Opinion ID: 2620439
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sergeant Parker

Text: Although Officer Seymour is not entitled to qualified immunity, the same analysis does not govern the question of qualified immunity for Sergeant Parker. Wilkerson argues that Sergeant Parker, who was not present at the time of the arrest, had a duty to intervene and halt her transportation to the jail upon his cursory investigation of the situation. Sergeant Parker claims first that there is no clearly established duty to intervene in a false arrest action, and alternatively, even if such a duty exists, he did not have sufficient information to put him on notice that the arrest by Officer Seymour was unconstitutional. In Jones v. Cannon, we held that where an officer was present during an arrest and knew that the arresting officer had no reasonable basis for arguable probable cause, the non-arresting officer could be liable under § 1983 if he was sufficiently involved in the arrest. 174 F.3d 1271, 1283–84 (11th Cir. 1999). We then found that the non-arresting officer could have been sufficiently involved as a participant where he participated in an interview resulting in an allegedly fabricated confession, took notes from which the police report was prepared, and 9 Case: 12-15938 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 10 of 13 transported the detainee to the jail. Id. at 1284. We then held with respect to a different aspect of the claim of a constitutional violation that the same nonarresting officer could not be liable under § 1983 for the arresting officer’s allegedly fabricated affidavit used at a later probable cause proceeding. Id. at 1284–86. Jones acknowledged a long line of precedent in excessive force cases in which we have recognized a duty to intervene. See, e.g., Ensley v. Soper, 142 F.3d 1402, 1407 (11th Cir. 1998) (“[I]t is clear that if a police officer, whether supervisory or not, fails or refuses to intervene when a constitutional violation such as an unprovoked beating takes place in his presence, the officer is directly liable under Section 1983.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, we observed in Jones as to the second charge that “[w]hile officers have been subject to liability for failing to intervene when another officer uses excessive force, there is no previous decision from the Supreme Court or this Circuit holding that an officer has a duty to intervene and is therefore liable under the circumstances presented here.” 174 F.3d at 1286 (citation omitted). Jones did not preclude all failure to intervene claims against a present, but non-arresting, officer in false arrest cases. Although not made explicit in Jones, we based our different holdings as to the non-arresting officer on both the degree of 10 Case: 12-15938 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 11 of 13 participation in the arrest and the amount of information available to the nonarresting officer, because a non-arresting officer does not have a duty to investigate the basis of another officer’s arrest. See id. 174 F.3d at 1284–86. Additionally, with respect to the second aspect of the claim, we rejected the argument that one officer “is somehow charged with presuming that [the arresting officer] must have put the alleged false confession in the arrest affidavit” or that he “was required to undertake an investigation of the arrest affidavit to determine what [the arresting officer] was doing and what [he] put in the arrest affidavit to continue Jones’s detention.” Id. at 1286. What is made explicit in Jones is that a participant in an arrest, even if not the arresting officer, may be liable if he knew the arrest lacked any constitutional basis and yet participated in some way. We need not fully delineate the scope of such a duty here, however, because assuming that Sergeant Parker sufficiently participated in Wilkerson’s arrest, 3 Sergeant Parker still lacked the requisite information to put him on notice that an unlawful arrest was occurring or had occurred. Here, Sergeant Parker arrived at the scene after Wilkerson was already under arrest and placed in a transport car. He spoke to Officer Seymour for only a few minutes, during which time he was 3 Sergeant Parker was not present to facilitate the arrest of Wilkerson, which had already occurred, but rather to address a complaint against Officer Seymour raised by Wilkerson. It is unclear what role, if any, he played in effectuating or authorizing Wilkerson’s continued detention. 11 Case: 12-15938 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 12 of 13 told that Wilkerson had been loud in a public place and was using profanity. Sergeant Parker then spoke with Wilkerson for less than one minute. Wilkerson does not claim that she told Sergeant Parker her account of the arrest or that she challenged the basis of her false arrest. Rather, she told him of her clean record and implored him to run a criminal history check, which he declined to do. Putting to the side the question of whether anything Wilkerson might have said after the fact could have placed Sergeant Parker on sufficient notice of the unconstitutionality of her arrest, she alleges no such statement here. Sergeant Parker was entitled to rely on the account of the arrest provided by Officer Seymour and fill in any gaps in the account with reasonable inferences premised on Officer Seymour acting in a constitutional manner and in good faith. These facts are therefore substantially different from those in Jones where the non-arresting officer participated in the transportation, arrest, and report, while fully aware, based on his personal observations, that the basis for the arrest was fabricated. See Jones, 174 F.3d at 1283–84. As Sergeant Parker was permitted to rely upon the account of Officer Seymour, which did not raise any obvious concerns as to the existence of probable cause, he is entitled to qualified immunity from Wilkerson’s false arrest claim. There is no constitutional requirement for a supervising officer to complete a full on-scene investigation of the basis for an 12 Case: 12-15938 Date Filed: 10/30/2013 Page: 13 of 13 arrest for conduct he did not observe. Accordingly, the district court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment was in error.