Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_04-cv-01937/USCOURTS-azd-2_04-cv-01937-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Scott Kerns
Plaintiff
United States of America
Defendant

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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Scott Curtis Kerns, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

United States of America, 

Defendant. 

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No. CV-04-01937-PHX-NVW

FINDINGS OF FACT AND

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Findings of Fact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

A. Background .................................................1

B. The Misidentification of Scott Curtis Kerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1. The Case Officers Relied Upon the Analysts ..................3

2. The Duties of the Intelligence Analysts: Suspect Identification . . . 3

3. The Analysts' Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

4. Step One: Initial Suspect Identification by Administrative

Subpoena .............................................5

i. Requesting Subscriber Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

ii. Entering the Identifying Data into the Pen Link Database . . 5

iii. Storing the Subpoena Return .........................7

iv. The Limited Role of the Pen Link Database and the 

Primary Role of the Target Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

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ii

5. Step Two: Retrieving Information from the Department of 

Motor Vehicles by Name Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

6. Step Three: Creating the Target Folder Without Considering

the Subpoena Return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

i. Summarizing the DMV Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

ii. Additional Information Derived from the DMV: DEA

Form-202 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

iii The Failure to Consult the Subpoena Return for

Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

7. Angeline Woolbright's Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

8. Standards of Police Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

C. Damages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

II. Conclusions of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

A. Grossly Negligent Police Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1. The Statutory Law of Qualified Immunity in Arizona . . . . . . . . . . 15

2. The Arizona Common Law Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3. Elements of the Tort of Grossly Negligent Police Investigation . . 17

4. Gross Negligence in the Investigation Leading to the 

Arrest and Detention of Scott Curtis Kerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

i. Duty Owed by the Intelligence Analysts to Consider

the Direct Evidence at Hand when Identifying Suspects . . 18

ii. The Grossly Negligent Breach of the Standard of Care . . . 18

iii. No Probable Cause to Arrest Plaintiff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

iv. Causation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

v. Damages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

B. False Arrest and False Imprisonment: The Intentional Tort Exception

to the Federal Tort Claims Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

C. The Discretionary Function Exception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

1. Legislative Intent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2. The Two-Prong Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3. Step One: The Analysts Exercised Discretion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

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4. Step Two: The Exercise of Discretion Is Not Shielded from

Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

i. Section 2680(a) in Law Enforcement Investigations . . . . . 30

ii. The Reported Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

iii. The Specific Facts of This Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

D. Entitlement to Relief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

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Plaintiff Scott Curtis Kerns brings this action against the United States of America

under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1346, for money damages for the

wrongful arrest and detention caused by the officers and agents of a federal drug-enforcement

task force. The court held a bench trial from December 12 through 14, 2006, on Plaintiff’s

claims for grossly negligent police investigation and false arrest and imprisonment.

Plaintiff’s claim of merely negligent investigation was dismissed at trial. Having considered

the trial evidence and the arguments of counsel, the court enters the following Findings of

Fact and Conclusions of Law. 

I. Findings of Fact

A. Background

 Sometime in 1999, the Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”), the United States

Customs Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) joined with other state and

local law enforcement members of the Southwest Border Alliance Task Force to investigate

a drug importing crime syndicate operating in and around Yuma, Arizona. The DEA was

the lead agency in what came to be known as “Operation Green Prickly Pear.” The

investigation, which came to a close on September 9, 2001, included but was not limited to

surveillance, wiretaps, interviews, and undercover operations. 

In the course of the investigation, an individual later identified as Scott Michael

Kernes was overheard on at least three wiretap intercepts discussing issues relating to the

drug trafficking conspiracy. However, the evidence gleaned from these wiretap intercepts

did not result in the arrest of Scott Michael Kernes. Instead, federal officers arrested Scott

Curtis Kerns, a resident of Yuma and the Plaintiff in this matter. Plaintiff was mistakenly

indicted by an Arizona grand jury on January 10, 2002, and apprehended by heavily armed

federal agents outside his Yuma home on January 28, 2002. Although he did not know why

he had been arrested, Plaintiff cooperated with the federal officers by, among other things,

giving them the keys to his residence. Federal agents thoroughly searched Plaintiff’s home

for contraband but found nothing. The law enforcement officers scattered the contents of

Plaintiff’s drawers and cabinets in the course of their futile search for narcotics. Plaintiff was

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then transported to the Yuma National Guard Armory for questioning by federal agents,

where he joined approximately 29 other alleged members of the drug trafficking conspiracy

arrested that day. After questioning, Plaintiff was detained in the Yuma County Detention

Facility and then transported at two in the morning on January 30, 2002, to the Maricopa

County Madison Street Jail in Phoenix, Arizona.

Plaintiff Scott Curtis Kerns has no relationship to Scott Michael Kernes. Plaintiff did

not utter the inculpatory statements overheard by members of the Task Force in the wiretap

intercepts. From the moment of his arrest, Plaintiff explained that he was the victim of

mistaken identity. At first his efforts were unavailing. Then, at the Maricopa County jail on

January 30, 2002, Plaintiff had a brief conversation with another arrestee, Shannon Pulda,

whom he recognized from high school. Shannon was involved in the drug trafficking

conspiracy along with Scott Michael Kernes, and because she happened to know both Scott

Kernes and Scott Kerns, she was able to inform Plaintiff that he was “not the right Scott.”

Plaintiff then called Cindy Kerns, who was his girlfriend at the time of his arrest and

is now his wife, to tell her about the “other” Scott Kernes. Cindy confirmed the identity of

Scott Michael Kernes by calling the bowling alley where he worked in Yuma. She then

contacted the local DEA office to inform them of their mistaken arrest of Scott Curtis Kerns.

Plaintiff also informed the Maricopa County Superior Court that there was “another Scott

Kernes” living in Yuma during his initial court appearance on January 30, 2002. Billie

Rosen, Operation Green Prickly Pear’s lead prosecutor, was present at the hearing and was

struck by Plaintiff’s claim of mistaken identity. Ms. Rosen asked federal agents to

investigate Plaintiff’s story. 

After reviewing the primary inculpatory data from the wiretap intercepts, federal

agents confirmed that they had in fact arrested “the wrong Scott.” Billie Rosen caused

Plaintiff to be released from the Maricopa County jail and dismissed, with prejudice, from

the narcotics conspiracy case on January 31, 2002, four days after his arrest.

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B. The Misidentification of Scott Curtis Kerns

The investigation into the Yuma drug trafficking conspiracy was characterized as

absolutely professional and extraordinarily good by Billie Rosen, the lead prosecutor.

Indeed, the correct person was arrested in 96 of the 97 cases. But four intelligent analysts

made grave errors in Plaintiff’s case. By their acts and omissions, the Task Force analysts

caused law enforcement officers to indict and arrest Scott Curtis Kerns rather than the wanted

narcotics co-conspirator, Scott Michael Kernes. There was no objective or reliable evidence

linking Plaintiff to the criminal conduct. The following findings explain how the analysts’

investigation went wrong. 

1. The Case Officers Relied Upon the Analysts 

 Special Agents Carl Geohegan and George Carter, from the FBI and the Customs

Service respectively, were the case agents responsible for monitoring the wiretaps for

information about the drug trafficking conspiracy. Geohegan and Carter intercepted over

30,000 phone calls during Operation Green Prickly Pear, working from early morning until

midnight, seven days a week, for months at a time. In some cases, the operational

surveillance officers intercepted as many as 1,500 calls per day. The numerous wiretap

intercepts yielded a correspondingly large amount of data, consisting of captured telephone

numbers and information relating to the date, time, duration, and type (local, long-distance

or cell phone) of each call. The case agents relied exclusively upon the four intelligence

analysts to extract positive suspect identifications from these raw data. DEA agent Angeline

Woolbright, who received formal investigative training from the FBI, was the Operation’s

lead analyst. The three other analysts came from the DEA (Cynthia Carlon-Canales), the

U.S. Customs Service (Frank Gonzalez), and the Arizona National Guard (Bob Baldwin). 

2. The Duties of the Intelligence Analysts: Suspect Identification

The four Task Force analysts were jointly responsible for researching the wiretap data

and delivering the name of the person whose statements had been intercepted, along with

other points of identification. The case agents relied exclusively upon the analysts’ work

product when seeking indictments and effecting arrests of the narcotics conspirators. There

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was no independent verification of the suspect identifications provided by the analysts. The

analysts established a three-step procedure to identify each suspect. First, Agent Woolbright

and her colleagues made an initial suspect identification by matching the telephone numbers

captured by the wiretaps with subscriber information subpoenaed from telephone companies.

They used a data management computer program to store the suspect’s name and some other

primary data extracted from the administrative subpoena returns. Second, the analysts used

the name provided by the telephone companies, and nothing else, to request a photograph and

other file data from the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV”) in Yuma, Arizona.

Lastly, the analysts created a target folder summarizing the data delivered to them by the

Yuma DMV and finally identifying the suspect. The analysts never confirmed the accuracy

of their final suspect identification by reference to any of the primary data provided to them

by the telephone companies at the first stage of the investigation. The federal case agents and

Arizona prosecutors relied exclusively upon the suspect target folders assembled by the

analysts for suspect identifications. 

3. The Analysts’ Independence

The analysts performed their duties independently. Although she was the lead analyst,

Agent Woolbright did not exercise supervisory authority over her peers in the intelligence

room. The four analysts shared investigative responsibilities equally amongst themselves.

Furthermore, there were no procedural manuals or other written directives defining the

analysts’ responsibilities in Operation Green Prickly Pear. The analysts established and

implemented their suspect identification policy without formal oversight. No single case

officer was assigned to oversee the analysts. Instead, each analyst reported directly to his or

her supervisor at the DEA, the National Guard, or the U.S. Customs Service, respectively.

Three federal intelligence analysts and only one state analyst were assigned to

Operation Green Prickly Pear. The three-to-one ratio of federal to state analysts makes it

more likely than not that one of the federal analysts was responsible for each act and

omission leading to Plaintiff’s arrest and detention. Moreover, the DEA, the U.S. Customs

Service, and the Arizona National Guard analysts were jointly responsible for providing

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suspect identifications to the case agents, rendering each sovereign responsible for the

actions and omissions of the analyst team. Each step of the analysts’ suspect identification

procedure is analyzed below as it was applied to Plaintiff. 

4. Step One: Initial Suspect Identification by Administrative Subpoena

i. Requesting Subscriber Information 

The analysts began each investigation by seeking the subscriber identity for the phone

used to initiate or receive each intercepted telephone call. The analysts sent administrative

subpoenas to various telephone companies to obtain this information. Throughout the course

of the Operation, Agent Woolbright and her fellow analysts prepared four to five hundred

such subpoenas, with each subpoena containing requests for subscriber information on 15

to 20 phone numbers. The telephone companies responded by faxing the requested

information to the intelligence room. The amount of subscriber data actually produced

varied by telephone company. The analysts relied entirely upon the administrative

subpoenas, which formed the only link between the intercepted criminal activity and the

suspect.

 In Plaintiff’s case, intelligence analyst Cynthia Carlon-Canales and Special Agent

Chris Woolbright (a different person from analyst Angeline Woolbright), both of the DEA,

sent an administrative subpoena on June 11, 2001, requesting subscriber information for

intercepted cell phone number (520) 580-8248. (Pl. Ex. 3.) MCI WorldCom responded to

the subpoena on June 13, 2001, providing detailed and correct information about Scott

Kernes, the cell phone subscriber. The subpoena return included six identifying data points

for Scott Kernes: 1) name, 2) home address, 3) work, home and cell phone numbers, 4)

Social Security number, 5) Arizona driver’s license number, and 6) date of birth. (Id.) 

ii. Entering the Identifying Data into the Pen Link Database

Upon receipt of the subpoena return, the Task Force analysts entered some of the

identifying information contained therein into a DEA database called “Pen Link.” Pen Link

is a commercially available data management tool that the intelligence analysts used to

collect and sort wiretap information. Angeline Woolbright and the other three analysts

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received training on how to enter telephone data from the subpoena returns into the Pen Link

database. The Pen Link program featured multiple tabs containing data fields for a range of

information. The first tab contained fields for first, middle, and last names, phone number,

address, and source of the subscriber information. Additional tabs contained fields for more

specific identifying data such as known aliases, associates, bank accounts, vehicles, and

unique identifiers such as driver’s license numbers, FBI numbers, Social Security numbers,

dates of birth, height, weight, and physical descriptions. 

Many of the Pen Link data fields could be completed on the basis of information

provided by the telephone companies in the subpoena returns. In general, however, the

analysts only completed the data fields located on the first tab of the Pen Link program,

which included the suspect’s name, phone number, address, and the name of the telephone

company that provided the subscriber information. According to Agent Woolbright, the

analysts did not have sufficient time to click on the second tab and complete the fields for

date of birth, Social Security number, and other uniquely identifying data points for each

suspect. Although readily available to the analysts from the subpoena returns, the large

amount of data to be processed each day prevented the analysts from inputting unique

identifiers into Pen Link. The court accepts this testimony as to the telephone intercepts in

general.

Following standard analyst procedure, at some point between June 13, 2001, and July

17, 2001, one of the analysts retrieved the subpoena return from MCI WorldCom for Scott

Kernes and entered the identifying data contained therein into the first tab of the Pen Link

database. However, the analyst mistakenly typed the name “Scott Kerns” into the Pen Link

database while entering the remainder of Scott Kernes’ subscriber information into the first

tab of the data management program. This clerical error is illustrated by the Pen Link data

report dated November 16, 2001, showing the incorrect name “Kerns, Scott” next to Scott

Kernes’ true address, 533 19th Avenue, Yuma, Arizona. (Def. Ex. 21.) This error was

compounded by the analysts’ policy of not entering any additional identifying information

beyond the suspect’s name, phone number, and address into Pen Link. Although the analysts

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conceived of Pen Link as an “evolving database,” which could be updated and changed as

additional information about a particular suspect was uncovered, Scott Kernes’ Social

Security number, Arizona driver’s license number, and date of birth were never entered into

the program, and the misspelling of his name was never corrected. 

iii. Storing the Subpoena Return

After inputting the limited subscriber data from the subpoena return into Pen Link, the

analysts placed the telephone company records in a four-drawer filing cabinet located in a

central file room down the hall from the intelligence room. The subpoena returns were filed

in chronological order according to the date received. Twenty to thirty minutes were

required to retrieve the telephone records for a particular suspect from the subpoena return

file room. However, later subpoena return retrieval formed no part of the analysts’

investigative procedure. The analysts made their initial suspect identification by subpoena

return and selective Pen Link data entry. From that point on, the Pen Link database was

assumed to be a reliable proxy for the telephone records it incompletely summarized. The

analysts, citing time constraints, made no attempt at any point in the investigation to check

the data contained in the computer program against the underlying inculpatory data in the

subpoena return. The subpoena return was the only link between the criminal conduct

observed and the person indicted for that conduct. 

Scott Michael Kernes’ subpoena return was treated like all of the others. His

telephone records were stored in the file room after one of the analysts mistyped his name

as “Scott Kerns,” but accurately completed the balance of the data fields contained in the first

tab of Pen Link. The subpoena return plainly inculpating Scott Michael Kernes and

exculpating Plaintiff was not retrieved or reviewed until Billie Rosen asked federal agents

to investigate the possibility of Plaintiff’s mistaken arrest on January 30, 2002. 

iv. The Limited Role of the Pen Link Database and the Primary

Role of the Target Folder

The analysts’ failure to complete any data fields beyond those contained in the first

tab of Pen Link is consistent with the limited role of that database in Operation Green Prickly

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Pear. Pen Link was used exclusively by the analysts. Agent Woolbright and her colleagues

used the database to manage the large volume of telephone data provided by the case agents,

and to extract initial investigative leads from the raw data. For example, they used Pen Link

to generate “frequency reports,” which gave the analysts information about the total number

of times that a given number was called during a specified date range. (Def. Ex. 21.) Most

importantly, the analysts used the suspect name stored in Pen Link to request additional

identifying data from the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles, as will be discussed below.

Pen Link was not a case management system. The database was not designed to store

the information that would be used to seek suspect indictments and prosecutions. This was

the function of the “target folder,” which was a paper folder containing the results of the

analysts’ investigation. The target folder contained a summary of the identifying data

retrieved from the Arizona DMV, other documents derived from the records of the Motor

Vehicles Department, criminal history records, vehicle registrations, and commercially

available credit reports. Significantly, the analysts chose not to place a copy of the

administrative subpoena return in the target folder. The subpoena return data summarized

in Pen Link were also excluded. As a result, Special Agent Carter used entirely secondary

information, not primary telephone data, to indict and apprehend each alleged member of the

drug trafficking conspiracy.

5. Step Two: Retrieving Information from the Department of Motor

Vehicles by Name Alone

The intelligence analysts used the information stored in the Pen Link database to

obtain further data on the identity of the suspected drug traffickers from the Arizona

Department of Motor Vehicles. The initial reason given for seeking driver’s license files was

to obtain a photograph so that the agents could recognize their suspects. The analysts

prepared hand-written lists of suspect names from the Pen Link database, and then gave these

lists to Arizona Department of Safety Officer Brian Turner. Officer Turner used the names

provided by the intelligence analysts to obtain a printout of each suspect’s Arizona driver’s

license record, which included the person’s full name, driver’s license number, date of birth,

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home address, sex, eye color, height and weight, along with a color photograph of the suspect

stored on a computer disc. (Pl. Ex. 6.) 

 In Plaintiff’s case, one of the intelligence analysts provided the name “Scott Kerns,”

without more, to Arizona Department of Safety Officer Turner on July 17, 2001. Whenever

time permitted, Agent Woolbright included a unique identifier in addition to a name when

making requests to the DMV. But this was not standard analyst procedure, and it did not

occur in this case. Plaintiff’s mistaken arrest and prolonged detention became recklessly

probable when the analyst failed to include in the request for controlling identifying

information for “Scott Kerns” the suspect’s Social Security number or Arizona driver’s

license number, and failed to compare the DMV return to the telephone subpoena return. Mr.

D.P. Van Blaricom, a credible expert in police investigative practices, testified that

misidentification is likely when a positive suspect identification is sought in the absence of

at least one unique identifier. If a unique identifier had been provided to Officer Turner, he

would have retrieved the correct suspect’s records from the DMV, notwithstanding the fact

that he was given the incorrect name, “Scott Kerns.” But this is not what happened. 

Agent Woolbright urged a different interpretation of the facts at trial. She contended

that the name “Scott Kernes” was entered correctly into Pen Link at the outset of the

investigation. She further contended that her team was thrown off by a Department of Motor

Vehicles employee who mistakenly retrieved Arizona driver’s license records for Plaintiff

rather than for Scott Michael Kernes. Believing this information to be correct, she inferred

that one of the analysts later replaced the name “Scott Kernes” in the Pen Link database with

“Scott Kerns,” but did not change the suspect’s address to conform with the data retrieved

from the Yuma DMV. 

The Government could not reconstruct the Pen Link database for Operation Green

Prickly Pear. Precisely when the name “Scott Kerns” was entered into the computer program

remains uncertain. However, it is improbable that the error was committed by a DMV

employee researching the name “Scott Kernes,” as that name would have yielded the true

suspect. It is also improbable that the analysts would have taken the time to change the

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spelling of the name in Pen Link upon receipt of the wrong driver’s license record, yet leave

the address field unmodified. It is more likely that the name was misspelled in the analysts’

request to the DMV. Applying the maxim that the simplest explanation for an event is more

likely the correct explanation, it is more likely than not that the data entry error was

committed by the intelligence analysts at the first stage of the investigation when they

confronted a large number of suspects and were working under time pressure as well. 

 6. Step Three: Creating the Target Folder Without Considering the

Subpoena Return 

i. Summarizing the DMV Data

Following her standard procedure, Angeline Woolbright created a Microsoft Word

document summarizing Scott Curtis Kerns’ driver’s license records sometime between July

17, 2001, and July 27, 2001. The document contained a computer image of Plaintiff, along

with his date of birth and driver’s license number. (Def. Ex. 24.) The analyst printed the

Word document, affixed one copy to the wall of the wire room for use by operational

surveillance officers, and placed another copy in the Scott Kerns target folder. The stated

purpose for seeking the DMV records was just to obtain a suspect photograph. Yet the

driver’s license data were the only identifying data included in the suspect folder, and the

only data the analysts ever again considered. Though there was no plan for doing so, in

effect the Task Force analysts completely ousted the persona from the telephone subpoena

return for the persona on the driver’s license. This ouster caused Special Agent Carter to

testify before the Arizona grand jury seeking Plaintiff’s indictment. 

ii. Additional Information Derived from the DMV: DEA

Form-202

A Personal History Report (DEA Form-202) was generated for Plaintiff, rather than

for the actual suspect, on August 29, 2001. (Def. Ex. 18.) This document contained detailed

identifying information for Scott Curtis Kerns, all of which was retrieved from the Yuma

DMV by the intelligence analysts on August 29, 2001. The Form-202 was placed on top of

Plaintiff’s DMV summary and the other identifying information contained in the Scott Kerns

target folder. 

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iii. The Failure to Consult the Subpoena Return for

Identification 

The mistaken identity retrieved from the Yuma DMV was never checked against the

primary telephone company data summarized in Pen Link or the subpoena return stored in

hard copy in the file room. Having solicited unique data from the telephone company at the

first stage of the investigation, the analysts made their final suspect identification based only

upon a name, and a misspelled one. A name alone is an inherently unreliable point of

identification, as Mr. Van Blaricom credibly testified, and reliance on a name alone for

indictment and arrest is grossly unjustifiable when unique identifiers, such as a Social

Security number or a driver’s license number, are at hand. 

Even accepting the analysts’ contention that time constraints precluded them from

spending the 20 to 30 minutes required to retrieve the telephone company records from the

file room in every case, their exclusive reliance upon DMV identities based on a name alone

was grossly negligent in the case of actual indictments obtained in non-exigent

circumstances. The large amount of data to be processed each day restricted the volume of

information that the analysts copied from the subpoena return into Pen Link. But even so,

the analysts themselves believed that some quantum of data beyond a suspect’s name was

necessary. Otherwise they would not have taken the time to enter Scott Kernes’ true

address–533 19th Avenue, Yuma, Arizona–into Pen Link. Yet Plaintiff’s home

address–12706 S. Avenue B, Yuma, Arizona–supplanted that address without further inquiry.

The DMV records in the target folder could be checked against the Pen Link data for a

particular suspect in just five to ten minutes. Special Agent Carter testified that it was

inconceivable to him that such a check had not been performed by his analysts at some point

prior to his testimony to the grand jury on the identity the analysts provided to him. Yet no

check was ever performed.

There were no exigent circumstances, or any time constraints whatsoever, that might

explain the analysts’ failure to consult the primary identifying data already in their possession

before seeking indictment. Plaintiff’s target folder was complete as of August 29, 2001, the

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date the Personal History Report (DEA Form-202) was generated. Special Agent Carter

appeared before the Arizona grand jury to seek Plaintiff’s indictment on January 10, 2002.

The analysts spent the intervening four months in painstaking data analysis, working

alongside the case agents and Arizona prosecutor Billie Rosen to winnow the large number

of potential suspects down to the 97 individuals indicted.

7. Angeline Woolbright’s Explanation

The analysts in this case were not conscious of the differences–in name as in

everything else–between the subpoena return and the driver’s license precisely because they

never looked back to the Pen Link database or the telephone records. Even if they had been

conscious of such differences, the apparent effect of Angeline Woolbright’s testimony was

that she and her fellow analysts would have looked no further, would have assumed that the

identifying data provided by the Motor Vehicles Department were always correct, and would

have sought indictment of the person on the driver’s license. According to her, the records

from the Yuma DMV were believed to be more reliable than those provided by the telephone

companies in the subpoena returns, making a cross-check against the primary data

unnecessary. If this was the intent of her testimony, the court is not persuaded by it. That

the analysts believed DMV identifications were always correct and that they declined to

compare DMV identifications against primary inculpatory identifications already in their

possession out of confidence in DMV infallibility is refuted by Agent Woolbright’s own

experience. 

 In support of her view, analyst Woolbright testified that, of the 200 to 300 DMV

records retrieved over the course of Operation Green Prickly Pear, minor differences between

the spelling of the name in the subpoena return as entered into Pen Link and the name

provided by the Yuma DMV were discovered approximately 20 to 30 percent of the time.

Many suspects changed the spelling of their names when registering for cell phone services

in an attempt to mislead law enforcement officers. A one letter difference between the name

on a driver’s license and the name of the cell phone subscriber would not cue her to check

the two data sources for other identifiers; the DMV identity always prevailed, without

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inquiry. Out of the many investigations that Agent Woolbright handled, and in her

experience as a DEA analyst getting returns back not just in this case but in many others, it

was very rare for a minor spelling inconsistency in a suspect’s name to generate data sets for

two different people. Without doubting the correctness of this specific testimony, it is plainly

irrelevant to the facts of this case, where every single datum on the driver’s license was

different from the corresponding datum in the subpoena return. 

Agent Woolbright’s assumption of universally correct identities from the driver’s

license data, so as to excuse consideration of the more direct identifying data at hand, was

disproved by her own experience. In one other instance, she provided a name to the Yuma

DMV and a completely different name came back to the intelligence room. This apparently

led her to retrieve the suspect’s subpoena return from the file room, which showed the

driver’s license to be of a different person. 

The court therefore finds that the analysts’ ouster, without consideration, of the Pen

Link data and the subpoena return in favor of the driver’s license identification was not

grounded in belief in the universal correctness of the DMV identifications. The failure to

compare the derivative identifying data with the primary identifying data, resulting in de

facto abandonment of the primary identifying data, was done without reflection. If the

analysts had weighed the benefit and the effort of checking the primary identifying data–and

the court finds that they did not–they might have thought that the primary data would almost

always confirm the DMV identification, making the risk of misidentification acceptably low.

But the fact that the correct patient is almost always wheeled into the operating room does

not make it anything less than gross negligence for a surgical team to decide not to read the

name on the patient’s wrist band before making the first incision. 

8. Standards of Police Practice

As testified to by Mr. Van Blaricom, standard police investigative practices were

violated when the analysts solicited an identification from the Department of Motor Vehicles

on the basis of a suspect’s name alone, and then failed to check the identity against the

unique identifying data already in their possession. As a result, Plaintiff was indicted and

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arrested on the basis of a mistaken name alone, without consideration of the conclusively

exculpatory data that the analysts had subpoenaed, retained, and could have reviewed with

five to thirty minutes of effort. The same confirmation for all 97 persons indicted could have

been performed in eight to 49 hours, a trivial expenditure in light of the scope of Operation

Green Prickly Pear.

C. Damages 

Plaintiff was profoundly affected by his arrest and detention. He was not able to

return to his home for eight months after his release from the Maricopa County Jail, choosing

to live instead at the home of Cindy Kerns, his girlfriend at the time. Plaintiff rarely if ever

left Cindy’s home during those eight months. He stayed indoors with the blinds closed,

refusing to answer the phone, watching television, and keeping his distance from his family

and friends. Plaintiff remained troubled even after returning to his home. Plaintiff decided

to seek medical attention in 2004 when his psychological trauma manifested itself physically

in the form of severe migraine headaches. On January 16, 2004, he began receiving

psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”) from Nada Cox, a licensed

clinical social worker who diagnosed his condition. Plaintiff’s PTSD is a permanent

condition that was triggered by the events of January 28, 2002, through January 31, 2002.

Ms. Cox’s treatment, which continued until May 30, 2006, was designed to help Plaintiff

cope with the enduring physical and psychological ramifications of his mistaken arrest and

detention. Plaintiff continues to have difficulties sleeping, communicating with his wife,

children, and extended family, and interacting with his friends. 

Plaintiff’s reputation was also harmed by his arrest and detention. Yuma is a small

community, and many of Plaintiff’s friends heard about his arrest by word of mouth.

Plaintiff’s name also appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, the Yuma Sun, under

the heading “Busted.” His picture was displayed on the local television news shortly after

his arrest. Plaintiff’s social dysfunction, which manifested itself only after his release from

the Phoenix jail on January 31, 2002, is directly related to the stigma that attached to his

arrest and detention. 

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Plaintiff’s damages are $180,000.00 for emotional harm and $20,000.00 for

reputational harm, for a total of $200,000.00. Plaintiff does not claim damages for lost

wages, and no damages will be awarded on that basis. 

II. Conclusions of Law

The Federal Tort Claims Act is a limited waiver of the United States’ traditional

sovereign immunity, authorizing certain tort suits against the Government for monetary

damages. 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b). Under the FTCA, the United States may be liable for the

acts or omissions of a federal employee acting within the scope of his office only if a private

person would be liable for the same acts or omissions under “the law of the place where the

act or omission occurred.” 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1); United States v. Olson, 126 S. Ct. 510,

511 (2006). The acts and omissions of the federal officers and agents in this case occurred

in Arizona. Accordingly, Plaintiff may recover only if he could hold them personally liable

for grossly negligent investigation and/or false arrest and imprisonment under Arizona law

on the facts set forth above. 

 A. Grossly Negligent Police Investigation

The existence of a cause of action for grossly negligent police investigation under

Arizona law is disputed. This court “must apply what [it finds] to be the state law after

giving proper regard to relevant rulings of other courts of the State.” Comm’r v. Estate of

Bosch, 387 U.S. 456, 465 (1967) (internal quotations and citation omitted). Upon

consideration of the applicable statutory and common law, the court finds that the Arizona

Supreme Court would recognize a cause of action for grossly negligent police investigation

on the facts of this case. 

1. The Statutory Law of Qualified Immunity in Arizona

The Arizona legislature cloaked Arizona public employees acting within the scope of

their employment with qualified immunity for the commission of the specific acts or

omissions enumerated at A.R.S. § 12-820.02(A). If the public employee’s action or inaction

comes within this statutory safe harbor, he may be liable personally only if he “intended to

cause injury or was grossly negligent.” A.R.S. § 12-820.02(A). The statute does not

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expressly grant that limited immunity to state law enforcement officers who conduct police

investigations that lead to the arrest and detention of an innocent person. 

The Arizona Revised Statutes subsequently provide that the legislative grant of

qualified immunity at A.R.S. § 12-820.02(A) should not be construed to “affect, alter or

otherwise modify any other rule[] of tort immunity regarding . . . public officers as developed

at common law.” A.R.S. § 12-820.05. Because the Arizona legislature has not stated when

personal liability attaches in police investigations, the court must look to Arizona decisional

law. 

2. The Arizona Common Law Landscape

In Cullison v. City of Peoria, 120 Ariz. 165, 584 P.2d 1156 (1978), the Arizona

Supreme Court determined that state law enforcement officers may be personally liable for

the grossly negligent prosecution of police investigations. To survive a motion for summary

judgment, the plaintiff in Cullison was required to show “that the conduct of the police was

outside the duty and standard of care required of them in that they had reason to believe that

the information on which they based their arrest . . . was not trustworthy.” Id. at 167, 584

P.2d at 1158. The plaintiff’s allegation of gross negligence, which turned exclusively on

“hearsay, speculation and opinion” impugning the reasonableness of the arresting officer’s

reliance upon an eyewitness identification, did not meet this exacting standard. Id. at 167,

584 P.2d at 1158. The police offer was not personally liable for detaining the wrong person

because he had probable cause to effect the plaintiff’s arrest. The court suggested that a

“flagrant violation” of rights guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions, or by the

Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure, was required for a claim of grossly negligent police

investigation to lie. Id. at 169, 584 P.2d at 1160. The 1978 decision of the Arizona Supreme

Court in Cullison stands unaffected by the subsequent enactment of A.R.S. § 12-820.02(A)

in 1984. A.R.S. § 12-820.05; see Guillory v. Greenlee County, 2006 WL 2816600 (D.Ariz.

2006) (adjudicating plaintiff’s cause of action for grossly negligent police investigation under

Arizona law); Winfrey v. City of Gilbert, 2006 WL 1602462 (D.Ariz. 2006) (same).

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 In Landeros v. City of Tucson, 171 Ariz. 474, 831 P.2d 850 (Ct. App. 1992), the

Arizona Court of Appeals had occasion to apply Cullison’s holding to a different set of facts.

In that case, a police detective obtained a grand jury indictment and arrested an innocent

person based on an interview with a juvenile claiming to have personal knowledge of the

crime. The arrestee was released from custody when the juvenile’s testimony was later

discredited. The wrongfully arrested individual sued the arresting officer for grossly

negligent investigation of a crime resulting in an arrest. Acknowledging that Cullison

appeared to grant a remedy in tort, the court nevertheless concluded that the plaintiff had not

met the demanding standard of gross negligence previously established by the Arizona

Supreme Court. The Landeros court also concluded that “the public interest mandates a

rejection” of a tort law remedy for “simple negligence” in police investigations. Id. at 475,

831 P.2d at 851. The court elaborated by noting:

The public has a vital stake in the active investigation and prosecution of crime. 

Police officers and other investigative agents must make quick and important

decisions as to the course an investigation shall take. The judgment will not always

be right; but to assure continued vigorous police work, those charged with that duty

should not be liable for mere negligence. 

Id. at 475, 831 P.2d 851 (internal quotation omitted). 

3. Elements of the Tort of Grossly Negligent Police Investigation

 To prove ordinary negligence under Arizona law, Plaintiff must establish that he was

owed a duty, that the duty was breached, and that his injuries were proximately caused by

that breach. Morris v. Ortiz, 103 Ariz. 119, 437 P.2d 652 (1968). “Gross negligence differs

from ordinary negligence in quality and not degree.” Walls v. Ariz. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 170

Ariz. 591, 595, 826 P.2d 1217, 1218 (Ct. App. 1991) (internal citation omitted). In Cullison,

the Arizona Supreme Court described gross negligence as “highly potent, and when it is

present it fairly proclaims itself in no uncertain terms. It is ‘in the air,’ so to speak. It is

flagrant and evinces a lawless and destructive spirit.” 120 Ariz. at 169; 584 P.2d at 1160

(citations omitted). 

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4. Gross Negligence in the Investigation Leading to the Arrest and

Detention of Scott Curtis Kerns

i. Duty Owed by the Intelligence Analysts to Consider the

Direct Evidence at Hand when Identifying Suspects

The standard of care for police identification was articulated at trial by D.P. Van

Blaricom, a credible and impressive expert in police investigative practices. Law

enforcement officers must at least consider the evidence at hand in identifying suspects in

police investigations. “Any competent police officer is aware of the grave consequences that

flow from a misidentification of the wrong person as the perpetrator of the offense.”

Schneider v. Simonini, 749 A.2d 336, 367 (N.J. 2000). Like police officers, the intelligence

analysts responsible for identifying the suspects in Operation Green Prickly Pear are charged

with a duty to take precautions against arresting an innocent person. See Simmons v. United

States, 390 U.S. 377, 384 (1968) (requiring reasonably accurate initial identification

procedures to spare “innocent suspects the ignominy of arrest”). 

Unique identifiers such as a driver’s license or Social Security number are commonly

used to provide positive suspect identification in police investigations, and they are

especially useful in wiretap investigations. An innocent person is more likely to be

misidentified in a wiretap investigation than in other police investigations. As Mr. Van

Blaricom explained at trial, wiretap investigations begin solely on the basis of a person’s

disembodied voice and, perhaps, the phone numbers of the individuals making and receiving

the intercepted call. This is different from a typical police investigation in which eye

witnesses or other sources of ready identification are available. 

ii. The Grossly Negligent Breach of the Standard of Care

The analysts are not personally liable under Arizona law for their merely negligent

misspelling of Scott Kernes’ name in Pen Link and in their request for Arizona driver’s

license data solely on the basis of that misspelled name. However, gross negligence occurred

at the third and final stage of the analysts’ investigation into the identity of the subscriber for

cell phone number (520) 580-8248. The analysts were recklessly indifferent when they

failed to compare the identity of “Scott Curtis Kerns” as listed in the target folder against the

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primary data incompletely summarized in the Pen Link database. Even the most cursory

check between the two data sets, which could have been performed in just five to ten

minutes, would have revealed the discrepancy between the home address for Scott Kerns

provided by the Yuma DMV, 12706 South Avenue B, Yuma Arizona, and the subpoenaderived address for Scott Kernes in the Pen Link database, 533 19th Avenue, Yuma Arizona.

That review would have led the analysts back to the subpoena return with its multiple unique

identifiers conclusively exculpating Plaintiff and inculpating Scott Kernes. The court, like

Special Agent Carter, finds the analysts’ failure to act inconceivable.

The analysts knew that Special Agent Carter would rely upon the identifying

information contained in the target folder when appearing before the grand jury and when

arresting the suspect at the address of record. As law enforcement professionals, the analysts

had a duty at least to consider the conclusive evidence actually in their possession.

Nevertheless, the analysts never even consulted the primary identifying data that they

deemed important enough to subpoena and summarize in the Pen Link database.

The court once more notes the total absence of exigent circumstances at the third and

final stage of the analysts’ investigation. As discussed above, Plaintiff’s target folder was

complete as of August 29, 2001, and operational surveillance was terminated for all suspects

on September 9, 2001. From September 2001, until the middle of January 2002, the Task

Force analysts and their colleagues methodically reviewed the available evidence for all their

suspects. Agent Woolbright and the other three analysts had an abundance of time to check

the address data previously solicited from MCI WorldCom and summarized by them in Pen

Link against the plainly inconsistent data provided by the Arizona Department of Motor

Vehicles. Yet no check was ever performed. 

iii. No Probable Cause to Arrest Plaintiff

Under Arizona law, probable cause is a complete defense to the tort of grossly

negligent police investigation. Cullison, 120 Ariz. at 167, 584 P.2d at 1158. Recovery

under Cullison requires a showing that the “conduct of the police was outside the duty and

standard of care required of them in that they had reason to believe that the information on

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which they based their arrest [the derivative DMV data], was not trustworthy.” Id. As the

Arizona Supreme Court recognized in Cullison, this inquiry is informed by the United States

Constitution. Id. at 168; 584 P.2d at 1159. 

It is axiomatic that a police officer must have probable cause before effecting an

arrest. See Brinegar v. United States, 388 U.S. 160 (1949). Probable cause requires a

showing, to a reasonable degree of certainty, not only that a crime has been committed, but

also that the person sought to be arrested actually committed the offense. Ybarra v. Illinois,

444 U.S. 85, 91 (1979). Probable cause exists where “facts and circumstances within the

officers’ knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient

in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that” an offense has been

committed by the person under inquiry. Brinegar, 338 U.S. at 175-76 (citation and internal

quotations omitted); see Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 231 (1983) (prescribing a “totalityof-the-circumstances” approach directed to the “factual and practical considerations of

everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act”) (citation and

internal quotations omitted). Probable cause is evaluated in light of the collective knowledge

of the law enforcement agency rather than the knowledge of a particular agent. United States

v. Rosario, 543 F.2d 6, 8 (2d Cir. 1976).

In this case, there is no dispute as to the existence of conclusively exculpating

information in the possession of the Task Force analysts at the time of Plaintiff’s indictment

and arrest. It is also undisputed that the analysts failed to consider the exculpatory data

during the four months dedicated to that task. As discussed above, a five to ten minute check

between Plaintiff’s target folder and the Pen Link database would have revealed the critical

discrepancy between the home addresses contained therein. That review in turn necessarily

would have led back to the subpoena return with its multiple unique identifiers proving

Plaintiff’s innocence. The identity of the actual suspect was reasonably ascertainable by the

analysts at the time of Plaintiff’s mistaken arrest. It follows that the available evidence was

insufficient to justify a man of reasonable caution in believing Plaintiff was the wanted

narcotics co-conspirator. Therefore, probable cause did not exist, as a matter of law, for

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Plaintiff’s arrest. Watzek v. Walker, 14 Ariz. App. 545, 548, 485 P.2d 3, 6 (Ct. App. 1971)

(Arizona police officer did not have probable cause to arrest plaintiff when that officer failed

to positively identify the suspect in violation of standard police investigatory practice);

Schneider, 749 A.2d at 336 (in action arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, New Jersey court held

that probable cause to arrest person innocent of charged offense did not exist when the police

officer identified the alleged suspect solely on the basis of a search of a DMV database using

only the suspect’s name and information provided by an informant relating to the suspect’s

physical appearance, likely place of residence, and criminal history); cf. Dirienzo v. United

States, 690 F. Supp. 1149 (D.Conn. 1988) (federal agents had probable cause to arrest

plaintiff based on eye-witness identifications and other reasonably trustworthy information,

which later turned out to be false). 

iv. Causation

 The United States contends that the grand jury’s independent determination of

probable cause on January 10, 2002, shields the analysts from liability for their conduct prior

to that date. (Doc. # 61 at 14-15.) While the “chain of causation” might be broken by a

grand jury indictment on other facts, Smiddy v. Varney, 665 F.2d 261, 266-67 (9th Cir. 1981),

the presumption of independent prosecutorial judgment is of little moment here. 

 An Arizona grand jury indictment is “nothing more than an expression of the opinion

of at least nine people as to the credibility of evidence presented to it by the prosecutor.”

Reams v. City of Tucson, 145 Ariz. 340, 343-44, 701 P.2d 598, 601-02 (Ct. App. 1985). The

prosecutor need not provide the grand jury with all the exculpatory evidence available to her.

Grand juries are not “in the business of holding minitrials”; their “primary function” is

“determining whether probable cause exists to believe that a crime has been committed and

that the individual being investigated was the one who committed it.” State v. Baumann, 125

Ariz. 404, 408, 610 P.2d 38, 43 (1980). 

In Plaintiff’s case, however, prosecutor Billie Rosen did not present the grand jury

with any exculpatory evidence because she had no such evidence available to her. The

prosecutor relied upon Special Agent Carter to provide the link between the intercepted

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criminal conduct and the person charged for that conduct. Special Agent Carter furnished

the name of the suspect conclusively identified by the four intelligence analysts without

reference to the primary inculpatory data. Considering all the evidence before them,

including the plainly exculpatory evidence readily at hand, the analysts did not have probable

cause to identify Plaintiff as the wanted narcotics co-conspirator. But they did provide his

name to Special Agent Carter anyway. The grand jurors deliberated upon the inaccurate

secondary evidence presented to them and indicted the wrong person.

 The grossly negligent conduct that occurred at the third stage of the analysts’

investigation was the proximate cause of Plaintiff’s mistaken indictment on January 10,

2002. The Arizona Supreme Court has not considered whether law enforcement officers may

be personally liable under these circumstances. However, the Supreme Court most likely

would not shelter the analysts from liability behind a facially valid grand jury indictment that

their gross negligence brought about.

As the United States Supreme Court has recognized, “tort liability makes a man

responsible for the natural consequences of his actions.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 334, 345

n.7 (1986) (intervening decision of a state judge to issue warrants for plaintiffs’ arrest had

no effect on law enforcement officer’s potential liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for effecting

arrest of innocent persons without probable cause). The analysts’ grossly negligent

preparation of the Scott Kerns target folder and failure to consult either the Pen Link

database or the subpoena return are the functional equivalents of a “reckless omission or

fabrication of material information in [a warrant] application,” which would “invalidate the

warrant and generate tort liability for the subsequent arrest.” Dirienzo, 690 F. Supp. at 1154.

Flores v. Dalman, 199 Mich. App. 296, 502 N.W.2d 725 (1993), is to the same effect. In that

case, a police officer who took no part in effecting the plaintiff’s arrest was nevertheless

found liable in tort for informing the officer who actually obtained the arrest warrant that

plaintiff was the wanted suspect, even though he had abundant information to the contrary

in his possession. Affirming a jury award, the Flores court held that a “police officer is not

shielded from liability by warrant where, because of the officer’s failure to investigate or

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disclose exculpatory information, probable cause for the issuance of the warrant may have

been lacking.” 199 Mich. App. at 404, 502 N.W.2d at 729; Osborne v. Rose, 954 F. Supp.

1142, 1148 (W.D.Va. 1997), rev’d in part., mem., 133 F.3d 916 (4th Cir. 1998) (“An officer

who, in support of a warrant application, submits an affidavit with a reckless disregard for

the truth or with statements known to be false, may be held liable for a resulting false arrest

despite the issuance of a facially valid warrant.”). 

Because the decision by Arizona prosecutor Billie Rosen to charge Plaintiff with the

crimes actually committed by Scott Michael Kernes was made on the basis of the analysts’

reckless identification alone, the causal link between the analysts’ gross negligence and

Plaintiff’s arrest was not broken by the intervening grand jury indictment and issuance of a

facially valid arrest warrant. 

v. Damages

The analysts’ failure to check their final suspect identification against any primary

data was the cause-in-fact and the legal cause of the psychological and reputational injuries

for which Plaintiff now demands compensation. 

B. False Arrest and False Imprisonment: The Intentional Tort 

Exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act

Plaintiff asserts an alternative theory of liability for false arrest and imprisonment.

The United States is amenable to suit for these torts under 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h). However,

Plaintiff has not carried his burden of establishing that the false arrest proviso applies to the

intelligence analysts who proximately caused his mistaken arrest. This claim must therefore

be rejected. 

Congress amended the Federal Tort Claims Act in 1974 to provide a remedy against

the United States where law enforcement officers commit intentional torts while acting

within the scope of their employment or under color of federal law. S. Rep. No. 588, 93d

Cong. 2d Sess. 2-3 (1974) (noting that Congress was motivated by several incidents in which

federal narcotics agents engaged in “no-knock” raids in violation of the Fourth Amendment);

Wright v. United States, 719 F.2d 1032, 1036 (9th Cir. 1983) (analyzing legislative history).

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The “intentional tort exception” adopted by Congress retains the immunity of the United

States in cases involving:

any claim arising out of . . . false imprisonment [or] false arrest . . . provided, that with

regard to acts or omissions of investigative or law enforcement officers of the United

States Government, the provisions of this chapter and section 1346(b) of this title shall

apply to any claim arising . . . out of false imprisonment [or] false arrest.

28 U.S.C. § 2680(h). 

The statute defines an investigative or law enforcement officer as “any officer of the

United States who is empowered by law to execute searches, to seize evidence, or to make

arrests for violations of Federal law.” 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h); Arnsberg v. United States, 757

F.2d 971, 977 (9th Cir. 1984) (placing the burden on the plaintiff to satisfy the statutory

prerequisite to intentional tort liability). Plaintiff has assumed, without explanation, that the

analysts satisfy the threshold requirement throughout the course of this action. He has

submitted no issue in his pleadings, in the joint pre-trial statement that superseded the

pleadings, or evidence at trial as to whether the intelligence analysts are “empowered . . . to

seize evidence,” or are otherwise “investigative or law enforcement officers” for purposes

of the Federal Tort Claims Act. The court inquired about the applicability of section 2680(h)

to the intelligence analysts during closing arguments on December 14, 2006. Counsel

acknowledged that the issue had not been presented. 

As the Arnsberg decision makes clear, the United States may be liable under section

2680(h) only if its investigative or law enforcement officers committed the false

imprisonment or false arrest. The court cannot guess as to whether the federal analysts meet

this threshold definition. Because Plaintiff has not carried his burden under this section of

the FTCA, his alternative theory of liability must be rejected.

C. The Discretionary Function Exception 

As set forth above, the general waiver by the United States in the Federal Tort Claims

Act of its sovereign immunity is subject to certain exceptions enumerated in 28 U.S.C. §

2680. The most far-reaching of these is the “discretionary function exception,” 28 U.S.C.

§ 2680(a). This section retains the United States’ immunity from suit as to “[a]ny claim

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based upon an act or omission of an employee of the Government, exercising due care . . .

based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary

function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether

or not the discretion involved be abused.” 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). If the discretionary function

exception applies, “sovereign immunity is not waived, and no subject matter jurisdiction

exists.” Gen. Dynamics Corp. v. United States, 139 F.3d 1280, 1283 (9th Cir. 1998).

Therefore, Plaintiff must “clear the discretionary function hurdle” in order to maintain his

action for grossly negligent police investigation under 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1). Gasho v.

United States, 39 F.3d 1420, 1432 (9th Cir. 1994). While Plaintiff bears the initial burden

of proving subject matter jurisdiction under the FTCA, it should be noted that “the United

States bears the ultimate burden of proving the applicability of the discretionary function

exception.” Sabow, 93 F.3d at 1451; Vickers v. United States, 228 F.3d 944, 950 (9th Cir.

2000) (same).

1. Legislative Intent

Whether the discretionary function exception applies in this case turns on the purposes

the statute was designed to serve. The reported cases and commentary under the FTCA

establish that Congress enacted section 2680(a) to prevent its limited waiver of sovereign

immunity from impeding the pursuit of government policy-making. “The purpose of the

discretionary function exception is to prevent judicial second-guessing of legislative and

administrative decisions grounded in social, economic and political policy through the

medium of an action in tort.” United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 323 (1991) (quoting

United States v. Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. 797, 814 (1984)); see Dalehite v. United States, 346

U.S. 15, 28 (1953) (surveying the legislative history of 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a) and concluding

that “it was not contemplated that the Government should be subject to liability arising from

acts of a governmental nature or function”) and Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. at 813-14 (noting

that “whatever else the discretionary function exception may include, it plainly was intended

to encompass the discretionary acts of the Government acting in its role as a regulator of the

conduct of private individuals”). As the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently

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concluded, “[t]he discretionary function exception marks the boundary between Congress’

willingness to impose tort liability on the United States and the desire to protect certain

decision-making from judicial second-guessing.” Conrad v. United States, 447 F.3d 760,

764 (9th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). 

Congress in enacting section 2680(a) was less than specific about the outer boundaries

of its liability exemption, however. The statute does not define the term “discretionary

function.” Difficult line-drawing is required to determine whether the conduct challenged

in a specific case presents the type of “governmental decision-making” that Congress

intended to shield from judicial review, as “[v]irtually any government action can be traced

back to a policy decision of some kind.” Shansky v. United States, 164 F.3d 688, 693 (1st

Cir. 1999). In discharging their gate-keeping duties under 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a), the federal

courts have struggled to prevent the discretionary function exception from swallowing the

general rule of the waiver of sovereign immunity at 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1). See Gen.

Dynamics Corp., 139 F.3d at 1284 (noting statutory tension and refusing to shrink “the

exception to a mere formality”); Smith v. United States, 375 F.2d 243, 246 (5th Cir. 1967)

(“If the [FTCA] is to have corpuscular vitality to cover anything more than automobile

accidents in which governmental officials were driving, the federal courts must reject an

absolutist interpretation of [the discretionary function exception].”); Zigler v. United States,

954 F.2d 430, 432 (7th Cir. 1992) (finding that the discretionary function exception is merely

“shorthand for invoking a judicial responsibility for determining the scope of governmental

accountability for its conduct”); Varig, 467 U.S. at 813 (recognizing that it is

“unnecessary–and indeed impossible–to define with precision every contour of the

discretionary function exception”).

2. The Two-Prong Test 

Although they do not cut the Gordian Knot, the decisions of the Supreme Court in

Varig Airlines, Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531 (1988), and Gaubert together set the

contours of the discretionary function exception as it now stands. “In assessing whether the

discretionary function exception applies to a particular case, we look to the nature of the

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conduct, rather than the status of the actor.” Conrad 447 F.3d at 764 (citations and internal

quotations omitted). The challenged conduct must be assessed in two ways.

“First, the question is whether the action taken by the government employee is a

matter of judgment.” Id. at 764-65 (citation omitted). Section 2680(a) is not implicated “if

there exists a statute, regulation or policy mandating particular conduct by a government

employee and the statute, regulation, or policy does not allow for the exercise of discretion

in fulfilling that mandate.” Id. at 765. “The exception will not apply in such a case because

the government employee will have no choice but to follow the mandatory directive.” Id.

Merely establishing that “the government employee ha[d] a ‘choice’ regarding how to act in

a particular circumstance,” and that the choice led to the events being litigated, is not

sufficient to invoke Congress’ liability exemption, however. Cope v. Scott, 45 F.3d 445, 448

(D.C. Cir. 1995). As the reported decisions make clear, “not all actions that require

choice–actions that are, in one sense, ‘discretionary’–are protected as ‘discretionary

functions’ under the FTCA.” Id. 

“[O]nce it has been determined that the challenged conduct involves an element of

discretion,” the second question “is whether the discretion is the type of decision-making that

the discretionary function exception was designed to protect.” Conrad, 447 F.3d at 765. The

second step of the discretionary function test is designed to “prevent judicial second-guessing

of legislative and administrative decisions grounded in social, economic and political policy

through the medium of an action in tort.” Id. (citation and internal quotations omitted). 

Gaubert itself provides the paradigmatic example of conduct undertaken in the

absence of a specific proscription that is “grounded in policy” and therefore shielded from

review. 499 U.S. at 325. In that case, the day-to-day decisions of federal bank regulators

regarding the management of a troubled savings and loan association were exempted from

judicial scrutiny because they “implicated social, economic, or political policies.” Id. at 322.

The Court contrasted this policy-based conduct against the “garden-variety” discretion that

is not protected under section 2680(a): 

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There are obviously discretionary acts performed by a Government agent that are

within the scope of his employment but not within the discretionary function

exception because these acts cannot be said to be based on the purposes that the

regulatory regime seeks to accomplish. If one of the officials involved in this case

drove an automobile on a mission connected with his official duties and negligently

collided with another car, the exception would not apply. Although driving requires

the constant exercise of discretion, the official's decisions in exercising that discretion

can hardly be said to be grounded in regulatory policy.

Id. at 325 n.7. In this important footnote, the Supreme Court acknowledged the core

residuum of negligence that is not shielded from judicial scrutiny by Congress’ far-reaching

liability exemption. See Fang v. United States, 140 F.3d 1238, 1242 (9th Cir. 1998) (“[T]he

United States is not immune . . .when the claims do not concern actions which are the

product of judgment driven by the consideration of competing policy-based choices.”)

(emphasis in original); Indian Towing Co. v. United States, 350 U.S. 61, 68-69 (careless

maintenance of a lighthouse triggers liability); Coulthurst v. United States, 214 F.3d 106, 110

(2d Cir. 2000) (the failure to perform a diligent inspection of dangerous equipment out of

laziness or because of careless inattentiveness is not shielded by the discretionary function

exception). 

The Supreme Court in Gaubert went on to state, however, that “[w]hen established

governmental policy . . . allows a Government agent to exercise discretion, it must be

presumed that the agent’s acts are grounded in policy when exercising that discretion.” 499

U.S. at 324. “The focus of the inquiry is not on the agent’s subjective intent in exercising

the discretion conferred by statute or regulation, but on the nature of the actions taken and

on whether they are susceptible to policy analysis.” Id. at 325 (emphasis added). Gaubert

creates a presumption of immunity when a federal employee takes action in the absence of

a mandatory directive that, by its very nature, is “fraught with . . . public policy

considerations.” Cope, 45 F.3d at 449 (citation and internal quotations omitted). Thus, “the

challenged decision need not actually be grounded in policy considerations so long as it is,

by its nature, susceptible to a policy analysis.” Vickers, 228 F.3d at 951 (citation and internal

quotations omitted). A plaintiff may overcome this presumption only by establishing that

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“the challenged actions are not the kind of conduct that can be said to be grounded in . . .

policy.” Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325. 

The Gaubert analysis appears straightforward: injurious conduct that is both

discretionary and susceptible to policy analysis is presumptively shielded from judicial

review. But the discretionary function exception has no logical stopping point when stated

in the abstract. “To put the point in a more economistic way, virtually any action, public or

private, that purports to be rational reflects some form of cost-benefits analysis.” Peter H.

Schuck & James J. Park, The Discretionary Function Exception in the Second Circuit, 20

Quinnipiac L. Rev. 55, 66 (2000). Thus, the Gaubert Court carefully noted the practical

limits of its holding by way of its negligent driving example. Discretionary decisions not

imbued with policy choices are susceptible to judicial review if otherwise actionable under

state law. To be immunized under section 2680(a), “the challenged action must itself entail

a policy choice, and it must be implemented in a manner consistent with the purposes of the

authorizing policy.” Shuck and Park, supra at 73. Determining whether the conduct

challenged in a particular case falls within that core residuum of negligence requires careful

review of the operative facts. Conduct that is negligent, even grossly negligent, does not

perforce clear the discretionary function hurdle. Vickers, 228 F.3d at 950 (“Under the FTCA,

negligence in performing discretionary functions,” however egregious, “is not actionable.”).

The fact-intensive nature of the discretionary function inquiry is affirmed in the

reported cases. “For the discretionary function inquiry to have any meaning, it must be

applied to specific, concrete instances of conduct.” Coyne v. United States, 270 F. Supp. 2d

104, 116 (D.Mass. 2003), rev’d on other grounds, 386 F.3d 280 (1st Cir. 2004). The Court

of Appeals for the First Circuit similarly concluded that “[u]nifying principles” may be

drawn from the decisional landscape, but the applicability of the discretionary function

exception is “not subject to resolution by the application of mathematically precise

formulae.” Shansky, 164 F.3d at 693 (concluding that a “case-by-case approach is

required”). In light of these precedents, the court must determine whether there is any policy

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justification that suffices, under the facts found above, to “prime the discretionary function

pump.” Id.

For the reasons set forth below, this case presents a rare instance in which section

2680(a) does not apply to shield the grossly negligent conduct of federal investigative

officers.

3. Step One: The Analysts Exercised Discretion

The first step of the discretionary function test is satisfied because no “statute,

regulation or policy” formally mandated that the analysts consider the data they collected in

a particular manner. The Special Agents in charge of Operation Green Prickly Pear

instructed the four Task Force analysts to provide them investigative leads in the form of

positive suspect identifications on the basis of the information gathered from the wiretap

intercepts. Special Agents Geohegan and Carter left the analysts free to come to their own

conclusions about how best to fulfill that duty throughout the course of the Operation. For

example, the Task Force analysts were not required by any specific prescription to place a

copy of the only direct link between the illegal conduct and the alleged perpetrator, the

administrative subpoena return, in the controlling target folder. 

4. Step Two: The Exercise of Discretion Is Not Shielded from Review

The challenged conduct, though discretionary, is nevertheless susceptible to judicial

review. As set forth above, a plaintiff may overcome the Gaubert presumption only by

showing that the “challenged actions are not the kind of conduct that can be said to be

grounded in the policy . . . regime.” 499 U.S. at 325. The focus of the inquiry is not on the

“agent’s subjective intent,” but rather on the “nature of the actions taken and on whether they

are susceptible to policy analysis.” Id. Plaintiff has met this burden. 

i. Section 2680(a) in Law Enforcement Investigations 

It is well established that “decisions to investigate, or not, are at the core of law

enforcement activity,” and also that such judgment calls are “precisely the kind of policyrooted decision making” that the discretionary function exception “was designed to

safeguard.” Kelly v. United States, 924 F.2d 355, 362 (1st Cir. 1991). As a general matter,

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once the decision to investigate is made, “Congress did not intend to provide for judicial

review of the quality of the investigation as judged by its outcome.” Pooler v. United States,

787 F.2d 868, 871 (3d Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 849 (1986). “The sifting of

evidence, the weighing of significance, and the myriad other decisions made during

investigations plainly involve elements of judgment and choice.” Sloan v. Dep’t of Hous.

and Urban Dev., 236 F.3d 756, 762 (D.C. Cir. 2001). Applying these principles, the court

in Rourke v. United States held that “claims based upon an erroneous decision to prosecute

a suspect later shown to be innocent of the crime for which he was arrested are not actionable

since the officers’ decision to arrest and prosecute is a discretionary function of law

enforcement officers.” 744 F. Supp. 100, 103 (D.Pa. 1988), aff’d 909 F.2d 1477 (3d Cir.

1990); see also Littell v. United States, 191 F. Supp. 2d 1338, 1345 (D.Fla. 2002) (“The

overwhelming consensus of federal case law establishes that criminal law enforcement

decisions–investigative and prosecutorial alike–are discretionary in nature, and therefore, by

Congressional mandate, immune from judicial review.”) (citation and internal quotation

omitted). 

 The United States in its briefs and at trial urged the court to exempt the discretionary

conduct of its intelligence analysts from judicial review with citation to the broad holdings

of these cases and others like them. (Doc. # 61 at 11-13.) It cannot be denied that the

discretionary function exception applies with special force in the law enforcement context.

The negligence calculus may not be applied profitably to the discretionary decisions

involving unquantifiable policy variables that are the province of police officers and police

investigators. Were section 2680(a) not available to shield review, “law enforcement tactics

would become hesitant, apprehensive and less effective,” McElroy v. United States, 861 F.

Supp. 585, 592 n.13 (D.Tex. 1994), and “every mistaken prosecution, however innocent, and,

indeed, every investigation which leads to a ‘good’ arrest but does not result in a conviction

would become a potential lawsuit.” Rourke, 744 F. Supp. at 106. “Such a threat could not

help but have a deleterious effect upon law enforcement.” Id. 

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But the discretionary function exception is a test, not a per se rule of governmental

immunity for all law enforcement activities involving judgment. Accepting the

Government’s contention would not only eviscerate the second step of the Gaubert analysis,

it would drain the Federal Tort Claims Act of its “corpuscular vitality” by permitting the

discretionary function exception to swallow the FTCA’s waiver of sovereign immunity.

Smith, 375 F.2d at 246; Cope, 45 F.3d at 449. “The mere presence of choice,” even if it that

choice involves law enforcement, “does not trigger the exception.” Id. Therefore, the court

must determine whether the analysts’ conduct can be said to be “grounded in . . . policy.”

Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325 (emphasis added). To be grounded in a policy, the decision must,

at a minimum, be consistent with it. Shuck and Park, supra at 73. The decisional landscape

upon which the Government so heavily relies informs the court’s analysis, but the

applicability of the exception must turn on close consideration of the actual conduct that the

United States seeks to shield from judicial review. A survey of this caselaw is instructive in

this regard. 

ii. The Reported Decisions

 The discretionary function exception has been applied to shield review of the

negligent investigation and arrest of a person later determined to be innocent of the charged

offense. E.g., Pooler, 787 F.2d at 869, 871 (Negligent methods chosen by a federal police

officer to investigate marijuana dealing at a federal hospital, such as the failure to “verify,

corroborate or surveil any of the drug transactions [culminating in the arrest],” were

discretionary functions because “Congress did not intend to provide for judicial review of

the quality of investigative efforts.”); Sabow, 93 F.3d at 1452 n.6, 1453-54 (Police

investigators’ mishandling, alteration, and failure to preserve physical evidence; failure to

obtain physical evidence such as finger nail scrapings; irregularities in the autopsy and

interviewing procedures; and failure to consider all the evidence were shielded from judicial

review because “[i]nvestigations by federal law enforcement officials . . . clearly require

investigative officers to consider relevant political and social circumstances in making

decisions about the nature and scope of a criminal investigation,” and the types of “social and

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political judgments that Congress meant to shield from FTCA challenges” were implicated

because “[t]he investigation . . . was potentially influenced by a specific, highly political

series of events . . . [and] intertwined with political and social considerations.”); Dueno v.

United States, 165 F. Supp. 2d 71, 74 (D.P.R. 2001) (plaintiff’s claim that IRS and FBI

agents negligently investigated and handled evidence barred by the discretionary function

exception); Wright v. United States, 963 F. Supp. 7 (D.D.C. 1997) (police officer’s

intentional omission of relevant information in application for a search warrant not actionable

because the function of identifying what evidence to submit to a judicial tribunal is

discretionary). 

Judicial review of negligence in the procurement of a search warrant by federal law

enforcement officers has also been foreclosed by the discretionary function exception,

especially when the error was occasioned by exigent circumstances. E.g., Doherty v. United

States, 905 F. Supp. 54, 56 (D.Mass. 1995) (Federal officers tasked with the investigation of

an armed robbery erroneously applied for a warrant to search the home of a person with no

connection to the crime solely on the basis of evidence derived from a confidential

informant; the conduct was not reviewed because “law enforcement personnel made a

judgment based upon their discretion to seek a search warrant upon the information which

they had at the time,” a decision “based upon the public policy of preventing crimes by acting

with expedition,” that “cannot be inhibited by the threat of tort action based merely on

negligence . . . [as] the primary concern at the time . . . was preventing the criminals from

using or moving and secreting the firearms . . . [and] to move with dispatch to avoid any

further violent acts against the public.”) (emphasis in original); McElroy, 861 F. Supp.

(negligence of federal narcotics officers in conducting surveillance and investigating

evidence, which led to a raid on the wrong residence and the detention of innocent persons,

held not actionable under the FTCA because the challenged decisions were grounded in

policy and made under exigent circumstances); Mesa v. United States, 123 F.3d 1435, 1438

(11th Cir. 1997) (DEA agents not liable for executing arrest warrant for a Pedro Pablo Mesa

against the wrong Pedro Pablo Mesa because “decisions regarding how to locate and identify

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the suspect of an arrest warrant and regarding whether the person apprehended is in fact the

person named in the warrant are discretionary in nature and involve an element of judgment

or choice” such as the “urgency of apprehending the subject in light of such factors as the

potential threat the subject poses to public safety and the likelihood that the subject may

destroy evidence;” the “desire to keep the investigation secret for tactical reasons, to protect

confidential sources, [or] to protect agents involved;” and the optimal allocation of available

law enforcement resources.).

iii. The Specific Facts of this Case

The Government has not cited a case in which the discretionary function exception

has been applied to shield review of a federal agent’s decision to blind himself to all of the

primary evidence that he himself solicited in favor of inherently unreliable secondary data

collected by somebody else. This conduct has no analogue in the reported decisions. To see

why, it is helpful to first establish what Plaintiff does not allege. 

Plaintiff does not attack the intelligence analysts’ “decision to investigate” an innocent

person, which decision is fully immunized by section 2680(a). Kelley, 924 F.2d. Plaintiff

does not challenge the “sifting of the evidence” or the “weighing of significance” that led to

the misidentification of Scott Curtis Kerns. Sloan, 236 F.3d at 762. There simply was no

deliberation between the two conflicting data sets. Judicial “review of the quality of the

investigation as judged by its outcome” is foreclosed by the discretionary function exception,

and Plaintiff does not request it. Pooler, 787 F.2d at 871. The liability-shielding policy

articulated in Doherty, preventing crimes by acting with expedition on the basis of

reasonably available evidence, is of little moment. Here there were no exigent circumstances

that could in any way inconvenience the analysts in reviewing the only inculpatory

information, which they collected and had available for the 97 persons they chose to indict.

Plaintiff does not second guess the analysts’ allocation of the available law enforcement

resources. The analysts spent four months analyzing data to ensure that they provided the

correct name to Special Agent Carter for indictment. 

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 Finally, Plaintiff does not impugn the analysts’ choice of investigative methodology

in deciding what evidence to collect. Sabow, 93 F.3d. What Plaintiff challenges is the

analysts’ failure to consider when seeking indictment the very evidence that they deemed

important enough to request and from which all of their other evidence was derived. As the

findings of fact make clear, the analysts ousted the telephone subpoena return persona in

favor of the DMV records persona without any plan, conscious justification, or reflection.

The analysts’ total disregard of the only link between the criminal conduct and the person

responsible for that conduct was inconceivable to Special Agent Carter, and it is

inconceivable to the court as well. Having determined that the subpoena return was essential

to their investigation, the analysts could not, consistent with that judgment, disregard it when

seeking indictment. 

This conduct cannot be said to be grounded in a policy decision, for no conceivable

law enforcement interest could be furthered by the total abandonment of the primary

inculpatory and exculpatory data. The analysts’ omission, far from comporting with a policy

of reasonably reliable suspect identification, directly violated that policy. “This amounts to

a claim of professional negligence, not failed policy judgment.” Coyne, 270 F. Supp. at 117

n.5. A discretionary decision (or non-decision) not to consider the essential data readily at

hand is not imbued with a policy choice. Therefore, the analysts’ omission is properly

analogized, not to the conduct of any of the law enforcement officers in the reported

decisions, but rather to the conduct of a government employee who, while driving his

automobile on a mission connected with his official duties, negligently collides with another

car. Gaubert, 499 U.S. at 325 n.7.

Having chosen to drive, a federal employee may not pass through a four-way

intersection, at full speed, without ever pausing to look for oncoming traffic. Judicial review

of such a negligent exercise of driving discretion is appropriate because “these acts cannot

be said to be based on the purposes that the regulatory regime seeks to accomplish.” Id. In

like manner, having decided what critical identifying information to gather, the intelligence

analysts in this case may not blind themselves to their own policy choice by ignoring,

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without justification or credible explanation, the very evidence that their policy provided

them. Investigating, like driving, requires the constant exercise of discretion. However, the

analysts are not protected by section 2680(a) because the grossly negligent choices they made

while exercising that discretion cannot be said to be grounded in law enforcement policy. 

The finding of liability in this case will have no prospective effect on investigative

methodology or law enforcement procedure. This decision creates no incentive to change

existing police policy and will not cause law enforcement tactics to become “hesitant,

apprehensive and less effective.” McElroy, 861 F. Supp. at 592 n.13. The court’s decision

in no way impinges upon Arizona’s stated policy of ensuring “continued vigorous police

work.” Landeros, 171 Ariz. at 475, 831 P.2d at 851 (noting that the “active investigation and

prosecution of crime” often requires investigative agents to “make quick and important

decisions as to the course an investigation shall take”). The court merely holds that federal

agents, when conducting investigations in the absence of exigent circumstances, may not

refuse to look at what they know to be the most dispositive evidence they chose to collect.

 The Government does not suggest that, had the analysts placed the subpoena return

in the target folder, they might have chosen to disregard the subscriber information

exculpating Plaintiff on the basis of a policy choice. No such deliberation occurred here.

Plaintiff challenges the analysts’ total failure to consider the data that they themselves

subpoenaed at any time after using it to get a DMV photo. This conduct is at the extreme

edge of the continuum of investigatory discretion generally insulated from judicial review.

Unless the Federal Tort Claims Act is absolutely inapplicable in the law enforcement context,

the discretionary function exception cannot apply to shield this conduct from judicial review.

D. Entitlement to Relief

Plaintiff is entitled to judgment against Defendant pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1)

in the amount of $200,000.00.

DATED this 21st day of February 2007.

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