Opinion ID: 786286
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First and Fourteenth Amendment Violations

Text: 26 In addition to its erroneous dismissal of Awabdy's § 1983 malicious prosecution claim, the district court erred by overlooking Awabdy's allegations of direct constitutional violations under the First and Fourteenth Amendment. Awabdy's complaint, liberally construed, raises claims that the defendant city officials made false accusations and otherwise unlawfully conspired against him, with the result that criminal proceedings were wrongfully initiated (1) in order to discourage his political activity and other protected First Amendment conduct as a citizen and an Adelanto city councilmember, and (2) on account of his Arab ethnicity in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection. 27 To establish that his First Amendment rights were violated, Awabdy must prove that chilling his political speech was a substantial or motivating factor in the defendants' wrongful conduct. Sloman v. Tadlock, 21 F.3d 1462, 1469-70 (9th Cir.1994); see also Karam v. City of Burbank, 352 F.3d 1188, 1194-95 (9th Cir.2003); Butler v. Elle, 281 F.3d 1014, 1027-28 (9th Cir.2002). Awabdy is not merely claiming a speculative chill due to generalized and legitimate law enforcement initiatives. Mendocino Envtl. Ctr. v. Mendocino County, 14 F.3d 457, 464 (9th Cir.1994) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). His complaint contains specific allegations that the defendant public officials knowingly made false accusations and engaged in other wrongful, concerted conduct that resulted, as they had intended, in the institution of an unfounded criminal charge, and substantially infringed his First Amendment rights. These allegations are sufficient to state a claim under § 1983 for violation of his First Amendment rights. 28 In his Fourteenth Amendment claim, Awabdy alleges that the defendants violated his right to equal protection because their false accusations and other wrongful actions that led to the institution of criminal proceedings were intentionally discriminatory. According to Awabdy, the defendants wanted to get him because he was an Arab-American. Although he alleges that their goal was to cause the San Bernardino County District Attorney to prosecute him, he does not contend that the four city officials named as defendants violated his rights by performing a prosecutorial function. Rather, his claim is only that the prosecutor would not have initiated the prosecution but for the false reports that the other public officials lodged because of their racial animus. 29 Awabdy's allegations should not be confused with a selective prosecution claim, for he is not claiming that the defendants prosecuted him under a facially neutral law in a discriminatory manner. Cf. United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464-68, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996); Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 609, 105 S.Ct. 1524, 84 L.Ed.2d 547 (1985); United States v. Arenas-Ortiz, 339 F.3d 1066, 1068-69 (9th Cir.2003). Indeed, the defendants did not prosecute him at all. They simply provided information, false or fraudulent as it may have been, to those charged with that responsibility. Similarly, Awabdy is not asking us to exercise judicial power over the `special province' of the Executive, Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 464, 116 S.Ct. 1480, because he is not challenging the prosecutor's decision to initiate criminal proceedings. Moreover, in contrast to a typical selective prosecution claim where the target of the enforcement action does not contest that there is probable cause to prosecute, Awabdy argues that the charges against him are entirely false. Accordingly, in order to prevail under § 1983 on his Fourteenth Amendment claim against the particular defendants involved, Awabdy need only prove that they purposefully caused the state to institute proceedings against him because of his race or ethnicity, and not, as in a selective prosecution case, that similarly situated members of other, usually majority, groups were treated differently. See Farm Labor Organizing Comm. v. Ohio State Highway Patrol, 308 F.3d 523, 535 n. 4 (6th Cir.2002); Pyke v. Cuomo, 258 F.3d 107, 109-10 (2d Cir.2001). 30 In this circuit, nothing prevents Awabdy from bringing both malicious prosecution and direct First and Fourteenth Amendment claims in the same § 1983 action. In Poppell, for instance, we analyzed the adult business operator's claim of malicious prosecution with the intent to deprive him of specific constitutional rights separately from his claim that he was prosecuted on account of his exercise of the same rights he invoked in his malicious prosecution theory. 149 F.3d at 961. And in Freeman, the plaintiff's failure to prevail on her § 1983 claim of malicious prosecution did not serve to bar her claim that she was prosecuted in violation of her Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights and in retaliation for exercising her First Amendment associational rights. 68 F.3d at 1185-88. Instead, as in Poppell, we analyzed each claim on its own merits. Accordingly, we remand to the district court with instructions to permit Awabdy to amend his complaint to state separately and specifically the various claims he intends to assert, i.e., a direct First Amendment claim, a direct Fourteenth Amendment claim, and/or a § 1983 malicious prosecution claim.