Opinion ID: 3011331
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Fourth Amendment Seizures

Text: A person is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes only if he is detained by means intentionally applied to terminate his freedom of movement. A seizure occurs even when an unintended person is the object of detention, so long as the means of detention are intentionally applied to that person. See Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 596 (1989) (citing Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 802-05 (1971)); see also Medeiros v. O'Connell, 150 F.3d 164, 169 (2d Cir. 1998); Rucker v. Harford County, 946 F.2d 278, 281 (4th Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1097 (1992); Landol-Rivera v. Cruz Cosme, 906 F.2d 791, 796 (1st Cir. 1990). For example, if a police officer fires his gun at a fleeing robbery suspect and the bullet inadvertently strikes an innocent bystander, there has been no Fourth Amendment seizure. See Medeiros, 150 F.3d at 168-69; Rucker, 946 F.2d at 281; Landol-Rivera, 906 F.2d at 795. If, on the other hand, the officer fires his gun directly at the innocent bystander in the mistaken belief that the bystander is the robber, then a Fourth Amendment seizure has occurred. See Brower, 489 U.S. at 596 (citing Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 802-05 (1971)). Applying that law to these facts, there is no doubt that Berg's arrest constituted a seizure for Fourth Amendment 7 purposes. Even if Wolfgang had thought he was arresting Banks, his intentional application of control over the person of Berg would be a Fourth Amendment seizure. Here, however, Wolfgang knew he was arresting Berg rather than Banks, and clearly intended to do so, even though motivated by an erroneous warrant. The question, then, is whether the arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment prohibits arrests without probable cause. See Orsatti v. New Jersey State Police, 71 F.3d 480, 482 (3d Cir. 1995). As previously noted, the District Court concluded that the warrant for Berg's arrest was facially valid and that it therefore supplied probable cause to arrest him. See Berg v. County of Allegheny, No. 97-928, slip op. at 4-7 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 22, 1998) (Wolfgang); Berg v. County of Allegheny, No. 97-928, slip op. at 4-5 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 23, 1998) (remaining defendants). We cannot agree. The Supreme Court's decision in Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560 (1971), as well as our own subsequent decisions, make clear that an erroneously issued warrant cannot provide probable cause for an arrest. In Whiteley, a county sheriff obtained a warrant for Whiteley's arrest based on a conclusory complaint. Police officers in another jurisdiction arrested Whiteley, discovering evidence later introduced at his trial. The state argued that because the arresting officers were unaware of the defect in the warrant, they had probable cause to arrest whether or not the sheriff did. But the Supreme Court held that the arrest was unconstitutional and ordered the evidence excluded: Certainly police officers called upon to aid other officers in executing arrest warrants are entitled to assume that the officers requesting aid offered the magistrate the information requisite to support an independent judicial assessment of probable cause. Where, however, the contrary turns out to be true, an otherwise illegal arrest cannot be insulated from challenge by the decision of the instigating officer to rely on fellow officers to make the arrest. Id. at 568. As in Whiteley, Constable Wolfgang relied on an arrest warrant, assuming it had been issued after 8 presentation to a judge of evidence sufficient to establish probable cause.4 Also as in Whiteley, the contrary turn[ed] out to be true; neither Gardner, Demko, nor anyone else associated with the creation of the warrant had probable cause to arrest Berg. In United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221 (1985), the Court, relying primarily on Whiteley, held that police may conduct a Terry stop based on a flyer issued by other officers, but [i]f the flyer has been issued in the absence of a reasonable suspicion, then a stop in the objective reliance upon it violates the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 232. In Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1 (1995), the Court held that the policies underlying the exclusionary rule do not require suppression of evidence seized pursuant to an erroneous warrant resulting from a clerical error. But the Court also noted that Whiteley clearly retains relevance in determining whether police officers have violated the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 13. Thus, the Supreme Court has made clear that a mistakenly issued or executed warrant cannot provide probable cause for an arrest. Our cases have applied the same principle. In Rogers v. Powell, 120 F.3d 446 (3d Cir. 1997), a county probation officer told one state trooper that a second state trooper had reported that a warrant existed for Roger's arrest. Relying on the probation officer's representation that a warrant existed, the first state trooper arrested Rogers the _________________________________________________________________ 4. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, without discussion of Whiteley, has upheld an arrest based on a warrant later found to have been improperly issued. See United States v. Towne, 870 F.2d 880, 88485 (2d Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1101 (1989); see also United States v. Shareef, 100 F.3d 1491, 1505 (10th Cir. 1996) (upholding the constitutionality of a Terry stop based on good-faith reliance on inaccurate information provided by other law enforcement officials); United States v. De Leon-Reyna, 930 F.2d 396, 401 (5th Cir. 1991) (en banc) (per curiam) (same). Other courts, relying on Whiteley, have continued to hold that an improperly issued warrant cannot provide probable cause for an arrest. See United States v. Meade, 110 F.3d 190, 193-94 & 194 n.2 (1st Cir. 1997); Ott v. State , 600 A.2d 111, 115 (Md. 1992); State v. Taylor, 621 A.2d 1252, 1254 (R.I. 1993). The Supreme Court's subsequent decisions, as well as our own, convince us that Whiteley remains the governing law. 9 following day. In fact, however, there was no such warrant and Rogers filed a S 1983 action for violation of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Like defendants here, the Rogers defendants argued that the arresting officer's mistaken belief that an arrest warrant had issued for Rogers supplied the probable cause required by the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 452-53. We rejected this argument, holding that [t]he legality of a seizure based solely on statements issued by fellow officers depends on whether the officers who issued the statements possessed the requisite basis to seize the suspect. Id. at 453 (citing Hensley, 469 U.S. at 231). Because neither [the trooper] nor [the probation officer] had knowledge of the requisite facts and circumstances necessary to support a finding of probable cause, we concluded the arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. Id. We similarly rejected the argument that reliance on a mistakenly issued warrant can supply probable cause in United States v. Miles , 468 F.2d 482, 487-88 (3d Cir. 1972), and United States v. Bianco, 189 F.2d 716, 719 (3d Cir. 1951). The only potentially distinguishing feature of Berg's arrest is that the mistake here was made by a court clerk, rather than a police officer. We do not believe this distinction is significant, however. The Fourth Amendment provides: [N]o Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . . U.S. Const. amend. IV. Because the courts are the arm of government charged with issuing warrants, we believe this requirement is directed to court officials as well as law enforcement officers. This reading is supported by the case law. In Arizona v. Evans, the Supreme Court did not find it significant that the unlawful arrest was occasioned by the mistake of court clerk, as opposed to a police officer. See 514 U.S. at 13-15. 5 Similarly, in Rogers, the arresting officers relied on a probation officer's _________________________________________________________________ 5. The Court did recognize that court personnel are not adjuncts to the law enforcement team engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime and therefore application of the exclusionary rule is unlikely to alter their behavior. Id. at 15. But this determination is not relevant to an assessment of whether their mistakes can provide probable cause for an arrest. 10 statement that another trooper had said a warrant existed for Rogers' arrest, yet we held the arrest unconstitutional without inquiring whether the mistake was the trooper's or the probation officer's. See 120 F.3d at 452-55; see also Murray v. City of Chicago, 634 F.2d 365, 366 (7th Cir. 1980) (holding that although it was unclear whether the police department or clerk's office had failed to transmit an order quashing a warrant, [i]t seems clear that [plaintiff] sustained a violation of constitutional rights by being arrested and detained pursuant to an invalid warrant). Because the government officials who issued the warrant here did not have probable cause to arrest Berg, the arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, summary judgment should not have been granted based on the existence of the warrant.6 _________________________________________________________________ 6. Unlike defendants, we do not read Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137 (1979) to hold otherwise. When he was arrested, McCollan's brother claimed to be McCollan, presenting McCollan's identification. After his brother violated parole, McCollan was arrested on a warrant and spent a long New Year's weekend in jail. The Court found no constitutional violation, but the substance of McCollan's claim was different from Berg's: [R]espondent makes clear that his S 1983 claim was based solely on Sheriff Baker's actions after respondent was incarcerated . . . . . . . Absent an attack on the validity of the warrant under which he was arrested, respondent's complaint is simply that despite his protests of mistaken identity, he was detained [over the long weekend]. Whatever claims this situation might give rise to under state tort law, we think it gives rise to no claim under the United States Constitution. Id. at 143-44. Unlike McCollan, Berg challenges the generation and execution of the warrant for his arrest, not the decision to incarcerate him after arrest. At issue here is not whether authorities must investigate the claims of innocence of a person who has been legally arrested but what precautions the Constitution requires before an arrest warrant is issued and executed. See Murray, 634 F.2d at 367 (distinguishing Baker on the same ground). 11