Opinion ID: 2754539
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ventura’s Fourth Amendment Claims

Text: The L.A. City defendants also obtained the arrest warrant for “Jose Ventura” and were responsible for inputting it into CWS and WPS. As in Rivera, Ventura argues that the L.A. City defendants violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement by identifying the warrant’s subject in CWS and WPS without including the known CII number for the warrant’s true subject. He also argues the warrant was infirm because the L.A. Main number was not included. Ventura’s claim is foreclosed by Rivera, which concluded that the warrant at issue there “satisfied the particularity requirement because it contained both the subject’s name and a detailed physical description,” even though it did not include a CII number. Rivera, 745 F.3d at 388. The district court’s order dismissing Ventura’s Fourth Amendment claim against the L.A. City defendants is affirmed. 11 Gant argued that the L.A. County defendants violated his Fourth Amendment rights by not comparing his CII number to the CII number on the warrant. That claim is actually a Fourteenth Amendment claim, and we address it as such, infra. Rivera, 745 F.3d at 389–90 (“[P]ost-arrest incarceration is analyzed under the Fourteenth Amendment alone.”). 18 GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
Ventura argues that when the Chino defendants arrested him, they did not have probable cause to believe that he was the subject of the arrest warrant for “Jose Ventura” because of the “radical discrepancies” between the height, weight, name, and residence on Ventura’s driver’s license and the warrant’s description of its subject. He also argues the Chino defendants had access to his criminal history, which shows no criminal record. The district court evaluated whether Ventura could prevail on a Fourth Amendment § 1983 claim against the Chino defendants based on the “customs and policies” standard set out in Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668 (9th Cir. 2001). Under that standard, to prevail on a Fourth Amendment § 1983 claim against a municipal defendant or sheriff’s department, a plaintiff must show: (1) that he was “deprived of [his] constitutional rights by defendants and their employees acting under color of state law; (2) that the defendants have customs or policies which amount to deliberate indifference to . . . constitutional rights; and (3) that these policies [were] the moving force behind the constitutional violations.” Id. at 681–82 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted); see also Monell v. Dep’t of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691 (local governmental entities liable under § 1983 when “action pursuant to official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort”). The district court agreed that whether the arresting officer “could have had a reasonable belief that Ventura was the warrant’s subject, despite the height and weight discrepancies,” was a question of fact for the jury, but it granted the Chino defendants’ summary judgment motion because it decided Ventura had not raised a triable issue of GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 19 fact about whether the defendants had a policy amounting to deliberate indifference to Ventura’s constitutional rights. Whether Ventura’s opposition was sufficient to survive the Chino defendants’ summary judgment motion is a close question. A Chino officer testified that Ventura’s arrest was in accordance with its custom, policy, or practice. Chino also argues that in over twenty years before Ventura’s allegations, it “had not had any incident, lawsuit, or tort claim alleged against it for an improper arrest based on a factually correct warrant.” Ventura argues the Chino defendants admitted liability by conceding that his arrest was in accordance with their policies, but the Chino defendants did not concede deliberate indifference. We agree with the district court’s assessment that the question is “whether a policy that would permit an arrest on a warrant issued for someone seven inches taller and 120 pounds lighter evinces a ‘deliberate indifference’” to Ventura’s constitutional rights. In Oviatt v. Pearce, this court explained that deliberate indifference to a person’s constitutional rights occurs when the need for more or different action: is so obvious, and the inadequacy [of the current procedure] so likely to result in the violation of constitutional rights, that the policymakers . . . can reasonably be said to have been deliberately indifferent to the need. Whether a local government entity has displayed a policy of deliberate indifference is generally a question for the jury. 20 GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 954 F.2d 1470, 1477–78 (1992) (emphasis added) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). The Chino defendants’ warrant arrest policy states, in pertinent part: “Warrant arrests will be made when the person has a confirmed, active warrant in the Wanted Persons System (WPS).” The district court reasoned: Although this policy contains no guidelines regarding how closely a suspect must match a warrant description to authorize an arrest, Ventura has put forth no evidence suggesting that this omission amounts to deliberate indifference. For example, Ventura presents no evidence that the policy has resulted in violations in the past or that it is likely to lead to future violations. It is not obvious that the policy’s lack of guidelines regarding descriptors is inadequate; indeed, it is not even clear that such guidelines would be helpful. The district court was correct that Ventura did not provide evidence that the policy has resulted in past violations or that it is likely to lead to future violations. Further, “[p]roof of a single incident of unconstitutional activity is not sufficient to impose liability under Monell, unless proof of the incident includes proof that it was caused by an existing, unconstitutional municipal policy, which policy can be attributed to a municipal policymaker.” Okla. City v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808, 823–24 (1985); see also Trevino v. Gates, 99 F.3d 911, 918 (9th Cir. 1996) (“Liability for improper custom may not be predicated on isolated or sporadic incidents; it must be founded upon practices of sufficient GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 21 duration, frequency and consistency that the conduct has become a traditional method of carrying out policy.”). Ventura did not meet his burden of showing that this mistaken arrest was more than a single, “isolated or sporadic” incident. We therefore affirm the district court’s order granting summary judgment to the Chino defendants on Ventura’s § 1983 Fourth Amendment claim.
Ventura also challenges the order granting summary judgment on his § 1983 Fourth Amendment claim arising from his four-day post-arrest detention by the San Bernardino defendants at WVDC. Rivera forecloses this argument, 745 F.3d at 389–90 (“[P]ost-arrest incarceration is analyzed under the Fourteenth Amendment alone.”), and we affirm the dismissal of this claim.
The L.A. County defendants detained Ventura for two days immediately prior to his court appearance. Ventura made identical Fourth Amendment claims against the L.A. County defendants as he did against the L.A. City defendants, arguing that they violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement by identifying the warrant’s subject in CWS and WPS without including known CII and L.A. Main numbers for the warrant’s true subject. But the Third Amended Complaint alleged that the L.A. City defendants, not the L.A. County defendants, procured the warrant. Based on the facts alleged in the complaint, the L.A. County defendants could not have updated the databases, so we affirm the district court’s order dismissing this claim. 22 GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES Ventura also challenges his two-day detainment after arrest by the L.A. County defendants under the Fourth Amendment. Because “post-arrest incarceration is analyzed under the Fourteenth Amendment alone,” id., the district court did not err by dismissing this Fourth Amendment claim. B. Fourteenth Amendment Gant and Ventura challenge their post-arrest detainment under the Fourteenth Amendment. In Baker v. McCollan, the Supreme Court held that “mere detention pursuant to a valid warrant but in the face of repeated protests of innocence will after the lapse of a certain amount of time deprive the accused of ‘liberty . . . without due process of law.’” 443 U.S. 137, 145 (1979) (emphasis added). And in Lee, we confirmed that wrongful detention can ripen into a due process violation, but it is a plaintiff’s burden to show that “it was or should have been known [by the defendant] that the [plaintiff] was entitled to release.” 250 F.3d at 683 (quoting Cannon v. Macon Cnty., 1 F.3d 1558, 1563 (11th Cir. 1993)). Lee did not define the point at which repeated pleas of innocence ripen into a Fourteenth Amendment violation. We have held that a public entity can be liable under the Fourteenth Amendment for failing to “institut[e] readily available procedures for decreasing the risk of erroneous detention.” Fairley v. Luman, 281 F.3d 913, 918 (9th Cir. 2002) (plaintiff held for twelve days without hearing, court appearance, or fingerprint comparison).12 Both the district 12 The court applies the balancing test established in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), to determine whether procedural protections comport with due process. Fairley, 281 F.3d at 918 n.6. To identify what process is due, the Court considers: GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 23 court and Rivera, 745 F.3d at 390–91, reiterated these precedents. 1. Gant’s Fourteenth Amendment Claims a. L.A. County Defendants After the Torrance police arrested Gant, they transferred him into the L.A. County defendants’ custody. Gant argues the L.A. County defendants detained him in violation of his right to due process by relying on Torrance’s determination that he was the warrant’s intended subject without verifying this fact themselves. But the record does not show that Gant brought his judicial clearance form to the L.A. County defendants’ attention or otherwise objected to his detention by L.A. County. Instead, he argues that the L.A. County defendants should have known he was not the person described in the warrant because Gant and his brother’s nonmatching CII numbers were “reflected in the documentation.” We understand Gant to impliedly argue that a non-arresting agency has an affirmative duty to verify an arrestee’s identity. [f]irst, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail. Mathews, 424 U.S. at 335. 24 GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES A wrongful detention can ripen into a due process violation if “it was or should have been known [by the defendant] that the [plaintiff] was entitled to release.” Lee, 250 F.3d at 683 (quoting Cannon, 1 F.3d at 1563). But to prevail here, Gant would have to show that he was deprived of a constitutional right under color of state law, that defendants’ customs or policies amounted to deliberate indifference to constitutional rights, and that these policies were the moving force behind the violations. Id. at 681–82. The district court granted summary judgment for L.A. County on Gant’s wrongful detention claim because Gant was held in L.A. County custody “for the sole purpose of appearing in court.” The district court observed that Gant cited “no authority indicating that a custodial agency that briefly holds a detainee while he awaits a court appearance that same day can be liable for over-detention in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Gant does not attempt to rebut this point on appeal, and the record indicates that Gant was only in L.A. County custody overnight and until his court appearance the afternoon the following day. The L.A. County defendants cite Baker v. McCollan in support of their argument that a law enforcement agency “is under no duty to investigate the arrestee’s identity, even if the arrestee complains he is not the person wanted by the warrant, and even if the agency has information in its possession that, if examined, would exonerate the arrestee.” Baker held: We may even assume, arguendo, that, depending on what procedures the State affords defendants following arrest and prior to actual trial, mere detention pursuant to a GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 25 valid warrant but in the face of repeated protests of innocence will after the lapse of a certain amount of time deprive the accused of “liberty . . . without due process of law.” But we are quite certain that a detention of three days over a New Year’s weekend does not and could not amount to such a deprivation. 443 U.S. at 145 (emphasis added). Baker supports the L.A. County defendants’ argument that brief detention on a facially valid warrant may not give rise to a due process violation depending upon the procedures the state affords, but it does not support the L.A. County defendants’ much broader assertion that no liability can attach where a jailer “has information in its possession that, if examined, would exonerate the arrestee.” To resolve Gant’s Fourteenth Amendment claim, we need only apply the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test to the facts presented in this case. Because Gant did not allege that he told the L.A. County defendants he had a judicial clearance form or that he otherwise called this case of mistaken identity to their attention, and because Gant was detained for the purpose of receiving process and did receive a prompt hearing, the district court correctly dismissed Gant’s Fourteenth Amendment claim against the L.A. County defendants. 2. Ventura’s Fourteenth Amendment Claims a. Chino Defendants The Chino defendants did not detain Ventura beyond his arrest. The district court correctly concluded that the 26 GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES reasonableness of their arrest of Ventura should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment, not as a post-arrest detainment claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Rivera, 745 F.3d at 389–90. We affirm the order granting summary judgment for the Chino defendants on Ventura’s Fourteenth Amendment claim. b. San Bernardino Defendants In Rivera, we said: Cases holding that an incarceration violated the Due Process Clause because defendants should have known the plaintiff was entitled to release fit at least one of two categories:
defendants that further investigation was warranted, or (2) the defendants denied the plaintiff access to the courts for an extended period of time. But the “further investigation” cases have involved significant differences between the arrestee and the true suspect. In Fairley, for example, the plaintiff and the true subject of the warrant not only had different first names but also differed in weight by 66 pounds. 281 F.3d at 915. 745 F.3d at 390–91. Ventura’s Fourteenth Amendment claim against the San Bernardino defendants falls into the second category. He argues that “circumstances indicated to the defendants that further investigation was warranted.” GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 27 The San Bernardino defendants detained Ventura at WVDC for four days after he was arrested and before he was transferred to the custody of the L.A. County defendants. Ventura alleges that he complained to WVDC staff about his wrongful detention, and that there were very significant discrepancies between the physical descriptors on his driver’s license and the physical descriptors on the warrant. At his deposition, Ventura testified that he complained to an officer at WVDC that he was “not the person you’re looking for.” Ventura also testified that he complained to the arresting officer that he had “the wrong person.” Ventura argues the San Bernardino defendants could have used several means to determine whether he was the warrant’s true subject, including by conducting fingerprint comparisons and by accessing “police criminal records information systems.” The San Bernardino defendants respond that there is no record of Ventura’s complaints, and that if he had raised such a complaint, it would have been memorialized. They also argue that they could not have determined that Ventura was not the warrant’s true subject through the means Ventura suggests. The district court recognized there was a triable issue of fact about whether Ventura complained to the San Bernardino defendants that they had the wrong person, but the district court ruled that Ventura did not offer any evidence showing the jailers’ failure to conduct a fingerprint comparison was pursuant to an official policy or practice. In fact, the district court noted that the San Bernardino defendants filed the declaration of a custody specialist (“the Walstrom declaration”) in conjunction with its summary judgment motion, and the declaration explained that San Bernardino’s policy does require fingerprint comparisons when a detainee complains of mistaken identity. The district court further 28 GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES ruled that Ventura did not show that accessing an alternate police records system would have established he was not the warrant’s true subject because the lack of a criminal history, by itself, does not eliminate the possibility that a person is the subject of a warrant. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Ventura, we assume the significant discrepancies between the physical descriptors on Ventura’s driver’s license and the physical descriptors on the warrant did raise the concern that the wrong man was being detained, just as we assume that Ventura voiced his objection to the San Bernardino defendants—though the evidence on this point is conflicting. Ventura’s Fourteenth Amendment claim against the San Bernardino defendants fails because assuming these facts to be true does not establish that San Bernardino’s failure to investigate Ventura’s complaint was the result of an official policy or practice. We agree with the district court that Ventura did not raise a material issue of fact about whether the San Bernardino defendants had a policy of not requiring fingerprint comparisons after detainees complain they have been mistakenly arrested. Ventura failed to controvert evidence that it was the San Bernardino defendants’ practice to investigate a warrant arrestee’s claim of wrongful identity. Further, “[t]hat officials apparently failed to implement [a] policy properly in this one instance is not sufficient for” the San Bernardino defendants to be liable. Rivera, 745 F.3d at 389. After reviewing the record, we also agree with the district court that Ventura did not show that accessing alternate police record systems would necessarily have revealed that Ventura was not the warrant’s true subject. The lack of a criminal history would not have established that GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 29 Ventura was being erroneously detained, because warrants are sometimes issued for individuals with no prior offenses, and individuals without criminal histories can have CII numbers. Indeed, Ventura has no criminal history, but because he has been a foster parent, and because he is a lawful immigrant who has been given political asylum, he has a CII number. We therefore affirm the district court’s order granting summary judgment for the San Bernardino defendants on Ventura’s Fourteenth Amendment claim. c. L.A. County Defendants Ventura argues that the L.A. County defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights because they detained him even though they should have known that he was not the subject of the “Jose Ventura” warrant. The L.A. County defendants detained Ventura for two days while he waited for a court appearance. In granting summary judgment for the L.A. County defendants, the district court found “no evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Ventura complained to any L.A. County official that he was not the subject of the warrant.” The district court based this finding on Ventura’s deposition testimony; when asked if he had ever complained to anyone while at the L.A. County Jail, Ventura testified, “I decided not to say anything because anyway I would be ignored.” Asked the follow-up question, “So you made no complaints to anybody at the Los Angeles County Jail; correct?” Ventura responded, “Not to anyone.” But Ventura’s deposition also included his statement that he told the woman who took his fingerprints at the L.A. County Jail (in Spanish), “I think they’re confused about me. I’m not the person you’re looking for.” The district court reasoned that “[s]tanding alone, this [statement] might be enough to raise a triable issue of fact as to whether Ventura complained to 30 GANT V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES anyone such that County officials would have had a duty to verify his identity,” but because the record included Ventura’s other sworn and unequivocal statements, the court concluded that there was not a triable issue of fact about whether Ventura complained his arrest was a mistake. The district court dismissed Ventura’s Fourteenth Amendment claim against the L.A. County defendants after applying the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test and concluding, “due process does not require a custodial agency to confirm a detainee’s identity where the detainee does not complain that he has been wrongfully incarcerated.” Ventura argues on appeal that the district court’s decision on this point is inconsistent with the summary judgment standard. We agree. The conflicting evidence about whether Ventura complained to the L.A. County defendants that they had the wrong person raises a genuine issue of material fact. We therefore reverse the district court’s order dismissing Ventura’s Fourteenth Amendment claim against the L.A. County defendants.