Opinion ID: 2656208
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Qualified Immunity and Unreasonable Seizure

Text: “[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). “A right is clearly established if its contours are ‘sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.’” Mitchell v. Shearrer, 729 F.3d 1070, 1076 (8th Cir. 2013) (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635 (1987)). “‘It is well established that a warrantless arrest without probable cause violates an individual’s constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.’” Walker v. City of Pine Bluff, 414 F.3d 989, 992 (8th Cir. 2005) (quoting Hannah v. City of Overland, Mo., 795 F.2d 1385, 1389 (8th Cir. 1986)). “Because the qualified immunity privilege extends to a police officer who is wrong, so long as he is reasonable, the governing standard for a Fourth Amendment unlawful arrest claim ‘is not probable cause in fact but arguable probable cause . . . that is, whether the officer should have known that the arrest violated plaintiff’s clearly established right.’” Id. (omission in original) (quoting Habiger v. City of Fargo, 80 F.3d 289, 295 (8th Cir. 1996)). -5- The officers here concede no valid warrant existed at the time they arrested Bechman. They also concede there was no other probable cause for Bechman’s arrest. In their defense, the officers cite several cases where an officer made an arrest on a warrant that had been recalled, and a court found the officer’s actions reasonable under the circumstances. In each cited case, the officer was informed, albeit mistakenly, that the warrant was still outstanding. See, e.g., Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 4, 15-16 (1995) (“The computer inquiry confirmed that respondent’s license had been suspended and also indicated that there was an outstanding misdemeanor warrant for his arrest. Based upon the outstanding warrant, [the officer] placed respondent under arrest. . . . There is no indication that the arresting officer was not acting objectively reasonably when he relied upon the police computer record.”); Edwards v. Baer, 863 F.2d 606, 608-09 (8th Cir. 1988) (“Based upon [the plaintiff’s] representation that the warrant was no longer valid, [the officer] contacted the [local] Police Department on two separate occasions and, in each instance, was informed that the arrest warrant continued to be outstanding. [The officer] arrested [the plaintiff] based upon this information of the existence of a valid warrant.”); Mason v. Vill. of Babylon, N.Y., 124 F. Supp. 2d 807, 810, 815 (E.D.N.Y. 2000) (“Once Plaintiff was pulled over, [the officer] communicated with a police dispatcher and was informed that there was an outstanding warrant for Plaintiff’s arrest. Upon learning of the warrant, [the officer] took Plaintiff into custody and transported her to the [local] Precinct.”). In contrast, the only “fact[] known to” Officers Magill and Butler, Kiser v. City of Huron, S.D., 219 F.3d 814, 816 (8th Cir. 2000), was that Officer Magill’s squad car computer returned a “hit” on Bechman. What does a “hit” mean? As the officers describe it, when Officer Magill “ran the license plate of the vehicle on his [squad] car computer, he learned of a possible outstanding warrant against the vehicle’s owner, Chelsea Bechman.” (Emphasis added). Unlike in Evans, the inquiry to the Cedar Rapids Police Department did not end with the search of the computer system. Officer Magill called the Cedar Rapids Police Department, as he put it, to “check -6- through dispatch to learn whether [the warrant] was still valid.” (Emphasis added). The dispatcher did not supply him with any verification. Rather, again in Officer Magill’s words, “the Sheriff’s office would confirm the existence of the warrant with the Clerk of Court the next morning.” At the time of Bechman’s arrest, and in the face of Bechman’s explanation that the traffic violation warrant was resolved, the “existence of the warrant” was not confirmed. Officers Magill and Butler started their training at the Law Enforcement Academy to be certified as Cedar Rapids police officers in June 2008, around the time Cedar Rapids was inundated by a severe flood. During this initial training, Officer Magill first saw the “Procedures for Handling Warrants” general order issued by the Cedar Rapids Police Department (general order). The general order explains that a computer “hit” on the warrant database is not reason enough to make an arrest. On the contrary, A warrant entry will serve to notify the officer that there is a warrant issued against the subject and housed at our department. Mittimus are housed at the Linn County Sheriff’s Department. a. An immediate check by the dispatcher to the appropriate agency will determine that they do, in fact, have the original warrant or mittimus in hand. b. When the officer is notified that they do, in fact, have the original warrant or mittimus, he/she will effect the arrest. c. Should the appropriate agency be unable to locate the original warrant or mittimus, the subject will be informed that there is supposed to be a warrant issued on him/her and that it can’t be found at this time; therefore, he/she is not going to be held further on the warrant or mittimus. The subject will then be released unless the officer has other charges or reasons for holding him/her. -7- d. The warrant list or Sheriff’s Computer shall not, in itself, be reason enough to arrest a subject. The officer must be notified that the Police Department, Sheriff’s Office, or other agency does have the paperwork in hand and is valid. The district court fairly exercised its discretion and considered this general order relevant in its determination of the objective reasonableness of the officers’ actions. The officers maintain that this court has previously stated, “A public official does not lose his qualified immunity merely because his conduct violates some statutory or administrative provision. Our analysis is instead guided by the fact that federal constitutional law does not require the actual possession of a warrant in cases where the arresting officer has knowledge of its existence.” Edwards, 863 F.2d at 608 (emphasis added) (internal citation omitted). Officers Magill and Butler did not have knowledge of the Bechman warrant’s existence. The “existence of the warrant,” or the lack thereof, would not be checked until “the next morning.” The officers also contend Bechman’s arrest warrant was issued before June 2008, the time of the flood, which caused “the destruction of most of the actual paper arrest warrants housed by the Linn County Sheriff,” presumably including Bechman’s. The officers argue they were unable to comply with the general order because “the paper warrants were gone.” Yet Officers Magill and Butler admit the general order was still in effect on the day of Bechman’s arrest, despite the flood the previous summer. The officers do not dispute that some method of warrant bookkeeping verification existed such that on the morning following Bechman’s arrest and night in jail, she was released due to the discovery of the lack of a valid warrant.4 The June 2008 Cedar Rapids flood did not suspend the Fourth Amendment. 4 We are not asked to decide whether the existence of the actual paper warrant signed by the magistrate would have been required for a constitutional seizure. -8- The district court correctly determined that no reasonable police officer could actually believe Bechman’s warrantless arrest was lawful, given the information supplied to the officers and the circumstances surrounding Bechman’s arrest. “The Fourth Amendment, and the personal rights which it secures, have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a [woman] to retreat into [her] own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511 (1961). Because we affirm the district court’s denial of qualified immunity on the grounds of the warrantless arrest, we do not address whether the humiliating indignities suffered by Bechman as a result of these officers’ conduct constitute an independent rationale for a § 1983 claim of unreasonable seizure.