Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-06-02158/USCOURTS-ca4-06-02158-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Chris Bonvillain
Appellee
Raymond K. Campbell
Appellee
John Doe-I
Appellee
John Doe-II
Appellee
John Doe-III
Appellee
John Doe-IV
Appellee
John Doe-V
Appellee
John Doe-VI
Appellee
Eaton
Appellee
R. N. Elliott
Appellee
Ken Elston
Appellee
Anthony Marc Mora
Appellant
S. Scarff
Appellee
James Stadtler
Appellee
The City of Gaithersburg, Maryland
Appellee
Robert Utter
Appellee
Mary Ann Viverette
Appellee
P. Voit
Appellee
Patrick A. Word
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

ANTHONY MARC MORA, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

THE CITY OF GAITHERSBURG,

MARYLAND; MARY ANN VIVERETTE,

Chief, Gaithersburg City Police;

CHRIS BONVILLAIN, Lieutenant,

Gaithersburg City Police; R. N.

ELLIOTT, Lieutenant, Gaithersburg

City Police; PATRICK A. WORD,

Detective, ID #7762, Gaithersburg

City Police; RAYMOND K. CAMPBELL,

Officer, Gaithersburg City Police; P.

VOIT, Officer, Montgomery County

Police Department; JAMES STADTLER,  No. 06-2158

PO I, ID #9442, Montgomery

County Police Department; KEN

ELSTON, PO III, Montgomery

County Police Department; ROBERT

UTTER, Corporal, Montgomery

County Police Department; EATON,

Officer, Montgomery County Police

Department; S. SCARFF, Sergeant,

Montgomery County Police

Department; JOHN DOE-I, Officer,

Montgomery County Police

Department; JOHN DOE-II, Officer,

Montgomery County Police

Department; JOHN DOE-III, Officer,

Gaithersburg City Police; 

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JOHN DOE-IV, Officer, Gaithersburg 

City Police; JOHN DOE-V, Deputy,

Montgomery County Sheriff’s

Department; JOHN DOE-VI, Deputy, 

Montgomery County Sheriff’s

Department,

Defendants-Appellees. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt.

Peter J. Messitte, District Judge.

(8:05-cv-01993-PJM)

Argued: December 6, 2007

Decided: March 4, 2008

Before WILKINSON and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and

James P. JONES, Chief United States District Judge for the

Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed as modified by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote

the opinion, in which Judge Shedd and Judge Jones joined. 

COUNSEL

ARGUED: Howard J. Fezell, Frederick, Maryland, for Appellant.

Victoria Marie Shearer, KARPINSKI, COLARESI & KARP, P.A.,

Baltimore, Maryland; Sharon Veronica Burrell, COUNTY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Rockville, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:

Richard T. Colaresi, KARPINSKI, COLARESI & KARP, P.A., Baltimore, Maryland, for City of Gaithersburg Appellees; Marc P. Hansen,

Acting County Attorney, Patricia P. Via, Chief, Division of Litiga2 MORA v. CITY OF GAITHERSBURG

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tion, COUNTY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Rockville, Maryland, for

Appellee Officer James Stadtler.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge: 

At Columbine High School in Littleton, in Blacksburg, Omaha, and

Oklahoma City, America has had to learn how many victims the violence of just one or two outcasts can claim. These new predators are

not terrorists in the ordinary sense; they are not linked to foreign powers or international organizations hostile to the United States. They

are often isolated but heavily armed, filled to the brim with rage and

anguish, and bent not just on murder, but on indiscriminate slaughter

followed, frequently, by suicide. Violent derangement is nothing new,

of course, but the atrocities seem to be growing at once more shocking and more commonplace. 

This case presents the question of what emergency preventive

action police may take, consistent with the Fourth and Fourteenth

Amendments, when they learn of an individual who may well intend

a similar slaughter, but who has neither committed nor attempted any

crime. The legal issues are somewhat novel, and so we proceed with

two values in mind: the need to prevent massacres whose human costs

are beyond comprehension, and the need to preserve civil liberty for

those who may be angry and depressed but not ultimately violent, and

who cannot under our constitutional traditions be treated like criminals when they have committed no crime. 

I.

At 1:02 P.M. on July 23, 2002, Maryland police received a call

from a healthcare hotline operator. The operator said that she had just

spoken to Anthony Mora, a local firefighter, who told her he was suicidal, had weapons in his apartment, could understand shooting people at work, and said, "I might as well die at work." By 1:03, multiple

units were en route to Mora’s apartment. By 1:04, police had called

one of Mora’s co-workers, who confirmed that Mora’s threats should

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be taken seriously; at some point, police also learned that Mora’s girlfriend had recently ended her relationship with him. Police arrived to

find Mora in the parking lot loading suitcases and gym bags into a

van, and they approached with guns drawn. By 1:13, Mora was handcuffed and on the ground. No warrant had been sought. 

At that point, police and Mora began talking, and police began

searching — whether with consent or without is disputed. Police first

searched Mora’s luggage and van, finding one .32-caliber handgun

round in a suitcase. Next, taking Mora’s keys, they entered his apartment, where they found a large gun safe in the kitchen and every interior door (including bathroom and closets) locked. Mora relinquished

the combination under pressure, and inside police discovered twelve

handguns, eight rifles, one shotgun, and keys to a second safe. Opening the interior doors, the second safe, and a locked file cabinet,

police found guns, ammunition, gun accessories, and what police called "survival literature" in every room but the bathroom. 

At that point, two officers drove Mora to a hospital to see a psychiatrist. See Md. Code Ann., Health-General § 10-622(a) (LexisNexis

2005) (authorizing involuntary emergency psychiatric evaluation if an

individual has a mental disorder and presents a threat to his own

safety or that of others). The other officers re-entered the apartment

to seize Mora’s weapons. All told, they removed forty-one firearms

— some apparently automatic, semi-automatic, or assault-style, and

some loaded — as well as five-thousand rounds of ammunition, various accessories, and survivalist publications. The Gaithersburg police

department took that property into custody. Again, no warrant had

been sought. 

We do not precisely know what the psychiatrist who saw Mora that

day concluded, but Mora was not involuntarily committed, though he

voluntarily admitted himself and stayed at the hospital for several

days. There were also no criminal charges brought against him based

on the day’s events, then or at any other time. After his stay in the

hospital, Mora returned home, where he discovered that his firearms

and associated property were missing. Over the next few months, he

moved to Pennsylvania. Meantime, the Gaithersburg police completed their investigation (which showed that Mora was a licensed

gun collector and did not have a disqualifying criminal conviction)

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and closed the case administratively, storing the seized property in

their evidence room. 

In 2003, through counsel, Mora inquired about getting his property

returned, and Gaithersburg police did eventually return the accessories and survival literature — but not the guns and ammunition.

Before getting those back, police told Mora, he would need to fill out

their "Application for the Return of Firearms," which states: "The

purpose of this Application is to determine if the Gaithersburg Police

Department can lawfully return the firearm(s) to the Applicant, and

if the Applicant can lawfully possess the firearm(s) . . . ." Mora,

apparently taking exception to the form’s questions about mental

health (e.g., "Do you suffer from any mental illness?") and alcohol

use (e.g., "How often do you consume alcoholic beverages?"), refused

to fill it out. The police in turn refused to return the weapons. 

Two more years went by. Then in 2005, Mora again contacted the

Gaithersburg police through counsel, this time demanding the return

of his property. He still refused to fill out the Gaithersburg firearms

application, but he submitted all of the information required for Maryland state’s firearms application, arguing that the state’s preemption

rules barred the city from insisting on questions additional to those

imposed by state law. See Md. Code Ann., Criminal Law § 4-209(a)

(LexisNexis 2002) ("[T]he State preempts the right of a . . . municipal

corporation . . . to regulate the purchase, sale, taxation, transfer, manufacture, repair, ownership, possession, and transportation of a handgun, rifle, or shotgun . . . ."); Md. Code Ann., Public Safety §§ 5-104,

-133(a), -134(a) (LexisNexis 2003) (same). The differences between

the Gaithersburg and Maryland questions are subtle ones, but were

enough to become a bone of contention: Gaithersburg asked, for

example, whether an applicant has "any mental illness" or "currently

attend[s] Alcoholics Anonymous," while the state asked whether one

has spent "more than 30 consecutive days in a medical institution for

treatment of a mental disorder," or qualifies as a (statutorily defined)

"habitual drunkard." See Md. Code Ann., Public Safety § 5-118(b)

(LexisNexis 2003). The Gaithersburg police continued to insist on an

investigation based on answers to the questions in their form. 

In July 2005, Mora filed suit in Maryland federal court, naming as

defendants the city of Gaithersburg, the Gaithersburg Chief of Police,

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and various other individual officers. Notably, the complaint did not

challenge the seizure of Mora’s person. Instead, invoking 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983, it alleged that the searches of Mora’s luggage, van, and apartment violated the Fourth Amendment; that the initial seizures of his

property violated the Fourth Amendment; and that the continued

retention of his weapons violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The complaint also included state law claims for

trespass to chattels and trover and conversion. It closed by demanding, along with damages, an injunction ordering the weapons

returned. Defendants moved for summary judgment. 

The district court ruled in two stages. First, at a hearing in January

2006, the court took up Mora’s Fourth Amendment claims. The court

emphasized at the outset that the police presence at the scene and seizure of Mora’s person was indisputably proper — a point that

deserved stress, in the court’s view, "because much of what follows

flows from that salient, primary fact." The court then held the

searches of Mora’s luggage and van to be incident to a lawful arrest

or seizure, and the search of his home to be justified by exigent circumstances (chiefly the possibility of a bomb in the apartment). Thus

the searches — and, the court mentioned in passing, the initial seizure

of property too — were constitutionally reasonable, and even if they

were not "it hardly needs to be said that . . . there would be qualified

immunity." 

The court then addressed the City of Gaithersburg’s authority to

retain the weapons. See Mora v. City of Gaithersburg, 462 F. Supp.

2d 675 (D. Md. 2006). First, it took up Mora’s argument that the

firearms-related questions he found so objectionable on Gaithersburg’s form were improperly asked because preempted by state law

— holding, after examining state law at length, that the questions

were indeed preempted. But even so, a "violation of state law, without

more, does not amount to a due process violation." Id. at 693. To the

extent Mora’s claim sounded in procedural due process, the court reasoned, the availability of Maryland’s state courts (of which Mora had

never availed himself) barred a federal § 1983 suit for denial of process. And on the substantive side, the retention of Mora’s firearms,

even if erroneous, was not so arbitrary as to violate the substantive

dimensions of due process — especially, again, with the state courts

available to correct the error. Finally, the court held that Gaithersburg

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and its Chief of Police had immunity under Maryland state law from

Mora’s claims for trespass to chattels and trover and conversion.

Mora timely appealed. 

II.

The officers who seized Mora and his weapons were engaged in a

preventive action aimed at incapacitating an individual they had reason to believe intended a crime. Preventive actions raise somewhat

different constitutional questions than the typical backwards-looking

criminal investigation or immediate police response to a crime

already in motion. When the crime is as extreme and the need to prevent it as great as with potential mass murder, the constitutional questions take on special urgency and a certain novelty. We therefore

pause to consider general principles of law in this area.

A.

The Fourth Amendment and Due Process Clause are citizens’ chief

constitutional protections against police excess. But the Amendments

are not rigid; they protect by insisting on judicial oversight, not by

pressing inflexible rules. Thus, although the Due Process Clause typically requires a criminal conviction before a person may be deprived

of liberty, the requirement is not a "categorical imperative." United

States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 748 (1987). In certain circumstances,

a pragmatic concern for public safety permits detaining, without criminal conviction, the mentally ill, Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418

(1979); dangerous suspects awaiting trial, Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S.

253 (1984) (juveniles), Salerno, 481 U.S. 739 (adults); recidivist sex

offenders, Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346 (1997); and enemy

combatants, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004). 

Likewise, the Fourth Amendment favors a warrant based on probable cause, but "because the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness,’ the warrant requirement is subject to certain

exceptions," Brigham City v. Stuart, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 1947 (2006) —

as when exigent circumstances justify the warrantless search of a

home, Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393-94 (1978), or when the

need for on-the-spot response justifies a search and seizure based on

reasonable suspicion, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). The lesson of

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these cases is clear: We are to approach the Fourth Amendment and

the Due Process Clause with at least some measure of pragmatism. If

there is a grave public need for the police to take preventive action,

the Constitution may impose limits, but it will not bar the way. 

Our task, then, is to develop a framework for analyzing the constitutionality of preventive action. We need not start from square one;

leading Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment precedents suggest a way.

Indeed, the Court has addressed the issue of preventive action itself

in Terry, where a policeman stopped and frisked several men without

a warrant after watching them repeatedly pace in front of and peer

into a store. To the officer’s eye, the men seemed to be casing the

store for a robbery, but at that point they had neither committed nor

attempted any crime; the question before the Court was whether a

stop-and-frisk was permissible to head off the crime. In answering,

the Court applied "the Fourth Amendment’s general proscription

against unreasonable searches and seizures" and stressed that "there

is no ready test for determining reasonableness other than by balancing the need to search or seize against the invasion which the search

or seizure entails." Id. at 20-21 (quotation omitted). Thus the Court

focused first on "the governmental interest which allegedly justifies

official intrusion" (the interest in "effective crime prevention and

detection") and second on "the nature and quality of the intrusion on

individual rights," both evaluated "in light of the particular circumstances." Id. at 21-22, 24 (quotation omitted). The Court ultimately

approved the search and seizure, of course, preventive though it was.

This approach — identifying the individual and governmental

interests at stake and balancing them for reasonableness in light of the

circumstances — has become part of the landscape in Fourth and

Fourteenth Amendment cases, and indeed in constitutional adjudication generally. See, e.g., Hudson v. Michigan, 126 S. Ct. 2159, 2165-

68 (2006) (taking a balancing approach under the Fourth Amendment

to the application of the exclusionary rule); Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J

v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 652-53 (1995) (same for school sports urinalysis tests); Salerno, 481 U.S. at 748-51 (1987) (taking a balancing

approach under the Due Process Clause to liberty from civil confinement); Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 334-35 (1976) (same for

property interests in disability cases).

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B.

As in Terry, we turn first to the government’s interest. Protecting

the physical security of its people is the first job of any government,

and the threat of mass murder implicates that interest in the most

compelling way. Police, then, simply must be entitled to take effective preventive action when evidence surfaces of an individual who

intends slaughter. This is the lesson of a variety of recent school cases

in which students have made Columbine-style threats, been suspended or expelled, and then sued — cases which have almost uniformly been decided in defendants’ favor. See, e.g., Ponce v. Socorro

Indep. Sch. Dist., 508 F.3d 765 (5th Cir. 2007); Boim v. Fulton

County Sch. Dist., 494 F.3d 978 (11th Cir. 2007); Porter v. Ascension

Parish Sch. Bd., 393 F.3d 608 (5th Cir. 2004); Williams v. Cambridge

Bd. of Educ., 370 F.3d 630 (6th Cir. 2004); Doe v. Pulaski County

Special Sch. Dist., 306 F.3d 616 (8th Cir. 2002) (en banc); LaVine v.

Blaine Sch. Dist., 257 F.3d 981 (9th Cir. 2001). Concerns about violence and other threats to public safety have also motivated many of

the Supreme Court’s cases permitting confinement without conviction

under the Due Process Clause, see, e.g., Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 531, 580

(enemy combatants); Hendricks, 521 U.S. at 357-58 (sex offenders);

Salerno, 481 U.S. at 748-49 (dangerous adults held without bail);

Schall, 467 U.S. at 264-65 (dangerous juveniles held without bail);

Addington, 441 U.S. at 426 (the mentally unstable), and searches or

seizures without a warrant or probable cause under the Fourth

Amendment, see, e.g., Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 333 (1990)

(protective sweeps of a home); Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032,

1049-50 (1983) (protective automobile searches); Terry, 392 U.S. at

24 (protective personal searches); Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298-99 (1967) (exigent circumstances). Respecting the rights of individuals has never required running a risk of mass

death.

And yet the Constitution does not permit a gloves-off approach to

the individual interests on which preventive action encroaches — typically liberty and privacy, and sometimes property — particularly

because the conduct targeted in preventive action is necessarily noncriminal. There must be principles of constraint. Terry is again

instructive: It insists, first, that preventive searches and seizures be

objectively reasonable, 392 U.S. at 21-22; second, that the intrusion

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be based on "specific and articulable facts which, taken together with

rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion," id. at 21; and, third, that the scope of the intrusion be "strictly

tied to and justified by the circumstances which rendered its initiation

permissible," id. at 19 (quotation omitted). To be sure, Terry involved

a somewhat different type of preventive action ("predicated upon the

on-the-spot observations of the officer on the beat," id. at 20) than the

one at issue here. But these three principles apply in both contexts.

And similar principles of constraint are present in even relatively permissive rulings governing police action. See, e.g., Buie, 494 U.S. at

334-36 (requiring that protective sweeps of homes be brief, limited in

scope, and based on "articulable facts" indicating that a dangerous

third party might be present); Salerno, 481 U.S. at 751 (requiring

"clear and convincing evidence" of future dangerousness to justify

pretrial detention). These principles are a part of our constitutional

tradition.

Given the recurring tension between governmental and individual

interests in the preventive action context, the question becomes what

tips the balance in a particular case. The relevant "specific and articulable" facts in Terry were those that tended to show the likelihood that

a crime would come to pass — namely the suspicious pacing about

and peering into the target store. The likelihood or probability that a

crime will come to pass plays a role in other prevention-oriented

cases as well. See, e.g., Hendricks, 521 U.S. at 360 ("Hendricks even

admitted that, when he becomes ‘stressed out,’ he cannot ‘control the

urge’ to molest children."). But so do two other factors. The first is

how quickly the threatened crime might take place — for as the doctrine of exigent circumstances has long held, "a plausible claim of

specially pressing or urgent law enforcement need" can justify a warrantless search or seizure. Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U.S. 326, 331

(2001). The second is the gravity of the potential crime; even in limiting the police power to set up roadblocks, for example, the Supreme

Court has recognized that "the Fourth Amendment would almost certainly permit an appropriately tailored roadblock set up to thwart an

imminent terrorist attack." City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S.

32, 44 (2000). The principle, then, is this: As the likelihood, urgency,

and magnitude of a threat increase, so does the justification for and

scope of police preventive action. In circumstances that suggest a

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grave threat and true emergency, law enforcement is entitled to take

whatever preventive action is needed to defuse it. 

Thus the proper application of a balancing test in preventive action

cases respects the room for judgment that law enforcement must

enjoy in any emergency where lives are on the line. The balance is

struck with due deference for the difference in perspective between

an officer who must make snap judgments in minutes or seconds, and

a judge who has "the 20/20 vision of hindsight." Graham v. Connor,

490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). And whether the officers’ actions are later

reviewed as a matter of the Fourth Amendment merits or on a defense

of qualified immunity, we ask only for objective reasonableness —

"objective" because we do not try to read an officer’s mind, and "reasonableness" because the term itself implies, above all, real respect

for those charged with the front-line protection of human life. 

The chief strength of balancing tests is that they are attuned to individual circumstances. Their chief weakness is uncertainty of guidance. The inevitable imprecision in any balancing equation, however,

should not lead to a regime in which officers necessarily face no liability for failing to act, DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Soc.

Servs., 489 U.S. 189 (1989), but who, upon acting, are subjected to

the most exacting scrutiny (potentially for damages under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983) — a regime of inverted incentives that would "inhibit officials in the discharge of their duties," Anderson v. Creighton, 483

U.S. 635, 638 (1987). For the public interest is "not served by a police

force intent on escaping liability to the cumulative detriment of those

duties which communities depend upon such officers to perform."

Gooden v. Howard County, 954 F.2d 960, 967 (4th Cir. 1992) (en

banc). Inaction, no less than action, has its costs — a failure of

response where one is called for permits the blasts of the gunman to

shatter those connections that human beings hold most dear. 

III.

We now apply these principles to Mora’s three major arguments:

that the police searches of his luggage, van, and apartment violated

his Fourth Amendment rights; that the initial seizures of his guns,

ammunition, firearms accessories, and survival literature violated his

Fourth Amendment rights; and that the retention of his guns and

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ammunition violates his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.

In the background are qualified immunity questions, but we do not

address them here — for the first step in any qualified immunity

inquiry is to examine whether the plaintiff’s rights were violated. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001).

A.

Mora argues that the officers, having handcuffed him and laid him

face down on the ground, had accomplished the purpose for which

they had come — subduing him — and had no business going on to

search his luggage, van, and apartment without a warrant. The district

court upheld the searches under two traditional exceptions to the warrant requirement, one for searches incident to a lawful arrest or seizure (which the court applied to the search of Mora’s luggage and

van), and the other for exigent circumstances (which the court applied

to the more constitutionally sensitive search of Mora’s home). But the

first exception, Mora argues, is based on the risk that a suspect might

reach into his car or bag for a weapon. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S.

752, 762-63 (1969). The second exists for emergencies in which

speed is essential to prevent escape or harm to police or others.

Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 394 (1978). Neither applies, Mora

argues, when he was so thoroughly under police control prior to the

searches. 

Our analysis begins with what the district court called the "salient,

primary fact" in this case: the overwhelming justification police had

for rushing immediately to Mora’s home and taking him into custody.

Mora’s phone call to the hotline operator, as she reported it to the

police, showed a man on the edge, a man who was armed, suicidal,

and inclined to kill his co-workers on the way out. His last, chilling

remark, "I might as well die at work," was ambiguous to be sure, but

it intimates a massacre, and his co-worker confirmed that the threat

was serious. The very concept of an emergency was made for this situation, and police responded in emergency mode, dispatching to

Mora’s home within one minute of the hotline operator’s call and

apprehending him the moment they arrived with guns drawn. Mora

does not dispute the legality of this response, nor could he. 

These facts implicate exactly the interests we discuss above, pitting

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mental need to respond to a credible and urgent threat of mass homicide. Balancing these interests, we noted earlier that officers in such

situations may take those steps that are needed to defuse the threat.

See supra Part II. Implicit in Mora’s argument, however, is the

assumption that the emergency he created came immediately to an

end when he was handcuffed. 

We do not agree. The authority to defuse a threat in an emergency

necessarily includes the authority to conduct searches aimed at uncovering the threat’s scope. When police arrived at Mora’s apartment and

handcuffed him, they did not and could not fully know the dimensions

of the threat they faced. They knew only that they faced an emergency of the kind that has traditionally justified warrantless searches,

even into a home. See Mincey, 437 U.S. at 392-94 (recognizing that

warrantless entry into a home is permitted in exigent circumstances).

As the district court emphasized, Mora might have had a bomb — not

an unprecedented thing for men in his state of mind. Or as the commanding officer at the scene pointed out in his report, Mora might

have taken hostage the girlfriend who, police knew, had recently broken up with him. Or Mora might have had a confederate. Even in the

context of an ordinary criminal arrest, handcuffing a suspect outside

his car does not eliminate officers’ authority to search the passenger

compartment for weapons or evidence. Thornton v. United States, 541

U.S. 615 (2004). As the Supreme Court has held, "[a] custodial arrest

is fluid and the danger to the police officer flows from the fact of the

arrest, and its attendant proximity, stress, and uncertainty." Id. at 621

(emphasis in original, quotation omitted). In an emergency situation

presenting even greater "proximity, stress, and uncertainty," officers

are entitled to find out what they are up against, and they often cannot

find it out without conducting searches. 

Searching Mora’s bags, car, and home was thus part and parcel of

defusing the threat he presented, and just as police had the authority

to seize him without a warrant in the course of defusing that threat,

so too could they conduct a warrantless search of his surroundings.

B.

Mora next challenges the seizure of his guns, ammunition, firearms

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accessories, and survival literature.1

 First, he questions whether there

was any basis under the Fourth Amendment for taking property that

was not contraband or evidence of a crime and that presented no

immediate danger to the officers. Second, he argues that the Fourth

Amendment’s warrant requirement had surely taken hold by the time

police took his property, for at that point he was already in a police

cruiser en route to the hospital. 

Again, we begin with the facts. The warning of a credible, life-anddeath threat that led police to rush to Mora’s home and search his

apartment was corroborated by what they found: a home locked up

from the inside like a fortress, with a gun safe in the kitchen holding

twenty-one handguns, rifles, and shotguns. Unlocking the interior

doors, the officers found weapons everywhere, including another

twenty guns of the most deadly varieties (some loaded and ready for

use), more than five-thousand rounds of ammunition, and various

firearms accessories along with an assortment of magazines and videos described as "survival literature." An affidavit from the commanding officer at the scene states that "because of Mora’s

statements, the condition of the apartment, Mora’s history of mental

health issues, the presence of various survival literature, and the fact

that Mora lived in a garden apartment and bullets could penetrate his

neighbors’ apartments, we believed that Mora possessed weapons that

would render him capable of causing great harm to himself and the

community" once he returned from the hospital, and thus "we decided

to secure all weapons and ammunition for safekeeping to protect Mr.

Mora and the public." 

This public safety rationale was a sound basis for seizing Mora’s

weapons, whether or not they were contraband or evidence, for the

authority to defuse the threat Mora presented comprehended the

authority to take the weapons that made him so threatening. There are

no shortage of precedents approving preventive seizures for the sake

1Mora’s literature was returned, but he nonetheless argues on appeal

that its seizure violated the First Amendment as well as the Fourth. The

point was never argued before the district court or addressed by the district court, and we decline to address it here. See Singleton v. Wulff, 428

U.S. 106, 121 (1976); Wheatley v. Wicomico County, Md., 390 F.3d 328,

334 (4th Cir. 2004). 

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of public safety. See, e.g., Scott v. Harris, 127 S. Ct. 1769 (2007)

(permitting officers to protect bystanders by ramming into a fleeing

driver’s car); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 368-69

(1976) (permitting officers to protect drivers by towing vehicles that

block roads); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) (permitting officers to

protect potential victims of crime by seizing the potential criminal).

And the commanding officer’s decision to remove the weapons, made

in the face of a situation rife with the potential for tragic consequences both to the public and to Mora himself, is not one that judges

acting "with due respect for the perspective of police officers on the

scene and not with the greater leisure and acquired wisdom of judicial

hindsight" should overturn. Gooden v. Howard County, 954 F.2d 960,

964-65 (4th Cir. 1992) (en banc); see also Graham v. Connor, 490

U.S. 386, 396 (1989). 

Mora argues that the public safety rationale cannot be accepted

because he was a registered firearms collector with a lawful firearms

collection. But lawful though the collection might have been, police

were under no obligation to give it an innocent interpretation in light

of the circumstances that led them to be at Mora’s home in the first

place. No more would they be required to overlook the chemistry

equipment and extremist paraphernalia of someone who had threatened to make bombs. 

Mora argues, however, that the whole public safety rationale is a

"pretext" because Maryland’s involuntary admission statute "did not

permit a doctor to release him if he presented a danger to the life or

safety of himself or others." Brief of Appellant at 12; see also Md.

Code Ann., Health-General § 10-625 (LexisNexis 2005) (requiring

involuntary admission if a patient has a mental disorder, is dangerous

to himself or others, needs inpatient treatment, and refuses voluntary

admission). This argument implies that once police transferred Mora

to a psychiatrist, the responsibility for ensuring public safety passed

to the psychiatrist as well; the officers could wash their hands of the

situation, their job done. But protecting public safety is why police

exist, and nothing in Maryland’s involuntary admission statute supports the remarkable suggestion that, by handing Mora over to doctors, the officers relinquished authority over the thing for which they

are under law chiefly responsible. A psychological evaluation would

not change what the officers already knew: that Mora was unstable

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and heavily armed, and a risk to himself and others. Indeed, had they

not taken the weapons, and had Mora used those weapons to cause

harm, the officers would have been subject to endless secondguessing and doubtless litigation as well, just as the officers and

teachers at Columbine were challenged for red flags they had overlooked before that tragedy. See Castaldo v. Stone, 192 F. Supp. 2d

1124 (D. Colo. 2001). 

The remaining question is whether, with Mora en route to the hospital, the officers should have gotten a warrant before seizing his

property. While the dissipation of an emergency, even one as dire as

this one, would dissolve the justification for preceding in the absence

of a warrant, we are unwilling to say the emergency that brought on

the seizure disappeared as quickly as Mora would have us think. The

officers were entitled to take into account the nature of the threat that

led to their presence at the scene, and the corroborating fact of a veritable fortress of weapons and ammunition they found when they

arrived. Moreover, in the rapidly unfolding series of events, the officers could not be sure of exactly what it was they confronted. They

had no way of knowing whether confederates might possess access to

Mora’s considerable store of firearms, or whether Mora himself might

return to the apartment more quickly than expected and carry out

some desperate plan. Further, it was unclear whether the weapons

themselves might become evidence in a forthcoming prosecution,

making the need to guard against their disappearance great.

Given these circumstances, to say the emergency vanished when

Mora was heading to the hospital is to slice the situation too finely

and employ hindsight too readily to actions aimed — as we cannot

overemphasize — at heading off a human tragedy that, once visited,

could not be redeemed or taken back.

C.

Finally, Mora argues that the police’s continued retention of his

guns and ammunition violates his Fourteenth Amendment right not to

be deprived of property without due process of law. He stresses that

the weapons are not contraband or evidence; there is no question of

his rightful ownership; and the police allege no crime that would forfeit his right to possess what he owns. Police can advance, Mora

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argues, only one basis for their authority to retain the weapons:

Mora’s refusal to answer the questions on the Gaithersburg application for the return of firearms. The objectionable questions on that

form, Mora insists, are not authorized by Maryland state law, which

preempts local law on matters of firearms regulation. Mora has

answered all the questions required under state law. Thus, he claims,

the sole basis for retaining his property collapses, and he is entitled

to an injunction ordering it returned. 

We do not address the merits of this preemption argument — or

any other argument concerning the Gaithersburg police department’s

authority to retain Mora’s weapons. The premise that depriving someone of property without any legal authority to do so violates the Due

Process Clause is unexceptionable. But it would be ill-advised if not

impossible for us to decide whether the Gaithersburg police are without authority to retain Mora’s weapons, because nestled in Mora’s

due process claim are two state law questions that we should not or

cannot answer. 

The first is whether Maryland firearms law really does preempt the

questions on Gaithersburg’s form. This issue is difficult not only

because it tasks us with interpreting Maryland’s preemption provisions (the sole focus for the district court), but also because it is not

clear whether the questions to which Mora objects in fact conflict

with Maryland law. Mora claims, for example, that Gaithersburg’s

question — "Do you suffer from any mental illness?" — goes beyond

the closest equivalent question on Maryland’s firearms application

form, which asks if the applicant has spent "more than 30 consecutive

days in a medical institution for treatment of a mental disorder." Md.

Code Ann., Public Safety § 5-118(b)(vii) (LexisNexis 2003). The

Gaithersburg question may be more demanding, but whether Maryland courts would regard it as preempted is for them to ascertain —

particularly in light of Maryland’s other legal provisions governing

firearms and mental disability. See id. at § 5-122(a)(3) (requiring that

a firearms application be rejected if the Secretary of State Police

learns from a physician that the applicant "suffers from a mental disorder and is a danger"); §§ 5-133(b)(6), -134(b)(8) (requiring a physician’s approval before anyone may transfer firearms to a person with

"a mental disorder" and "a history of violent behavior," or before such

a person may possess them). 

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The second state law question is still more important, and still more

beyond our capacity to answer: When and if the disputed Gaithersburg questions are set aside, is Mora otherwise entitled to possess

firearms under Maryland law? As noted, under Maryland’s administrative regime governing firearms, someone interested in "purchas-

[ing], rent[ing], or transfer[ring]" a firearm (which presumably

applies to someone seeking the return of seized firearms) must fill out

a form answering a number of factual questions — such as whether

the person has been "convicted of a disqualifying crime," is "addicted

to a controlled dangerous substance," or has "spent more than 30 days

in a medical institution for treatment of a mental disorder." Id. at

§§ 5-117, -118(b). But filling out the form is only the beginning. The

form goes to the Secretary of State Police, who is permitted to

approve it only after verifying the factual accuracy of the applicant’s

responses (say by checking police records). See id. at §§ 5-121, -122.

The Secretary has other investigative responsibilities as well, and

Maryland, as already discussed, has other legal requirements. See id.

at §§ 5-133, -134. 

Mora submitted answers to the form in the course of requesting

that the Gaithersburg police return his weapons, but no entity — not

the Secretary of State Police or a state court — has made factual findings as to whether his answers were truthful, and none has determined

his overall compliance with Maryland law. Needless to say, as a federal appellate court, we cannot find the facts and, lacking them,

should not make the legal judgments involved in resolving this issue.

It is unthinkable that we would issue an injunction ordering Mora’s

firearms returned on due process grounds, as he requests, when we

have no idea whether under Maryland law he is entitled to them. 

The difficulty we would have in answering these two state law

questions and addressing Mora’s claim to his property on the merits

points the way toward the core problem — a procedural problem —

with his federal due process claim: Mora has not availed himself of

Maryland’s procedures for securing the return of his property. It is not

clear whether Mora’s claim sounds in procedural or substantive due

process. But whichever way we take it, the availability of state procedures is fatal. 

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On the procedural side, the Supreme Court has held that "the existence of state remedies is relevant" for a § 1983 action based on procedural due process, for "[t]he constitutional violation actionable

under § 1983 is not complete when the deprivation occurs; it is not

complete unless and until the State fails to provide due process."

Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 125-26 (1990) (emphasis in original). This should come as no surprise. Procedural due process is simply a guarantee of fair procedures, id. at 125 — typically notice and

an opportunity to be heard, Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 579 (1975).

Mora has had, and continues to have, notice and an opportunity to be

heard in Maryland, and he cannot plausibly claim that Maryland’s

procedures are unfair when he has not tried to avail himself of them.

The state courts are open to him.2 We have been given no reason to

think the state process for redeeming his property rights, if those

rights were violated, is constitutionally inadequate. Mora simply

"found it unnecessary even to enter upon, let alone travel the entire

length of, that road." Amsden v. Moran, 904 F.2d 748, 755 (1st Cir.

1990). 

On the substantive due process side, Mora must show that the Gaithersburg police department’s refusal to return his firearms is arbitrary, for "the touchstone of [substantive] due process is protection of

the individual against arbitrary action of government." County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 845 (1998) (quotation omitted). We

have held that substantive due process violations "run only to state

action so arbitrary and irrational, so unjustified by any circumstance

or governmental interest, as to be literally incapable of avoidance by

any pre-deprivation procedural protections or of adequate rectification

by any post-deprivation state remedies." Rucker v. Harford County,

Md., 946 F.2d 278, 281 (4th Cir. 1991). And therein lies the problem

2Besides his tort claims for trespass to chattels and conversion, Mora

might invoke Maryland’s statutory right to the return of property "rightfully taken under a search warrant" but "wrongfully withheld after there

is no further need for retention of the property." Md. Code Ann., Criminal Procedure § 1-203(d)(1) (LexisNexis 2001). Although this provision

technically applies only where property was taken under a warrant, it

seems unlikely that a court would refuse to apply it to property rightfully

taken and wrongfully withheld under an exception to the warrant requirement. 

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for Mora. Even setting aside the dubious claim that it is arbitrary to

require someone like Mora to answer probing questions before returning forty-one guns and five-thousand rounds of ammunition, the fact

is that any property deprivation he has faced is amenable to "rectification by . . . post-deprivation state remedies." Id. Thus Mora’s substantive due process claim fails for much the same reason his procedural

one did: Maryland’s treatment of him is hardly arbitrary when the

state has given him the means to correct the errors he alleges. 

At the end of the day, Mora’s due process argument sounds like a

state law claim dressed up in due process clothing — like a wrongful

death action brought to federal court as a § 1983 claim for deprivation

of life without due process of law. Such suits are rarely favored, for

the Fourteenth Amendment is not meant to be "a font of tort law."

Lewis, 523 U.S. at 848 (quotation omitted). In our view, Mora’s claim

is basically one of conversion, trespass to chattels, or violation of

Maryland’s code of criminal procedure. Thus taking his claim as one

of state law, we decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction. See 28

U.S.C. § 1367(c) (2000) (permitting federal courts to decline supplemental jurisdiction when a state claim "raises a novel or complex

issue of State law" or "substantially predominates" over federal

claims); United Mine Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726

(1966) ("[Supplemental] jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion, not of

plaintiff’s right.").

IV.

We have reviewed Mora’s other federal claims and conclude they

are without merit. As to all of Mora’s federal claims, then, we affirm

the dismissal with prejudice. To hold otherwise would be to cross the

line between vindicating personal rights and punishing public officials

for nothing more than doing their jobs. As to Mora’s state claims, we

modify the district court’s judgment, dismissing without prejudice to

Mora’s ability to raise those state law claims in state court.

AFFIRMED AS MODIFIED

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