Opinion ID: 2998624
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Scott’s Arrest

Text: Scott contends that his arresting officers unreasonably concluded that probable cause supported his arrest. Probable cause is a practical, common-sense determination. Maxwell v. City of Indianapolis, 998 F.2d 431, 434 (7th Cir. 1993). The police ordinarily have probable cause when “the facts and circumstances within their knowledge and of which they [have] reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient to warrant a prudent [person] in believing that the [suspect] had committed or was committing an offense.” Beck, 379 U.S. at 91. The question of probable cause is typically “a proper issue for a jury if there is room for a difference of opinion concerning the facts or the reasonable inferences to be drawn from them.” Maxwell, 998 F.2d at 434. The district court decided, as an initial matter, that Officers Clauge, Sheppard and Riley could be not be found liable for Scott’s arrest because Chief Pesci was the only arresting officer. As to Chief Pesci, the court concluded that probable cause in the form of eyewitness testimony, surveillance footage, and motive supported Scott’s arrest and absolved Pesci of any liability. The district court therefore awarded the defendants summary judgment, concluding that no reasonable juror could find that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest Scott. In the court’s view, the following “undisputed facts” armed the officers with probable cause for Scott’s arrest: “(1) an individual familiar with Scott positively identified him as bearing a strong resemblance to the robber; (2) pictures of Scott taken the previous evening at the Galesburg police station objectively No. 04-3614 11 resembled, to a high degree of certainty, still shots from the surveillance camera; and (3) an admitted motive—financial problems.” R.144 at 18. We respectfully disagree with the district court’s view as to whether probable cause existed as a matter of law. Arrayed against the indicators supporting probable cause are other factors that weigh heavily against a determination that Scott was the bank robber. First, Scott did not match—or even come close to matching—the physical description of the robber that was provided by the only eyewitness who saw the robber’s face. Secondly, Brent Dugin, the bank employee who knew Scott, told the police that, at certain angles of the surveillance footage, the suspect did not resemble Scott. See id. at 3. Third, the camera footage itself lacked a clarity of resolution that made it difficult to discern significant detail. The inconclusive nature of this footage, in addition to the differences between the specific description of the bank robber and the actual appearance of Scott Sornberger, undermines substantially the determination of probable cause in this instance. Notably, all of these factors were known to the officers who arrested Scott. Considering these facts, a reasonable jury certainly could find that probable cause did not exist. Accordingly, a determination of probable cause at the summary judgment stage was improper. The defendants contend that we nevertheless must affirm the district court because Scott’s arresting officers enjoyed qualified immunity. As they correctly point out, the qualified immunity issue—whether a reasonable officer could have believed that he had probable cause— is usually decided by the court before trial. Hunter, 502 U.S. at 228. Moreover, we recognize that, even if probable cause is lacking with respect to an arrest, the arresting officer is entitled to immunity so long as his belief that 12 No. 04-3614 he had probable cause was objectively reasonable. See id. at 227; Edwards v. Cabrera, 58 F.3d 290, 293 (7th Cir. 1995). However, the qualified immunity doctrine does not protect those who act unreasonably or “who knowingly violate the law.” Hunter, 502 U.S. at 228. Qualified immunity is, as the term implies, qualified. It contemplates instances in which a public official’s actions are not protected because the official knew or should have known he was violating an individual’s constitutional rights. See Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 506-07 (1978) (“[I]t is not unfair to hold liable the official who knows or should know he is acting outside the law, and that insisting on an awareness of clearly established constitutional limits will not unduly interfere with the exercise of official judgment.”). The present record does not necessarily support a conclusion that Scott’s arresting officers decided, in an objectively reasonable fashion, that they had probable cause to arrest Scott. As we described in our analysis of probable cause, the evidence implicating Scott in the robbery was exceedingly thin. Scott bore a generic resemblance to the individual captured on grainy surveillance video and had admittedly poor finances. The bank employee who had noticed a resemblance later modified that conclusion in the presence of Chief Pesci.2 Scott’s physical appearance was inconsis 2 The parties disagree as to whether Chief Pesci actually heard the bank employee, Brent Dugan, make this later statement. According to the deposition of Dugan, after seeing the video from a different angle, which occurred within “a minute or two” of viewing the footage from the original angle, he commented that the view from the second angle did not resemble Scott. R.122, Ex.23 at 39. Chief Pesci, although never asked whether he heard Dugan’s second comment, testified to having been pres- (continued...) No. 04-3614 13 tent with the eyewitness description of the bank robber in almost every material respect. Nevertheless, federal and state prosecutors were approached for an authorization to arrest Scott. See R.136, Tab 7 at 47-48. The United States Attorney, when approached by the FBI, refused to sanction Scott’s arrest, citing the need for further investigation.3 Undeterred, Officer Clauge and Chief Pesci then consulted state’s attorney Mangieri for his opinion on whether there was probable cause to arrest Scott. The information that the 2 (...continued) ent while he and Dugan reviewed the surveillance footage “several” consecutive times. R.136, Tab 1 at 77-80. A reasonable inference from this testimony (and we must, in this procedural context, draw all inferences in favor of Scott) is that Chief Pesci heard both of Dugan’s statements. 3 FBI agent Brian Sharkey, who was assisting in the investigation of the First Bank robbery, testified at his deposition that he consulted Assistant United States Attorney Dara Lynn Kanauss regarding whether she wished to arrest Scott on federal charges. She declined to authorize Scott’s arrest. Agent Sharkey then rejoined the Galesburg officers to inform them of the federal prosecutor’s decision. This is how he described the ensuing conversation: Basically, I told them that I told—that I had told Dara Lynn that I felt that there were a few leads that I wanted to track down further before we did any—before we filed any charges. She agreed. She thought that we should—we didn’t at that point, I didn’t feel that this guy was a risk of flight or that he was going to leave the area, speaking of Mr. Sornberger. And so we thought that we had time to maybe track down a few leads, so we were going to—she said that she was in agreement with me to do that. R.136, Tab 6 at 55. 14 No. 04-3614 officers presented to Mangieri, however, as far as the record reveals, appears to have been incomplete and one-sided. Officer Clauge told Mangieri that Scott was a suspect “based upon a generalized description of [the] bank robber,” that Scott had poor finances, and that one bank employee had remarked that Scott resembled the perpetrator caught on tape. R.122, Ex.29 at 32-33. Mangieri was also informed of the Sornbergers’ alibi, and that a neighbor had seen an individual running behind the Sornbergers’ home near the time that the robbery was committed. Mangieri was then shown still-frame photographs from the surveillance video to compare with photos taken of Scott. Officer Clauge, however, apparently did not reveal the additional facts that undermined the likelihood that Scott was the perpetrator. From the record before us, it appears that Mangieri was not told that the one actual eyewitness to the crime gave a description that did not match Scott’s physical appearance. He apparently was not told that the bank employee who originally had opined that Scott resembled the perpetrator on the tape later modified that opinion. He was not shown the actual tape. In short, the record is susceptible to the reading that, having heard what the officers wanted him to hear—and no more—Mangieri opined that probable cause existed for Scott’s arrest.4 4 In describing the set of information that the officers presented to him, state’s attorney Mangieri gave the following account: The information that I had is that they had developed an investigatory lead based upon a generalized description of this bank robber, the viewing of the surveillance tape, one of the bank employees says, [“]It looks like Scott Sornberger,[”] and then an initial interview of Scott Sornberger and where he was during the time in question, and some additional (continued...) No. 04-3614 15 This record cannot establish that Officer Clauge and Chief Pesci simply made a good-faith mistake as to the existence of probable cause. We have held that, when an officer presents his case in good-faith to a prosecutor and seeks that official’s advice about the existence of probable cause, his subsequent action, based on the prosecutor’s advice that probable cause exists, is powerful evidence that the officer’s reliance was in good faith and deserving of qualified immunity. See Kijonka v. Seitzinger, 363 F.3d 645, 648 (7th Cir. 2004). Here, however, the record, as it comes to us, hardly establishes such a good-faith seeking of legal advice. Rather, the record is susceptible to the view that the officers themselves realized the weakness of their case, and therefore manipulated the available evidence to mislead the state prosecutor into authorizing Scott’s arrest.5 This conduct, as alleged, creates serious factual issues as to whether the officers reasonably relied on the prosecutor’s advice. On this 4 (...continued) information from—that was called in from citizens of Knoxville that law enforcement had received. R.136, Tab 5 at 32-33. 5 These circumstances are similar in principle to our cases that deny qualified immunity to officers who deliberately misrepresent or omit facts in a warrant affidavit. In those cases, officers will be held to have knowingly violated a plaintiff’s fourth amendment rights if those officers, in the course of obtaining a warrant, “had obvious reasons to doubt the accuracy of the information [they] reported, or failed to inform the judicial officer of facts they knew would negate probable cause.” Beauchamp v. City of Noblesville, 320 F.3d 733, 743 (7th Cir. 2003); Neiman v. Keane, 232 F.3d 577, 580 (7th Cir. 2000); cf. Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 155-56 (1978). 16 No. 04-3614 record, neither Chief Pesci nor Officer Clauge can be entitled to qualified immunity.6 “A police officer may not close her or his eyes to facts that would help clarify the circumstances of an arrest.” BeVier v. Hucal, 806 F.2d 123, 128 (7th Cir. 1986). As we have held, “[r]easonable avenues of investigation must be pursued” especially when, as here, it is unclear who committed the crime. Id. In the present case, the officers had obtained a warrant for the search of the Sornbergers’ parents’ computer, which would have allowed the investigators to confirm the couple’s alibi. Rather than waiting to obtain this critical information, the officers arrested Scott while the search of his parents’ home was taking place. On this record, given that the lynchpin of a probable cause determination was on the verge of being obtained, the officers’ arrest of Scott before reviewing the results of the computer search appears to have been unreasonably premature.