NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LEONARD A. LAWSON, Jr., 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 v. 

JEFFERY GREGG; MONIQUE DOLL;

NATHANIEL CLEMENTSON; MICHAEL 

DAHLSTROM; RICHARD F. 

YOUNGBLOOD,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 15-35907 

D.C. No. 3:11-cv-00151-SLG 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Alaska

Sharon L. Gleason, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted April 10, 2018

Pasadena, California

Before: SCHROEDER and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and DRAIN,** District 

Judge.

Plaintiff-Appellant Leonard Lawson brought the instant civil rights action 

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal

 * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The Honorable Gershwin A. Drain, United States District Judge for 

the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designation.

FILED

MAY 7 2018

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 15-35907 

Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), against Defendants-Appellees Jeffery 

Gregg and Monique Doll, both assigned as Drug Enforcement Administration 

(“DEA”) Task Force Officers in the Anchorage Police Department, as well as 

Defendants-Appellees Richard Youngblood, Nathaniel Clementson, and Michael 

Dahlstrom, who are Special Agents with the DEA. 

Plaintiff-Appellant’s Second Amended Complaint alleges that the 

Defendants-Appellees violated the Fourth Amendment when they executed an 

anticipatory warrant without the requisite contingency and entered PlaintiffAppellant’s residence to secure a FedEx package containing cocaine. PlaintiffAppellant further alleges that Defendants-Appellees engaged in an overbroad 

protective sweep and arrested him without probable cause. A different panel of 

this court vacated Plaintiff-Appellant’s criminal conviction for being a felon in 

possession of a firearm and ammunition, concluding that because the officers 

failed to comply with the terms of the anticipatory warrant and no exigent 

circumstances existed, the firearm found during the officers’ sweep should have 

been suppressed. Thereafter, Plaintiff brought the instant civil rights action, and

the district court granted the officers’ motion to dismiss based on the doctrine of 

qualified immunity. Lawson timely appealed this decision.

Our review is de novo. Davis v. City of Las Vegas, 478 F.3d 1048, 1053 

(9th Cir. 2007). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
3 15-35907 

1. Plaintiff-Appellant fails to demonstrate that the district court erred in 

concluding it was reasonable for Gregg, the lead agent, to believe the “fails to 

transmit” contingency had been met. In light of clearly established precedent 

requiring interpretation of warrants in a commonsense manner, United States v. 

Vesikuru, 314 F.3d 1116, 1123 (9th Cir. 2002), it was reasonable for Gregg to 

conclude that the “fails to transmit” contingency was satisfied once the device 

malfunctioned and transmitted an erroneous tone that the package had been 

opened. At that point, a reasonable officer could have believed that the object of 

the contingency had been met—namely that the officers were no longer able to 

determine if the package had been opened. Even though another panel found a 

Fourth Amendment violation, qualified immunity provides “ample room for 

mistaken judgments” and “makes accommodation for reasonable error.” Hunter v. 

Byrant, 502 U.S. 224, 229 (1991) (quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 343 

(1986)). 

2. The non-supervisory officers are likewise entitled to qualified 

immunity because they are permitted to rely on their supervisor’s judgment that the 

contingencies of the warrant had been met. Ramirez v. Butte-Silver Bow Cty., 298 

F.3d 1022, 1028 (9th Cir. 2002), aff’d sub nom. Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551 

(2004). The district court erred however, in determining that Youngblood, the Unit 

Supervisor, was also entitled to qualified immunity on this basis. Clearly 
4 15-35907 

established law, Ramirez, 298 F.3d at 1027-28, requires supervisors such as 

Youngblood to read the warrant and understand its scope, which he failed to do. 

3. Youngblood is nonetheless entitled to qualified immunity because it 

was reasonable for all of the officers to believe exigent circumstances permitted 

entry into Plaintiff-Appellant’s home to secure the package. Because the device 

had malfunctioned, the officers could not determine whether the package had been 

opened and whether its contents had been destroyed. They knew other persons 

were present at the residence and did not know whether Liza Valcarcel had alerted 

them to the fact that she was signaled to pull over. Thus, it was reasonable for 

Defendants-Appellees to conclude that other persons may attempt to flee or to 

destroy the contents of the package and any other incriminating evidence. See

United States v. Wilson, 865 F.2d 215, 217 (9th Cir. 1989). The district court did 

not err in granting qualified immunity to the Defendants-Appellees for the 

warrantless entry into Plaintiff-Appellant’s home. 

4. The district court did err in granting the officers qualified immunity 

with respect to the protective sweep, which was not “a quick and limited search of 

[the] premises . . . to protect the safety of police officers or others.” Maryland v. 

Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 327 (1990). Any reasonable officer in the DefendantsAppellees’ position would have known he was violating clearly established Fourth 

Amendment jurisprudence because the Defendants-Appellees took 64 photographs, 
5 15-35907 

obtained luggage tag and computer information, and recovered a black container 

hidden behind the computer during the protective sweep. See Cuevas v. De Roco, 

531 F.3d 726, 735 (9th Cir. 2008). We do not address the parties’ disputes 

regarding the duration of the protective sweep or amount of prospective damages, 

as they are irrelevant to our qualified immunity determination. Cuevas, 531 F.3d 

at 735. 

5. Lastly, the district court did not err in concluding the officers were 

entitled to qualified immunity for Plaintiff-Appellant’s warrantless arrest. The 

officers reasonably believed they had the authority to enter the premises to secure 

the package because the warrant’s contingency had been satisfied and/or because 

exigent circumstances permitted their entry into the home. The shotgun was in 

plain view, the officers were familiar with Plaintiff-Appellant and his prior felony 

conviction for narcotics trafficking, and they knew a package containing cocaine 

had just been delivered to his home. Based on “the totality of the 

circumstances[,]” the officers were reasonable in “conclud[ing] that there was a 

fair probability that [Plaintiff-Appellant] had committed a crime.” United States v. 

Lopez, 482 F.3d 1067, 1072 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. Smith, 790 

F.2d 789, 792 (9th Cir. 1986)).

In sum, we affirm the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to 

Defendants-Appellees with regard to their arrest of Plaintiff-Appellant and entry 
6 15-35907 

into his home. We reverse the district court’s grant of qualified immunity with 

regard to the protective sweep. We remand for further proceedings consistent with 

this disposition. Each party should bear its own costs. 

AFFIRMED IN PART; AND REVERSED AND REMANDED IN 

PART.
Lawson, Jr. v. Gregg, No. 15-35907

Judge Schroeder, concurring in part and dissenting in part. 

I agree with the majority that the officers were not entitled to immunity for

the putative protective sweep of the house. I must respectfully disagree with my

colleagues’ conclusion that it was reasonable for the officers to believe that when

they entered they were complying with the warrant. The same facts were before

this court when Mr. Lawson appealed his conviction. We vacated on the ground

that “the police did not comply with the conditions of the warrant.” United States

v. Lawson, 499 F. App’x 711, 712 (9th Cir. 2012). We explained that the warrant

authorized entry to the house if the device “failed to transmit.” Id. The problem

was that the device did transmit, emitting a continuous tone before it reached the

house, and the police entered anyway. 

 For this reason our prior panel correctly held the officers did not comply

with the warrant and vacated the conviction. The majority today does not

expressly disagree with that conclusion, yet holds that the officers were reasonable

in deciding they were authorized to enter. I would hold, consistent with our earlier

decision, that the entry was unreasonable. I agree with the prior panel there were

no exigent circumstances. See id. Accordingly, the district court’s dismissal of

this action should be reversed, and I respectfully dissent.

FILED

MAY 07 2018

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS