney, Los Angeles, California, for Defendants-Appellees.

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4 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

OPINION

BYBEE, Circuit Judge:

The eight plaintiffs in this case were all present at a

musical event and fundraiser held in a downtown Los

Angeles warehouse on November 16, 2008. During the

event, several officers of the Los Angeles Police Department

(LAPD), who were looking for suspects who had stolen beer

from a nearby convenience store, entered the warehouse

without a warrant, rounded up the attendees, searched them

for weapons, and required them to participate in a field showup with a witness to the beer theft. A number of

attendees—including two of the plaintiffs here—were

arrested for resisting the officers.

The plaintiffs brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,

alleging that the officers’ warrantless entry into the

warehouse and their subsequent searching and detention of

everyone inside violated the attendees’ First and Fourth

Amendment rights. The district court granted summary

judgment to the defendants with respect to the warrantlessentry claims, holding that no plaintiff had standing to

challenge the warrantless entry. It also granted summary

judgment to the defendants with respect to the unreasonableseizure claim of plaintiff Javier Cortez, which the district

court held was barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477

(1994). The remainder of the claims went to a jury, which

found for the defendants on all counts.

We affirm the judgment below in most respects: We

agree that the majority of the plaintiffs lack standing to

challenge the warrantless entry, we conclude that the district

court’s holding that Cortez is subject to the Heck bar was

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 5

correct, and we reject all of the plaintiffs’ claims of error

regarding the jury instructions given at trial. But we reverse

the district court’s grant of summary judgment with respect

to Cortez’s and plaintiff Elizabeth Lopez’s warrantless-entry

claims. Cortez and Lopez, who were organizers of the event

and thus were in possession of the warehouse on the night of

November 16, have standing to challenge the officers’ entry

into the warehouse. We accordingly remand their

warrantless-entry claims for trial.

I

A. The Events of November 16, 2008

In November 2008, a group of activists, including

plaintiffs Javier Cortez and Elizabeth Lopez, organized a

“musical and artistic event” designed to raise money for the

upcomingLos Angeles Anarchist Book Fair. Ulises Ramirez,

another of the organizers, received permission from his friend

Josh Haglund to hold the event in a warehouse in downtown

Los Angeles that Haglund was subletting and using as an

artistic work space.1 The event was scheduled for the night

of November 16 and was to feature several musical

performers, along with artists working on screen prints and

drawings. The organizers publicized the event broadly

through MySpace and various email lists, and approximately

100 people attended.

 

1

 Haglund was the sole sublessee listed on the sublease agreement. He

later testified, however, that various friends helped him pay the rent at

times. Haglund gave several of these friends keys to the warehouse,

including plaintiff Joseph Holliday, who paid Haglund for the right to use

the warehouse to construct sets for a student film.

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6 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

On the night of the event, a group of unknown persons

allegedly stole bottles of beer from a convenience store about

a mile from the warehouse. Police dispatch put out a call

describing the suspects as “six male Hispanic juveniles”

wearing “‘rocker type’ clothing” and giving the license plate

number of the pickup truck the suspects were driving. Two

LAPD officers, Johnny Cervantes and Nicholas Cho,

responded to the dispatch call and, after searching the area,

located the suspects’ truck parked around the corner from the

warehouse. The two officers determined that there appeared

to be some kind of party going on at the warehouse, which

was unusual given the time of day (Sunday night), and they

observed people wearing what they deemed to be “rocker

type” clothing going inside. On this basis, Officers Cho and

Cervantes decided to investigate the warehouse.

Cortez was standing near the half-open door of the

warehouse as the officers approached. The officers told

Cortez that they were conducting a theft investigation and

needed to speak to whomever was in charge of the event. 

Cortez told the officers that the event was a “private party”

and that they could not come in unless they had a search

warrant. He then began backing toward the warehouse. 

The officers observed that Cortez—who is Hispanic and

who was wearing dark clothing—matched the general

description of the theft suspects and ordered him to stop. 

Cortez did not comply with this order; instead, he turned and

ran into the warehouse. He then attempted to close the door,

but Officer Cervantes struggled with him and was able to

push the door open. The two officers entered the warehouse,

seeking to subdue Cortez.

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 7

Once inside the warehouse, the officers observed Cortez

“walking towards a large group.” They ordered Cortez

several more times to stop, but he did not do so. The officers

then grabbed Cortez and began struggling with him. The

crowd around Cortez shouted at the officers to let him go and

moved toward the officers in what the officers described as an

“aggressive manner.” The officers dragged Cortez toward the

door, with the crowd continuing to protest. As the officers

reached the door, they were struck in the back of the head by

a thin, light wooden partition that had been erected near the

front door. (It is not known whether someone intentionally

pushed over the partition or whether it simply fell by

accident.) The impact startled the officers, but they were not

injured. The two made it out of the warehouse, at which

point Officer Cho handcuffed Cortez and took him into

custody while Officer Cervantes called for backup.

Several officers responded to the call for backup,

including Sergeant David Ross, who took charge at the scene. 

When the backup officers arrived, the crowd went back inside

the warehouse, and James Lyall, one of the attendees, closed

the door with the help of another man. The police began

speaking to the attendees through the door, telling them to

open it and come out. Lyall, an attorney, responded that the

officers needed a warrant to come in. After a few minutes of

back-and-forth between Lyall and the officers, Lyall broke

off the conversation and moved away from the door. At that

point, a group of attendees decided they wanted to obey the

officers’ orders and come out of the warehouse. After this

group went out the door, Sasha Costanza-Chock, another

attendee at the event, tried to close the door behind them, but

the police pushed it open and ordered everyone out.

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8 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

As the police began to clear out the warehouse, plaintiff

Joseph Holliday, who was not participating in the event but

was present at the warehouse that evening to work on sets for

a student film, decided to go up on the roof of the warehouse

with his assistant “rather than get pulled out the front and get

arrested.” Once the two reached the roof, they jumped across

to the roof of a neighboring warehouse. A police helicopter

located Holliday and his companion and ordered them off the

roof. Holliday stayed briefly on the roof to place a cell-phone

call to his mother but eventually complied with the order and

came down. Holliday and his assistant were arrested for

resisting a peace officer; they were later released without

being formally charged with any offense.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Ross lined the rest of the event

attendees against a chain-link fence. The police then

conducted pat-down searches of all of the attendees for

weapons. They also conducted a “field ‘show-up’” with a

witness from the convenience store in an attempt to identify

suspects in the theft. The witness identified one person in the

lineup, Eduardo Ramirez, and the police put Ramirez under

arrest. Several other attendees, including Cortez, were

arrested for resisting a peace officer in violation of California

Penal Code § 148. After about 45 minutes, the police

permitted the attendees in the line-up to leave the area. 

Sergeant Ross then padlocked the warehouse door shut in

order to secure the building.

Two days after the event, on November 18, 2008, Cortez

pleaded guilty to an infraction2 violation of California Penal

2

In California, a minor offense can be prosecuted as an “infraction”

rather than as a misdemeanor. Cal. Penal Code § 17(d)(1). Infractions are

not punishable by imprisonment and are not tried to juries. Id. § 19.6.

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 9

Code § 415 (disturbing the peace) based on his encounter

with the officers. Cortez was entitled to appeal the judgment

of conviction under California law, Cal. Penal Code

§ 1466(b)(1), but did not do so. He later attempted to

expunge the conviction but was unable to do so because

expungement is not available for infractions. See id.

§ 1203.4(b).

B. Procedural Background

Two groups of plaintiffs represented by the same attorney

ultimately filed materially identical lawsuits against the City

of Los Angeles, the LAPD, Chief of Police William Bratton,

and six officers present at the scene, including Officers Ross,

Cho, and Cervantes. The plaintiffs in the first lawsuit, which

commenced in October 2009, were Lyall, Cortez, CostanzaChock, Holliday, and three additional attendees at the event: 

D’Angelo Jones, Magnolia Becerra, and Benjamin Wood.

The plaintiffs in the second lawsuit, which commenced in

September 2010, were Lopez and Jessica Rodriguez, an

attendee.3 The complaint in each case stated three claims: 

(1) a § 1983 claim for violation of the plaintiffs’ First

Amendment rights of free speech and association; (2) a

§ 1983 claim for violation of the Fourth Amendment, based

on the officers’ warrantless entry into the warehouse, their

arrest of several of the plaintiffs, the pat-down searches of the

plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs’ detention in the field show-up;

3 The plaintiffs sued as representatives of a class consisting of all of the

100 attendees at the event, but the district court denied their motion for

class certification on the grounds that their class definition was inadequate

and that the class members’ warrantless-entry claims presented

individualized questions of law not susceptible to a “blanket

determination.” Plaintiffs have not appealed that decision.

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10 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

and (3) a claim under the Bane Act, a California statute that

provides a cause of action for persons deprived of federal or

state constitutional rights by “threat, intimidation, or

coercion.” Cal. Civ. Code § 52.1(b).

After discovery, the defendants moved for partial

summary judgment in the Lyall case, arguing (among other

things) that Cortez’s unreasonable-seizure claim was barred

by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), because it

challenged the validity of his § 415 conviction, which had not

been vacated or overturned, and that the plaintiffs’ Fourth

Amendment claims relating to the warrantless entry into the

warehouse failed as a matter of law because none of the

plaintiffs had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the

warehouse.4 The plaintiffs cross-moved for summary

judgment on their Fourth Amendment claims.

The district court granted summary judgment to the

defendants on the plaintiffs’warrantless-entryclaims, holding

that none of the plaintiffs had a reasonable expectation of

privacy in the warehouse. The court determined that most of

the plaintiffs were simply attendees at an open, widely

publicized event and that they had no “possessory interest, or

any other connection to the warehouse that might reasonably

confer an expectation of privacy.” It then rejected Cortez’s

argument that his status as an organizer of the event entitled

him to Fourth Amendment standing, explaining that “mere

4 The defendants also sought summary judgment on all claims against

Police Chief Bratton and two of the named officers, on the ground that

there was insufficient evidence for the plaintiffs to proceed against those

three defendants. The court granted summary judgment with respect to

Bratton and the two officers, and the plaintiffs do not appeal that

determination.

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 11

permission to use a space” for a public event did not create a

reasonable expectation of privacy. Finally, the court

determined that Holliday, despite his payments to Haglund

for access to the warehouse, was not a “co-tenant” there, and

it held that even if Holliday were a co-tenant, he could assert,

at most, a “limited possessory interest” in the warehouse that

“would not have conferred a reasonable expectation of

privacy in the space on the night in question.”

The court also granted summary judgment to the

defendants with respect to Cortez’s unreasonable-seizure

claim, holding that that claim was barred by Heck because it

challenged the validity of his § 415 conviction, which had not

been vacated, expunged, or otherwise disturbed. The court

deemed it irrelevant that Cortez was unable to seek habeas

relief due to the brevity of his time in custody, because

California law gave Cortez a right of direct appeal from his

infraction conviction and he had not pursued such an appeal.

The court denied the plaintiffs’ cross-motion for summary

judgment, holding that the claims remaining in the case

involved genuine issues of material fact that would need to go

to the jury.

5

Lyall and Lopez were consolidated for trial, which

occurred in May 2013. The jury returned a verdict for the

defendants on all counts. It found that the plaintiffs had not

5 The district court later considered cross-motions for summary

judgment in the Lopez case. Applying the reasoning ofits Lyallsummaryjudgment order, the district court held that Lopez and Rodriguez did not

have standing to challenge the warrantless entry. It accordingly granted

summary judgment to the defendants on the warrantless-entry claims

while sending the rest of the plaintiffs’ claims to trial.

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12 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

proven by a preponderance of the evidence (1) that any

plaintiff had been unreasonably searched or detained, (2) that

Holliday had been arrested without probable cause, (3) that

any plaintiff’s First Amendment rights had been violated, or

(4) that any defendant had intentionally interfered with any

plaintiff’s civil rights by threats, intimidation, or coercion in

violation of the Bane Act. The plaintiffs timely appealed the

judgment,6and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II

The plaintiffs’ first claim on appeal is that the district

court erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants

on the plaintiffs’ warrantless-entry claims. We review the

district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo and “will

uphold [the]summary judgment if there is no genuine dispute

as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment

as a matter of law.” Kohler v. Bed Bath & Beyond of Cal.,

LLC, 780 F.3d 1260, 1263 (9th Cir. 2015) (quoting Fed. R.

Civ. P. 56(a)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

We note at the outset that the district court analyzed the

plaintiffs’ challenges to the warrantless entry solely under the

reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test derived from the

Supreme Court’s decision in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S.

347 (1967). After the district court ruled on the defendants’

summary-judgment motions, however, the Supreme Court

decided United States v. Jones, in which it considered the

question whether the placement of a GPS device on a

suspect’s car to track the suspect’s movements on public

 

6

 One plaintiff, D’Angelo Jones, elected not to appeal and is no longer

a party to this case.

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 13

streets was a “search” subject to the Fourth Amendment’s

warrant requirement. 132 S. Ct. 945 (2012).

The government in Jones argued that no search had

occurred because a person has no reasonable expectation of

privacy in the movement of his car over public streets, but the

Court declined even to consider that argument. Id. at 950. 

The Court instead cited to the Fourth Amendment’s

protection of “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their

persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable

searches and seizures,” and held that physically trespassing

to place a GPS device on one of the suspect’s “effects”—i.e.,

his car—was a search requiring a warrant. Id. at 949. The

Supreme Court held that the reasonable-expectation-ofprivacy test from Katz is not the exclusive metric by which

courts should determine whether a Fourth Amendment

“search” has occurred. See id. at 950 (stating that a person’s

“Fourth Amendment rights do not rise or fall with the Katz

formulation”). Rather, “the Katz reasonable-expectation-ofprivacy test has been added to, not substituted for, the

common-law trespassory test.” Id. at 952; see Soldal v. Cook

Cnty., 506 U.S. 56, 62–64 (1992) (“[O]ur cases unmistakably

hold that the [Fourth] Amendment protects property as well

as privacy. . . . [T]he message of . . . cases [like Katz] is that

property rights are not the sole measure of Fourth

Amendment violations.”).

Jones simply reaffirmed that when the government

“physically occupie[s] private property for the purpose of

obtaining information,” a Fourth Amendment search occurs,

regardless whether the intrusion violated any reasonable

expectation of privacy. 132 S. Ct. at 949; see also, e.g.,

Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368, 1370 (2015) (per

curiam) (applying Jones and holding that the attachment of a

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14 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

GPS tracking device to a person’s body was a search);

Florida v. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. 1409, 1417 (2013) (applying

Jones and holding that the use of police dogs to investigate

the curtilage of a home was a search). Only where the search

did not involve a physical trespass do courts need to consult

Katz’s reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test. See Jones,

132 S. Ct. at 953.

But even if a trespassory search occurred, that does not

end our inquiry. Jones did not change the fundamental tenet

that “Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights which,

like some other constitutional rights, may not be vicariously

asserted.” Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 174

(1969). “In order to qualify as a ‘person aggrieved by an

unlawful search and seizure’ one must have been a victim of

a search or seizure, one against whom the search was

directed, as distinguished from one who claims prejudice only

through the use of evidence gathered as a consequence of a

search or seizure directed at someone else.” Id. at 173

(quoting Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 261 (1960)). 

In other words, when police trespass on property to carry out

a search, a defendant has standing to raise the Fourth

Amendment only if it was his person, house, paper, or effect

searched. The Court in Jones did not discuss standing for a

simple reason: There, no one disputed that Jones lawfully

possessed the car that the officers trespassed on during their

search. Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 949 n.2. After Jones, even when

officers carry out a common-law trespassory search, the

question remains: Whose Fourth Amendment rights were

violated?7

7

In addition to challenging the warrantless entry under the Fourth

Amendment, the plaintiffs allege that the entry violated their rights under

Article I, Section 13 of the California Constitution, which contains

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 15

The Fourth Amendment shields not only actual owners,

but also anyone with sufficient possessory rights over the

property searched. Our own cases have thoroughly discussed

what types of possessory rights create standing under the

Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., United States v. Thomas,

447 F.3d 1191, 1197–99 (9th Cir. 2006); United States v.

Cormier, 220 F.3d 1103, 1108 (9th Cir. 2000).8 To be

shielded by the Fourth Amendment, a person needs “some

joint control and supervision of the place searched,” not

merely permission to be there. See United States v. Lockett,

919 F.2d 585, 588 (9th Cir. 1990) (citation and internal

quotation marks omitted);see also Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S.

128, 143 (1978) (holding that Fourth Amendment standing

cannot be conferred merely because a person is “legitimately

on the premises” (brackets omitted)); United States v. Johns,

language virtually identical to that of the Fourth Amendment. Cal. Const.

art. I, § 13. But the plaintiffs have failed to cite any authority for the

proposition that Article I, Section 13 provides greater protection against

searches and seizures than the Fourth Amendment. We have held that it

does not. Sanchez v. Cnty. of San Diego, 464 F.3d 916, 928–29 (9th Cir.

2006) (“[T]he right to be free from unreasonable searches under [Article

I, Section 13] parallels the Fourth Amendment inquiry.”). We will

therefore analyze the lawfulness of the warrantless entry solely under the

Fourth Amendment.

8

In these cases, we essentially conflated the trespassory-search and

reasonable-expectation-of-privacy tests for Fourth Amendment standing. 

That is, we required a sufficient possessory interest in property in order for

the defendant to have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the property. 

See Thomas, 447 F.3d at 1198–99; Cormier, 220 F.3d at 1108. In light of

Jones, we recognize that the two tests for Fourth Amendment standing are

separate and that a person may have Fourth Amendment standing to

challenge a search based on his possessory interest in property

independent of any reasonable expectation of privacy in the property. 

Nevertheless, we believe these cases are useful for determining the types

of possessory interests that grant a person standing to challenge a search.

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16 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

851 F.2d 1131, 1136 (9th Cir. 1988) (person had standing

because he had joint “control” over storage unit). For

example, where a defendant not only has the right to possess

a location, but also the right to exclude others, he likely has

Fourth Amendment standing to challenge searches there. See

Rakas, 439 U.S. at 149 (holding that a defendant with

permission to ride in a car did not have standing to challenge

a search, and distinguishing a case where a defendant “not

only had permission to use the [location searched] . . . but . . .

had complete dominion and control over the [location] and

could exclude others from it”).

For purposes of our analysis, we divide the plaintiffs into

three groups: (1) the five plaintiffs who were merely

attending the event, (2) Joseph Holliday, who paid Haglund

for the right to work on film sets in the warehouse, and

(3) Cortez and Lopez, who organized the event and received

permission from Haglund to use the warehouse.

A. Event Attendees (Lyall, Costanza-Chock, Becerra, Wood,

and Rodriguez)

The officers’ warrantless entry into the warehouse did not

infringe any protected Fourth Amendment interest of the

plaintiffs who were merely attending the event, whether

considered under either the Jones trespass test or Katz’s

reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test.

These five plaintiffs have not asserted any ownership

interests in the places searched, so they must rely on Katz’s

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 17

reasonable expectation of privacy framework.9 And they

have no grounds on which to claim a reasonable expectation

of privacy in the warehouse. They happened to be inside the

warehouse when the police entered, but that fact, without

more, is insufficient to confer Fourth Amendment standing. 

See Rakas, 439 U.S. at 135, 141–43 (holding that the mere

fact that a person is “legitimately on premises where a search

occurs” is not enough to show that the search infringed the

person’s expectation of privacy); United States v. Armenta,

69 F.3d 304, 309 (9th Cir. 1995) (evidence suggesting, at

most, that defendant was legitimately on the premises

9 Although courts of appeals do not appear to have taken up the

ownership question since Jones, the Court there instructed that we should

apply the common-law trespass theory as it has always existed—which

requires a sufficient possessory interest in the property beyond mere

permission to remain on the property searched. The district courts that

have addressed this question post-Jones take the same view that a

sufficient ownership interest is required to confer standing. See, e.g.,

United States v. Houseal, No. 3:11CR-143-H, 2014 WL 626765, at *6

(W.D. Ky. Feb. 18, 2014) (“[A] defendant who does not have either a

lawful ownership interest, or a possessory interest in [property] at the time

of the search does not possess a legitimate expectation of privacy that the

Fourth Amendment will protect.”); United States v. Figueroa-Cruz, 914

F. Supp. 2d 1250, 1261–62 (N.D. Ala. 2012) (“Under the reasonable

expectation of privacy test ownership, and presumably a legal bailment[,]

while perhaps factors to be considered, are not dispositive. . . . In Jones

however, the attachment of the GPS device only becomes a search within

the meaning of the Fourth Amendment precisely because of an actual

property interest.” (brackets omitted)); United States v. Luna-Santillanes,

No. 11-20492, 2012 WL 1019601, at *7 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 26, 2012)

(defendants lacked standing to challenge placement of GPS devices on

vehicles because they had not presented any evidence “showing either an

ownership or contractual interest in any of these vehicles or exclusivity of

use”); United States v. Hanna, No. 11-20678-CR, 2012 WL 279435, at *3

(S.D. Fla. Jan. 30, 2012) (“Under . . . Jones, an essential component of the

Fourth Amendment claim requires that one’s own personal ‘effects’ have

been trespassed . . . .”).

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18 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

searched was “insufficient to demonstrate a legitimate

expectation of privacy”).

B. Joseph Holliday

Joseph Holliday’s claim to a protected Fourth

Amendment interest in the warehouse is stronger than that of

a mere attendee at the November 16 event. Holliday was

making regular payments to Haglund, the subtenant of the

warehouse, so Holliday could use the warehouse to construct

film sets. Holliday argues that this arrangement made him a

“co-tenant” of the warehouse with a reasonable expectation

of privacy and a property interest therein.

We hold that Holliday had neither sufficient possessory

rights, nor a reasonable expectation of privacy, in the

warehouse. First, Holliday has insufficient possessory rights

to raise Fourth Amendment concerns. He was not in

possession of the warehouse on the night of November 16; he

had moved his film sets out of the way to allow the space to

be used for the event, and he was there solely as an attendee. 

Haglund referred to Holliday as simply one of several

“friends of mine who have helped pay the rent” and to whom

he had given keys. He told Holliday at the outset of their

relationship that others would be given access to the

warehouse and that Holliday would need to “make room” for

them as circumstances warranted. And most importantly,

Holliday did not have the right to exclude others from any

portion of the warehouse. Tellingly, Holliday stated in his

deposition that he did not feel that his permission was

required before the November 16 event could be held. 

Nothing about Holliday’s arrangement with Haglund

“indicates joint control and supervision” of the warehouse.

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 19

For the same reasons, we likewise hold that Holliday

cannot prevail under a reasonable-expectation-of-privacy

theory. Any expectation of privacy Holliday had in the space

was inextricably tied to his ownership or possessory rights

over the areas searched. See, e.g., United States v. Nohara,

3 F.3d 1239, 1242 (9th Cir. 1993). And as explained above,

he did not possess such rights when the officers conducted

their search.

C. Event Organizers (Cortez and Lopez)

We part ways with the district court with respect to Cortez

and Lopez—the two plaintiffs who were present at the

November 16 event not as attendees but as organizers. 

Cortez and Lopez have standing to challenge the officers’

warrantless entry under Jones, and the district court therefore

erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants on

their warrantless-entry claims.

Unlike the attendees at the event, Cortez, Lopez, and the

other organizers of the event were not “mere visitors,” as the

defendants claim; they had received permission from

Haglund to use the warehouse on November 16 and were in

charge of the property that night. The organizers had

possession of the warehouse, the right to control it, and the

right to bring an action in trespass against intruders.10See

Smith v. Cap Concrete Inc., 184 Cal. Rptr. 308, 310 (Ct. App.

1982) (“The cause of action for trespass is designed to protect

possessory—not necessarily ownership—interests in land

from unlawful interference. The proper plaintiff in an action

10 Haglund did not charge the organizers money for their use of the

space, but that is an irrelevant fortuity. It does not diminish the

organizers’ right to exclude others from the warehouse.

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20 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

for trespass to real property is the person in actual possession

. . . .” (citations omitted)). After Cortez impeded Officers

Cho and Cervantes at the warehouse door and objected to

their presence, the officers’ entry into the warehouse was

trespassory, thereby implicating Jones. See Thomas,

447 F.3d at 1199 (holding that an unauthorized driver of a

rental car may have standing to challenge a search of the

vehicle if he has permission to use the car from the authorized

driver); see also Jones, 362 U.S. at 259, 265–67 (holding

Jones had standing to challenge a search of his friend’s

apartment when the friend gave him use of the apartment and

a key).

The defendants argue that, even if Cortez and Lopez (or

any other plaintiff) can show that they had a protected Fourth

Amendment interest in the warehouse, we can affirm the

grant of summary judgment on the ground that the entry was

justified by exigent circumstances. We disagree. In a § 1983

case, the question whether exigent circumstances existed is

generally one for the jury. See, e.g., Fisher v. City of San

Jose, 558 F.3d 1069, 1071 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc); Hancock

v. Dodson, 958 F.2d 1367, 1375 (6th Cir. 1992) (“In a civil

[§ 1983] action, the determination of whether exigent

circumstances exist is properly resolved by the jury.”). We

can affirm the judgment, therefore, only if “the underlying

facts are essentially undisputed, and . . . a finder of fact could

reach but one conclusion as to the existence of exigent

circumstances.” Hancock, 958 F.2d at 1375.

In this case, a trier of fact could easily conclude that no

exigent circumstances existed to justify the warrantless entry. 

We have held that “while the commission of a misdemeanor

offense,” such as the petty theft that Officers Cho and

Cervantes were investigating, “is not to be taken lightly, it

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 21

militates against a finding of exigent circumstances where the

offense . . . is not inherently dangerous.” United States v.

Struckman, 603 F.3d 731, 745 (9th Cir. 2010). A jury could

thus decide that the officers’ search for the suspects in the

beer theft—who police were not even sure were in the

warehouse—did not justify a warrantless entry. Similarly, a

jurycould conclude that Cortez’s behavior toward the officers

did not justify entering the warehouse without a warrant to

apprehend him. Any crime Cortez had committed was minor,

and there was little chance that he would flee or destroy

evidence.

We therefore cannot hold as a matter of law that exigent

circumstances justified the officers’ warrantless entry. The

question of exigent circumstances should be put to the trier of

fact on remand.

* * *

Because Cortez’s and Lopez’s possessory interest in the

warehouse on the night of November 16 gave them standing

to challenge the warrantless entry under Jones, the district

court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants on

Cortez’s and Lopez’s warrantless-entry claims was error,

regardless whether they had a reasonable expectation of

privacy in the warehouse—a question we do not decide. See

Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1417 (“One virtue of the Fourth

Amendment’s property-rights baseline is that it keeps easy

cases easy. That the officers . . . physically intrud[ed] on [a

person’s] property to gather evidence is enough to establish

that a search occurred.”). We accordingly reverse the grant

of summary judgment as to Cortez and Lopez and remand

their warrantless-entry claims for further proceedings. We

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22 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

affirm the grant of summary judgment as to the other

plaintiffs’ warrantless-entry claims.

III

We next consider Cortez’s argument that the district court

erred in concluding that Heck v. Humphrey bars him from

challenging his unreasonable seizure by the police under

§ 1983. We agree with the district court that the Heck bar

applies.

In Heck, the Supreme Court considered the question

whether a state prisoner could challenge his conviction by

bringing a § 1983 suit based on allegedly unconstitutional

acts committed by state actors during his arrest and

prosecution. Heck, 512 U.S. at 478–79. The Court concluded

that such a claim was not cognizable under § 1983 because

tort lawsuits generally “are not appropriate vehicles for

challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments.” 

Id. at 486. The Court therefore held that “in order to recover

damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or

imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose

unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid,

a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence

has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive

order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make

such determination, or called into question by a federal

court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.” Id. at 486–87

(footnote omitted).11

11 Whether the Heck bar applies may also turn on whether a plaintiff’s

§ 1983 claim undermines the prior conviction in question. Because the

parties have not argued this issue on appeal, we do not reach it.

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 23

Four years later, in Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1 (1998),

five Justices of the Court suggested that Heck’s scope might

be narrower than Heck itself indicated. In Spencer, an inmate

was released on parole but then had his parole revoked. 

When he returned to prison, the inmate first challenged the

parole revocation in the state courts and then, when that

challenge was unsuccessful, filed a federal habeas petition. 

Before the federal district court could rule on the petition, the

inmate completed his term of imprisonment and was released

again. Id. at 5–6. The district court thus dismissed the

habeas petition as moot.

The Court held that the habeas petition was indeed moot

and had to be dismissed. In his opinion for the majority,

Justice Scalia rejected the inmate’s argument that his habeas

petition should not be considered moot because he needed to

obtain habeas relief as a prerequisite to pursuing a § 1983

action. The majority described this as “a great non sequitur,

unless one believes (as we do not) that a § 1983 action for

damages must always and everywhere be available.” Id. at

17.

Justice Souter, however, wrote a concurrence joined by

three other Justices, in which he argued that the petitioner

was not, in fact, barred by Heck from suing about his parole

revocation under § 1983. He explained that Heck had not

made favorable termination of criminal proceedings “an

element of any § 1983 action alleging unconstitutional

conviction”; rather, Heck’s rule applied only to prisoners “in

custody” to whom habeas was available, because the Court

had adopted the Heck rule in order to prevent a conflict

between the habeas statute and § 1983. Id. at 19–20 (Souter,

J., concurring). Thus, Justice Souter concluded, “a former

prisoner, no longer ‘in custody,’ may bring a § 1983 action

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24 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

establishing the unconstitutionality of a conviction or

confinement without being bound to satisfy a

favorable-termination requirement that it would be

impossible as a matter of law for him to satisfy,” because

after a prisoner is released, “the habeas statute and its

exhaustion requirement have nothing to do with his right to

any relief.” Id. at 21.

Justice Stevens dissented in Spencer, arguing that the

petitioner’s habeas petition was not moot. In a footnote,

however, he agreed with Justice Souter’s view of Heck,

stating that “it is perfectly clear, as Justice Souter explains,

that [the petitioner] may bring an action under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983.” Id. at 25 n.8 (Stevens, J., dissenting). In total,

therefore, five Justices on the Spencer Court took the position

that the Heck bar does not necessarily apply to a person who

is unable to challenge his conviction by way of federal

habeas.

We have looked to the separate Spencer opinions for

guidance as to whether Heck’s favorable-termination

requirement applies in all § 1983 cases and have concluded

that, at least sometimes, it does not. Two cases, Nonnette v.

Small, 316 F.3d 872 (9th Cir. 2002), and Guerrero v. Gates,

442 F.3d 697 (9th Cir. 2006), define the rough boundaries of

the Heck bar, as we have construed it post-Spencer. In

Nonnette, a state prisoner, after first exhausting his prison

administrative remedies, brought a § 1983 suit against prison

officials, alleging that they wrongly revoked some of his

good-time credits and placed him in administrative

segregation without giving him adequate process. The

district court held that his § 1983 action was barred by Heck. 

By the time we heard his appeal, however, the inmate had

been released. We held that because any habeas corpus

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 25

petition filed by the now-former inmate would be dismissed

as moot, he was not barred by Heck from bringing a § 1983

suit. Nonnette, 316 F.3d at 877. We stated that this holding

“affects only former prisoners challenging loss of good-time

credits, revocation of parole or similar matters; the status of

prisoners challenging their underlying convictions or

sentences does not change upon release, because they

continue to be able to petition for a writ of habeas corpus.” 

Id. at 878 n.7.

In Guerrero, decided four years later, we distinguished

Nonnette and concluded that an ex-inmate’s § 1983 suit was

barred by Heck. The plaintiff in Guerrero alleged that

various LAPD officials had conspired to subject him to

excessive force, wrongful arrest, and malicious prosecution. 

Guerrero, 442 F.3d at 702. He did not file suit until

approximately a year after his release from prison. Id. 

Examining our previous decisions, we determined that

“timely pursuit of available habeas relief” is an important

prerequisite for a § 1983 plaintiff seeking to escape the Heck

bar. Id. at 705. Thus, we explained, the plaintiff in Nonnette

deserved relief from the Heck bar because he “immediately

pursued relief after the incident giving rise to [his] claims and

could not seek habeas relief only because of the shortness of

his prison sentence.” Id. Guerrero, by contrast, never

challenged his convictions prior to filing his § 1983 suit,

despite having years in custody in which to do so. We held

that this “self-imposed” failure to seek habeas relief was not

a ground for allowing Guerrero to escape the Heck bar.

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Cortez’s case is more akin to Guerrero than to Nonnette.

12

Cortez does not come within the narrow exception recognized

in Spencer and Nonnette. Nonnette’s relief from Heck

“‘affects only former prisoners challenging loss of good-time

credits, revocation of parole or similar matters,’ not

challenges to an underlying conviction.” Id. (quoting

Nonnette, 316 F.3d at 878 n.7). We are not an alternative

forum for challenging his conviction. We therefore affirm

the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the

defendants with respect to Cortez’s unreasonable-seizure

claim.

IV

Finally, we turn to the plaintiffs’ four claims of error

relating to the jury instructions given at trial. None of these

claims has merit.

A. Plaintiffs’ Requested Instructions on the Lawfulness of

their Search and Seizure and of the Officers’ Orders

After the close of the evidence, the plaintiffs requested

that the district court instruct the jury that the officers’ search

12 We acknowledge that Cortez’s inability to obtain federal habeas relief

is no fault of his own: He was in custody for only two days after his arrest

and was not sentenced to any prison time as a result of his infraction

conviction. The brevity of Cortez’s time in custody made federal habeas

effectively unavailable to him. But Cortez failed to exercise his right,

under California law, to a direct appeal from his conviction. See Cal.

Penal Code § 1466(b)(1). Cortez’s success in his § 1983 suit would imply

that his conviction inCalifornia was wrongly obtained. Yet his conviction

has never been invalidated. Indeed, Cortez has never sought to invalidate

it through direct appeal or post-conviction relief. He is thus barred by

Heck.

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 27

of the plaintiffs for weapons and the plaintiffs’ detention

during the field show-up were unlawful. In pertinent part, the

proposed instruction read:

I instruct you that each plaintiff was seized

and subjected to a search within the meaning

of the Fourth Amendment. I further instruct

you that the detention and search of each

plaintiff was in violation of the Fourth

Amendment.

The plaintiffs’ request for this instruction was the equivalent

of a motion for judgment as a matter of law, given that the

instruction would have compelled the jury to decide for the

plaintiffs on the ultimate issue in the case (i.e., whether the

officers’ conduct was reasonable). Cf. Jack Cole Co. v.

Hudson, 409 F.2d 188, 191 (5th Cir. 1969) (defendants’

midtrial “request in chambers that the jury be instructed to

find for them” was the equivalent of a motion for a directed

verdict). We therefore review the district court’s refusal to

give the instruction under the standard that applies to the

denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law: We will

not reverse the district court unless “the evidence permit[ted]

a reasonable jury to reach only one conclusion.” Quiksilver,

Inc. v. Kymsta Corp., 466 F.3d 749, 755 (9th Cir. 2006)

(quoting Lawson v. Umatilla Cnty., 139 F.3d 690, 692 (9th

Cir. 1998)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id.

(“If reasonable minds could differ as to the import of the

evidence, . . . judgment as a matter of law should not be

granted.” (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S.

242, 250–51 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Based on the evidence presented at trial, a reasonable jury

could find that the officers acted permissibly when they

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28 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

searched the plaintiffs and detained them for the field showup. The theft suspects’ car had been seen in close proximity

to the warehouse, suggesting that the suspects might have

taken refuge inside. Cortez matched the theft suspects’

description and behaved suspiciously toward the officers

when they questioned him. The officers testified that the

crowd reacted angrily when they attempted to subdue Cortez

and that they believed they were in danger—a belief that was

exacerbated when the wooden partition, which they thought

someone had pushed, fell on top of them. It was reasonable

for the jury to conclude, in light of this testimony, that the

officers had sufficient fear for their own safety to justify

searching the plaintiffs for weapons, see Terry v. Ohio,

392 U.S. 1, 27 (1968), and sufficient reason to believe that

suspects in the theft were among the attendees to warrant

holding the field show-up. The district court thus properly

refused to instruct the jury to find that the searches and

seizures of the plaintiffs were unreasonable as a matter of

law.13

13 The plaintiffs argue that, even if the evidence supported a finding that

the officers had the reasonable suspicion for seizing and frisking the

plaintiffs required by Terry, the length of the field show-up (30–45

minutes) transformed their detention from a Terry stop into an arrest

requiring a more demanding showing of probable cause. We disagree. 

There is “no bright line rule for determining when an investigatory [Terry]

stop crosses the line and becomes an arrest”; rather, “whether an arrest has

occurred depends on all the surrounding circumstances, and each case

must be decided on its own facts.” Allen v. City of L.A., 66 F.3d 1052,

1056 (9th Cir. 1995) (quoting United States v. Parr, 843 F.2d 1228, 1231

(9th Cir. 1988)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court

has indicated, moreover, that “[i]f the purpose underlying a Terry

stop—investigating possible criminal activity—is to be served, the police

must under certain circumstances be able to detain the individual for

longer than the brief time period involved in Terry,” and that one such

circumstance is that “‘[i]f it is known that an offense has occurred in the

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 29

The plaintiffs separately challenge the district court’s

refusal to give a special instruction stating that “the officers’

orders that the officers be allowed to enter and search the

premises, and that the plaintiffs had to submit to detentions

and searches, were unlawful as a matter of law.” Given that

the lawfulness of the searches and seizures themselves was a

question for the jury, it follows that the lawfulness of the

officers’ orders regarding the searches and seizures was also

a jury question. The district court did not err by refusing to

give this instruction.

B. Plaintiffs’ Requested Instruction on “Individualized

Suspicion”

At trial, the plaintiffs contended that the searches and

seizures that occurred after they were ordered out of the

warehouse were unlawful because the police did not have

reasonable suspicion that anyparticularmember of the crowd

was armed or was a suspect in the crime. The plaintiffs

requested that the district court instruct the jury that:

Defendants were obligated to have

individualized suspicion as to each plaintiff

whom you find was detained or searched or

arrested. Put differently, for each plaintiff

you find was detained and/or searched and/or

area, the suspect may be viewed by witnesses to the crime.’” Michigan

v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 700 n.12 (1981) (quoting 3 Wayne LaFave,

Search and Seizure § 9.2 (1978)); see also United States v. Sharpe,

470 U.S. 675, 685 (1985) (“[O]ur cases impose no rigid time limitation on

Terry stops.”). The jury thus was permitted to conclude that the detaining

of the plaintiffs for the field show-up was within the permissible scope of

the Terry encounter and hence lawful on a showing of reasonable

suspicion, rather than probable cause.

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arrested, defendants must present at least

some evidence that that plaintiff was observed

or reported to have had involvement in the

purported criminal activity at issue.

The district court rejected the plaintiffs’ instruction,

opting instead to instruct the jury that:

In order to prove the seizure in this case

was unreasonable, plaintiffs must prove by a

preponderance of the evidence that the officer

or officers lacked reasonable suspicion to

detain him or her or that the length and scope

of the detention was excessive.

. . . .

The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment

is reasonableness. The Fourth Amendment

imposes no irreducible requirement of

individualized suspicion. Such suspicion is

not needed, for example, in cases involving an

exigency that justifies immediate action on

the police’s part.

We review de novo whether the district court’s instruction

misstated the law. Dream Games of Ariz., Inc. v. PC Onsite,

561 F.3d 983, 988 (9th Cir. 2009).

It did not. The plaintiffs are, of course, correct that “[a]

search or seizure is ordinarily unreasonable in the absence of

individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.” City of

Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 37 (2000). But

although “some quantum of individualized suspicion is

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usually a prerequisite to a constitutional search or seizure . . .

the Fourth Amendment imposes no irreducible requirement

of such suspicion.” United States v. Martinez-Fuerte,

428 U.S. 543, 560–61 (1976). Thus, the fact that the officers’

reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing is not particularized to

each member of a group of individuals present at the same

location does not automatically mean that a search of the

people in the group is unlawful. Rather, the trier of fact must

decide whether the search was reasonable in light of the

circumstances.

Other courts have acknowledged that police officers can

have reasonable suspicion to search, or even probable cause

to arrest, a group or crowd of people without individualized

suspicion as to each person in the group. For example, in

Carr v. District of Columbia, 587 F.3d 401 (D.C. Cir. 2009),

a group of persons arrested in a protest march sued under

§ 1983, alleging that they were arrested without probable

cause. They argued that the government was required to

prove that the police possessed probable cause to believe that

each individual person arrested was engaged in the crime of

rioting. Id. at 406. But the D.C. Circuit rejected that

argument, stating that it would impose “an impossible

burden” on police and holding that “[p]olice witnesses must

only be able to form a reasonable belief that the entire crowd

is acting as a unit and therefore all members of the crowd

violated the law.” Id. at 408.

We therefore agree with the district court that the

defendants in this case were not required to have

individualized suspicion with respect to each plaintiff in order

to have reasonable suspicion to search and detain them. To

be sure, the fact that the officers did not see specific plaintiffs

with weapons or engaging in violent behavior, and that many

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of the plaintiffs did not match the police call’s description of

the suspects as “male Hispanic juveniles,” bore on the

question whether the searches and seizures were reasonable. 

Standing alone, however, the officers’ lack of individualized

suspicion did not make the searches and seizures unlawful.

Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85 (1979), is not to the

contrary. In Ybarra, the police received a tip from an

informant that “Greg,” a bartender at a certain tavern,

possessed heroin and would have some for sale at the tavern

on a particular date. On the basis of the tip, the police

obtained a warrant to search the tavern and Greg’s person for

heroin and other contraband. Id. at 87–88. When the police

arrived at the tavern to execute the warrant, they announced

upon entering that they would be conducting a “cursory

search for weapons” of each of the nine to thirteen customers

in the tavern. One of the officers frisked Ybarra, a patron in

the tavern, and felt a cigarette pack in Ybarra’s pocket during

the frisk; a few minutes later, he frisked Ybarra again, took

the pack out of his pocket, and found six packets of heroin

inside. Ybarra was subsequently indicted for, and convicted

of, possession of heroin. Id. at 88–89.

The Supreme Court held that the search violated Ybarra’s

Fourth Amendment rights. The Court explained the police

lacked probable cause to believe that Ybarra was committing

any crime: “Ybarra made no gestures indicative of criminal

conduct, made no movements that might suggest an attempt

to conceal contraband, and said nothing of a suspicious nature

to the police officers.” Id. at 91. Indeed, the only thing the

police officers knew about Ybarra was that he was “present,

along with several other customers, in a public tavern at a

time when the police had reason to believe that the bartender

would have heroin for sale.” Id. The Court deemed this fact

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 33

insufficient to give the police probable cause to believe that

Ybarra was committing a crime. The Court went on to hold

that the initial search could not be upheld as a reasonable

Terry frisk, because Ybarra had done nothing to indicate to

the police that he was armed and dangerous. Id. at 93–94.

Ybarra stands for the proposition that, if a person is

simply present in the vicinity of potential criminal activity,

without doing anything else to indicate that he is engaging in

criminal activity or that he is armed and dangerous, the police

do not have probable cause to search him or reasonable

suspicion sufficient to detain him and frisk him for weapons. 

Ybarra does not, however, imply that the police can never

possess reasonable suspicion or probable cause unless it is

individualized. If a group or crowd of people is behaving as

a unit and it is not possible (as it was in Ybarra) for the police

to tell who is armed and dangerous or engaging in criminal

acts and who is not, the police can have reasonable suspicion

as to the members of the group. Thus, the district court’s

instruction did not conflict with Ybarra.

C. The Court’s Instruction on the Elements of the Bane Act

Finally, the plaintiffs contend that the district court’s

instruction on the elements of their claim under the Bane Act

misstated California law in several respects. Specifically, the

plaintiffs argue that the district court’s Bane Act instruction

erroneously required them to prove (1) that the defendants

interfered with their rights “by threatening or committing

violent acts,” (2) that the plaintiffs believed that if they

exercised their right to be free from unreasonable detention

and search, “then defendants would commit violence against”

them; and (3) that “the [police] threats, intimidation, or

coercion were independent from the acts inherent in the

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detention and search.” The plaintiffs claim that the Bane Act

does not, in fact, require proof of any of these things.

We can easily dispose of the plaintiffs’ arguments about

the first two aspects of the district court’s Bane Act

instruction. The language concerning “violent acts” and the

plaintiffs’ fear of violence closely tracks that of California’s

model Bane Act instruction, CACI Instruction No. 3066,

14

which at least one California appellate court has approved as

a correct statement of law. See Austin B. v. Escondido Union

Sch. Dist., 57 Cal. Rptr. 3d 454, 471 (Ct. App. 2007) (quoting

an earlier version of the same instruction). The district court

did not err by including these elements in its instruction.

The plaintiffs’ third objection to the district court’s Bane

Act instruction—i.e., that it wrongly required them to show

threats, intimidation, or coercion independent from the acts

inherent in their detention and search—likewise lacks merit. 

Numerous California decisions make clear that a plaintiff in

a search-and-seizure case must allege threats or coercion

beyond the coercion inherent in a detention or search in order

to recover under the Bane Act. See, e.g., Allen v. City of

Sacramento, 183 Cal. Rptr. 3d 654, 678 (Ct. App. 2015)

(“[A] wrongful arrest or detention, without more, does not

satisfy both elements of [the Bane Act].”); Quezada v. City of

L.A., 166 Cal. Rptr. 3d 479, 491 (Ct. App. 2014) (“The

coercion inherent in detention is insufficient to show a Bane

Act violation.”); Shoyoye v. Cnty. of L.A., 137 Cal. Rptr. 3d

839, 849 (Ct. App. 2012) (“The [Bane Act] requires a

showing of coercion independent from the coercion inherent

in the wrongful detention itself.”).

 

14 See Judicial Council of Cal., 2 Civil Jury Instructions 240 (2011).

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LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 35

The plaintiffs cite two search-and-seizure cases in which,

they argue, California courts held that a plaintiff can state a

Bane Act claim without a showing of independent threats,

coercion, or intimidation, but neither citation supports their

position. In Venegas v. County of Los Angeles, 87 P.3d 1,

13–14 (Cal. 2004), the California Supreme Court decided

only that a plaintiff need not allege that a defendant acted

with “discriminatory animus” in order to state a Bane Act

claim; the court did not otherwise address what elements the

Bane Act requires a plaintiff to prove. See Allen, 183 Cal.

Rptr. 3d at 676 (“[T]he only issue the Supreme Court

considered [in Venegas] was whether [the Bane Act] required

a showing that the defendants acted with discriminatory

animus.”). And in Bender v. County of Los Angeles, 159 Cal.

Rptr. 3d 204 (Ct. App. 2013), an unlawful-arrest and

excessive-force case, the Court of Appeal expressly declined

to rule on whether the Bane Act required coercion beyond the

coercion inherent in any arrest; it held only that “[w]here, as

here, an arrest is unlawful and excessive force is applied in

making the arrest, there has been coercion ‘independent from

the coercion inherent in the wrongful detention itself’—a

violation of the Bane Act.” Id. at 213 (quoting Shoyoye,

137 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 839). In short, Venegas and Bender do

not speak to the issue the plaintiffs raise, and they cast no

doubt on the correctness of the district court’s instruction.

V

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s

grant of summary judgment with respect to Javier Cortez’s

and Elizabeth Lopez’s warrantless-entry claims, and we

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36 LYALL V. CITY OF LOS ANGELES

remand those claims for trial. We otherwise affirm. The

parties shall bear their own costs on appeal.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND

REMANDED.

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