Source: http://www.humane-society-idaho.com/illegal_invasion_of_private_property.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 05:05:23+00:00

Document:
"Qualified Immunity is intended to protect all but the incompetent or willfully unlawful, but the Courts have made clear that a competent official is required to know the law which governs his conduct."
There should be a balance between the protection of property owners' enjoyment of their private property, the protection of our pets and the legal need for code enforcement within the boundaries of state and local statutes.
Defendant Lawing violated clearly established statutory and constitutional law, and more specifically, the Fourth Amendment rights of the Plaintiffs. His claim to Qualified Immunity was appropriately denied by the District Court, and his appeal is simply a meritless rehashing of immaterial argument, citing case law which is either not on point or misrepresented in his briefs. Defendant Lawing had clear warning that his actions were illegal, and the established law is clear that searches of the curtilage of a home are per se unreasonable. The case law presented by the defendant fails to support his own arguments made from it even slightly, and despite the fact that the issue is rather clear to the pro se plaintiffs, Lawing's counsel argues that a government official who is required to know the law affecting his performance might have been reasonably confused. The law is clear; the case law is clear, and the defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity.
searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment � subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions..' Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 96.
There are two reviews in the determination of Qualified Immunity at the Summary Judgement stage. The first is a technical look to see if a Constitutional violation actually occurred, and the second a more simplistic review to determine if the violator reasonably should have realized that what he was doing was unlawful . Government officials are required to know the laws which govern their conduct4 , so only those situations which require serious scrutiny merit the application of qualified immunity.
Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635 ,638-39 (1987); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 , 818 (1982).
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 , 818, 819 (1982).
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 , 818 (1982).
Some Courts have described the driveway as only a semi-private area, and Lawing's counsel repeatedly attempts to obscure the issue that this vehicle was not in a driveway, but inside a fenced yard. All of his argument about the lack of privacy in a driveway is entirely off point, and is not relevant to the issue. To his contention that this Court imposed elimination from Fourth Amendment protection may have obscured the understanding of a reasonable officer in Lawing's shoes, it should be noted that this exclusion from protections is not new, and officers are required to know the law which governs their actions.
"we noted in Oliver for most homes, the boundaries of the curtilage will be clearly marked; and the conception defining the curtilage -- as the area around the home to which the activity of home life extends -- is a familiar one easily understood from our daily experience Viewing the physical layout of respondent's ranch in its entirety, it is plain that the fence surrounding the residence serves to demark a specific area of land immediately adjacent to the house that is readily identifiable as part and parcel of the house."
The defendant's brief further attempts to inject another question� whether society is prepared to accept Plaintiffs' reasonable expectation of privacy. Plaintiffs contend that the Supreme Court has already accepted it, and society's acceptance is clearly displayed in the number of people purchasing fences and "No Trespassing" signs. The creation of a zone of privacy and the announcement of that intent is in fact the primary purpose of these items � items which are rather common in our society. The defendant's question is wholly meritless.
Qualified Immunity is intended to protect all but the incompetent or willfully unlawful, but the Courts have made clear that a competent official is required to know the law which governs his conduct. Lawing's assertions that he MAY have been confused about the law amounts to an admission of his incompetence, which disentitles him to qualified immunity. Whether incompetent or criminal -- justice and the law demand that he answer the charges against him rather than hide behind the "most favored criminal" status of qualified immunity. Furthermore, his counsel's use of inapplicable case law as evidence that he may have been confused is hardly more than another showing of incompetence by Defendant City's employees.
Lawing's counsel attempts to claim that the standard of review for determining what laws are clearly established should be that which this Court held at the time of the incident, despite that standard having been declared in error by the Supreme Court . The change in the standard used by this Court is not a change in the law, but a change in how, and often if, it is enforced upon government officials. There was no change in the Laws which govern the conduct committed by the defendant. While Lawing may have thought that he could violate the law with impunity, he cannot reasonably argue that he did not understand that invading a gated and signed yard to search for violations of law was not illegal, or that it was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of the plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs' obvious intent to create privacy has been previously detailed in the record, and was appropriately acknowledged by the District Court . The Defendant's brief even admits that the attempts at privacy were clear, and attempts to claim that backing in a vehicle and planting plants somehow creates suspicion. While the conclusions drawn are absolutely ludicrous, his acknowledgement that he had fair notice of the intent to create privacy thoroughly establishes the issue in question. If attempting to conceal anything to create privacy is probable cause to eliminate Constitutional protections as the defendant's counsel has suggested, then the Fourth Amendment is a legal nullity� which perhaps explains their position that a case seeking to enforce those protections by seeking damages for their violation is a "triviality clogging up the Federal Courts."
The standard was not recognized by the Supreme Court even prior to Hope. see Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 526.
The Courts have held that an invasion of the curtilage of a home without a warrant is unreasonable per se. This precedent was not new, but decades old. Defendant's counsel cites cases which are not material to the case at hand where Florida's Courts have seriously stretched the open fields doctrine, but even those cases do not go so far as the position which Lawing seeks to justify in this Appeal. Counsel specifically cites Sarantopoulos, but fails to mention that there was never a physical invasion of the property prior to obtaining a warrant. The case then, is not even remotely similar to the matters at hand. He also cited State v Duhart, in which a police officer was called to the scene to investigate someone reportedly taking parts off of a stolen motorcycle. The court specifically noted that since the officer was lawfully on the property, checking the VIN numbers was not a violation of Fourth Amendment protections. Again, in this case Lawing was clearly in violation of law when he entered the property, so neither cited case is relevant to the matters at bar.
Lawing's attempts to claim that his illegal invasion of private property were authorized by the Municipal Ordinance Code also hold no merit, since a nearly identical ordinance had been previously struck down as unconstitutional � providing fair and clear notice that his actions were unlawful even under the standard held by this Court prior to Hope.
Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89 , 96.
The reasonable expectation of privacy is discussed fully in Plaintiffs response to Lawing's Motion for Summary Judgement, and Plaintiffs will rely upon the record for that issue.
Any reasonable person would have known that an expectation of privacy existed, and that entry was uninvited and unlawful. From the aspect of whether or not it was clearly unlawful, the issue is equally simple. Several reasons for this exist: The boundaries were clearly defined with fences and gates. Plaintiffs have made no issue of the fact that the true property boundary is actually outside the gates, nor that other government officials have unknowingly crossed that boundary. If they had, those are the instances in which qualified immunity would attach, for the error was one of understandable ignorance of the facts � not of the law. Just such an issue was presented before the Courts in Maughon , a case which Lawing attempts to assert. In Maughon, officers with a valid warrant unknowingly crossed an unmarked property boundary in side a ranch. Interestingly, the warrant may have still been valid for the area searched, as it named the ranch, as opposed to a particular plot within the ranch. Qualified immunity was properly attached despite the constitutional violation.
Oliver, 466 U.S., at 182, n. 12, 104 S.Ct., at 1743, n. 12 "for most homes, the boundaries of the curtilage will be clearly marked; and the conception defining the curtilage -- as the area around the home to which the activity of home life extends -- is a familiar one easily understood from our daily experience."
be expected to know. 20 The facts within the record clearly show that Lawing's invasion was into clearly marked curtilage, and was far beyond any objectively reasonable activity.
Furthermore, Lawing was required to know that the Ordinance which authorized warrantless entry was unconstitutional. The Court had held nearly identical ordinances as invalid. The ordinance which he was trying to enforce was also unconstitutional and void. Under the terms of Harlow, Lawing was required to know this, and behave himself accordingly. The knowledge required only to know that his invasion was unlawful was minimal at best.
Lawing attempts to raise some doubt about whether or not invading the protected curtilage of a home in search of violations of municipal code is actually a search, citing cases where the courts in question avoided dealing with the question directly, stating that in those instances, what happened may not have been a search, but if it was it was a reasonable search. The facts of those cases differ so greatly from this one that they question simply does not apply. In both cases the search was justified under other existing case law, so the issue was moot, and the courts declined to rule specifically on the issue.
authorizes removal of "junk" vehicles without proper notice or a hearing� amounts to auto theft under color of law.
Furthermore, it matters little if the title of "search" is applied� it remains a constitutionally prohibited act, even if the defendant gives it a brand new name.
The assertion that the reasonableness test should include not only what was known at the time but also the results of the search is in direct violation of all known case law, including the case cited.
Much of the case law presented by Lawing is either not on point at all, or actually argues against the position for which it was proposed. In several cases, the determining factor was that the officers were lawfully present on the property in the first place. In other cases cited by this defendant, the vehicles or searches took place in an open and unobstructed driveway- not in a fenced and gated private lot, and in still other cases the searches in question took place pursuant to an arrest or involved vehicles in police custody . As a final attempt to free himself from the consequences of his unlawful actions, Lawing points out that qualified immunity has been used as a license to commit murder in other cases. Those cases and their merits are not at bar here. The law is clear that in this case, based upon these merits, Lawing is not entitled to qualified immunity. Clearly, Lawing found no case law to support the position that he should be granted Qualified Immunity despite having violated Constitutional prohibitions against warrantless and unreasonable searches under the circumstances which present themselves in this case.
CRAIG v. STATE OF MISSOURI, 29 U.S. 410, 433 (1830) Is the proposition to be maintained, that the constitution meant to prohibit names and not things? That a very important act, big with great and ruinous mischief, which is expressly forbidden by words most appropriate for its description; may be performed by the substitution of a name? That the constitution, in one of its most important provisions, may be openly evaded by giving a new name to an old thing? We cannot think so . . .
VIII) A Few Steps In � The New Standard Applied.
Would entering "just a few steps" into a home not be a Constitutional violation? Would a warrantless body cavity search no longer be prohibited if the searching party only invaded the searched just a little bit? Would invading a secured military facility "just a few steps" no longer be trespassing? Would running "just a few steps" from a pursuing officer no longer be unlawful? I'll forgo wasting the Court's time or my paper with further analogies of the application of such a ridiculous standard. It clearly fails the "reasonable" test.
United States v. Johnson, 413 F.2d, 1396, 1399 (5th Cir. 1969) The Johnson court held that checking the serial plate to further verify VIN numbers may not be a search, but if it was, it was a reasonable one. The officers had permission to inspect the vehicle, and to be on the property.
The defendant asserts that trivial matters should not be clogging up the federal Courts� indeed, under the "just a few steps" standard, many cases would be entirely eliminated from the Court's dockets � and the Constitution would be a meaningless scrap of paper. Contrary to the view so often asserted by the defendants in this case, violations of Constitutional law are not trivial matters, and the warrantless invasion the curtilage of Plaintiff's home is hardly trivial. While defendants have repeatedly asserted the triviality of Constitutional law, Plaintiffs cannot, and this Court should not endorse such an untenable position.
Even if the Municipal Code's authorizing unconstitutional invasions of private property were otherwise grounds to find Lawing's clearly unlawful actions reasonable, He would still not be entitled to qualified immunity on those grounds because the law itself cannot provide him such protection.
Further, it does not require being so branded in open court to determine it's nullity.
"The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void. . .unconstitutional law bears no power to enforce, it purports to settle as if it never existed, for unconstitutionality dates from the enactment of such a law and not such time as branded in an open court of law. . .it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed. No courts are bound to uphold it and no persons are bound to obey it."
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S., at 814 "(When government officials abuse their offices), action[s] for damages may offer the only realistic avenue for vindication of constitutional guarantees."
grant judicial approval to the violations of Constitutional law which this Court was intended to protect against . The fact that qualified immunity creates the most obvious and frequent violation of equal protection of the laws is also off topic on this appeal, since the standards set for its removal are met.
Without averring to the merits of any specific cases, the fact that qualified immunity has been used as a shield from justice for acts such as murder and the mass strip searching of fifth graders is a shame which brings in doubt the integrity of the entire judicial system, not grounds for allowing other Constitutional violations to be permitted. That Lawing has not committed some crime of violence does not betray the fact that he has acted in direct violation of clearly established law, and as such is liable for his actions. Those cases are not here at bar� this case is, and the merits of this case clearly show that Lawing is not entitled to Qualified Immunity. The District Court did not err in this matter.
The trial court ruled that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence was clearly established providing Officer Lawing with sufficient notice that his conduct was unlawful, that Officer Lawing's unlawful conduct violated the Appellees' Fourth Amendment rights, and that Officer Lawing was not entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law. Thereafter, Officer Lawing initiated this interlocutory appeal. A district court's denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law, is an appealable decision within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. � 1291. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985).
"We also agree with the city's contention before the trial court that its duty to inspect under this ordinance was necessarily qualified, since the building inspector and fire chief were not authorized to enter upon private property to make an inspection without a warrant. In Camara v. Municipal Court of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967), the Supreme Court held that the fourth amendment prohibited a building inspector from entering private property to conduct an investigation without a warrant issued upon probable cause. Accord, Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 98 S.Ct. 1942, 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978); Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 56 L.Ed.2d 305 (1978); See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 87 S.Ct. 1737, 18 L.Ed.2d 943 (1967); See also Art. I, � 23, Fla.Const. (1980).
(Ord. 96-458-297, � 1) (emphasis added).
"The historical underpinnings of the open fields doctrine also demonstrate that the doctrine is consistent with respect for 'reasonable expectations of privacy.' As Justice Holmes, writing for the Court, observed in Hester, 265 U.S., at 59 , the common law distinguished 'open fields' from the 'curtilage,' the land immediately surrounding and associated with the home. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *225. The distinction implies that only the curtilage, not the neighboring open fields, warrants the Fourth Amendment protections that attach to the home. At common law, the curtilage is the area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the 'sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life,' and therefore has been considered part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes. Thus, courts have extended Fourth Amendment protection to the curtilage; and they have defined the curtilage, as did the common law, by reference to the factors that determine whether an individual reasonably may expect that an area immediately adjacent to the home will remain private. Conversely, the common law implies, as we reaffirm today, that no expectation of privacy legitimately attaches to open fields."
I HEREBY CERTIFY that true and correct copies of Appellee's Brief have been furnished to Jon Phillips, Appellant's Counsel, 417 West Duval Street, Suite 480, Jacksonville, Florida 32202 and to Lee S. Carlin, Assistant GeneralCounsel, 417 West Duval Street, Suite 480, Jacksonville, Florida 32202 by Hand Delivery this _____ day of May, 2003.
RE: LOCAL GOVERNMENT CODE ENFORCEMENT BOARDS�COUNTIES� ORDINANCES--INSPECTIONS�WARRANTS�authority of code enforcement officers to search private property. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Fla. Const. Art. 12, s. 12; Ch. 162, Fla. Stat.
Property rights are among the most basic foundations of liberty� here's a way to protect them.
The case, Marlett v. City of Jacksonville, et al, has provided encouragement to people who believe that government officials trespassing on private property amounts to a violation of constitutional rights. The pleadings from my court case have been widely publicized. There have been reports of dozens of lawsuits that have already been filed, and possibly over 100 being prepared for filing in the coming days.
For those of you who live in homes, mobile homes, or any other structures with an associated outside area. (This would not apply to those who live in apartment buildings, motels, etc. that have no "yard") this adherence to your Constitutional rights is also applicable. Any government agent of any sort and from any department, agency, or level of government, can be held accountable to the law if they invade the curtilage of your home. Curtilage is defined as the area around your home that is directly associated with the home itself� in other words, your yard.
3) If you aren't sure whether an area is protected curtilage, get a warrant. If you can't get a warrant� Keep off the grass.
FRAP and 9th Circus Rules Ninth Circus "Pro Se info Packet"
Protected Under the Fourth Amendment?
Dogs enjoyed only a limited property status, however, an owner of a dog could bring an action of trover for conversion of a dog, and dogs would pass as assets to the executor or administrator of a deceased owner. See Mullaly, 86 N.Y. at 366; see also 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries *236 (stating that a dog owner possessed"a base property" in his dogs that was sufficient to"maintain a civil action for the loss of them").
At the federal level, the prevailing understanding through much of the nineteenth century was that dogs were"property," even if only qualifiedly so.
Apparent that the Court has treated the term"effects" as being synonymous with personal property. In United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983).
The conclusion that dogs merit protection under the Fourth Amendment. The common law personal property rights that attached to dogs were at least as strong as those that have been held sufficient by the Court to qualify other objects as"effects" entitled to Fourth Amendment protection.
A Fourth Amendment"seizure" of personal property occurs when"there is some meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests in that property." Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 113. Destroying property meaningfully interferes with an individual's possessory interest in that property by changing a temporary deprivation into a permanent deprivation. See id. at 124-25. Thus, when the officers destroyed the dogs, they"seized" the plaintiffs'"effects." See Brown, 269 F.3d at 210; Fuller, 36 F.3d at 68.
In order for the officers' warrantless seizures of the plaintiffs' dogs to be constitutional, the seizures must have been"reasonable." A seizure of personal property conducted without a warrant is presumptively unreasonable. See Place, 462 U.S. at 701.

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