Opinion ID: 610843
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Qualified Immunity Instruction

Text: 72 Defendants next take issue with the district court's refusal to give to the jury a qualified immunity instruction. Police officers 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, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). In other words, police officers are entitled to assert a qualified immunity defense (and therefore to an instruction) only if they can affirmatively show that their conduct 'was justified by an objectively reasonable belief that it was lawful.'  Bilbrey v. Brown, 738 F.2d 1462, 1467 (9th Cir.1984) (quoting Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 100 S.Ct. 1920, 64 L.Ed.2d 572 (1980)). 73 Although it is not particularly clear, defendants' argument seems to be that they were entitled to a qualified immunity instruction because while the law was clearly established that an officer may not detain an individual without reasonable suspicion, it was not firmly established how the principle applied to the entire question concerning airport stops involving potential drug couriers. 17 74 We reject this contention. It was well-established at the time of this case that Fourth Amendment seizures occur when a person is not free to leave, and that such seizures must be justified by either probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Defendants offer no reason why we should draw a distinction between stops occurring in airports and those occurring in other places, or any reason why a police officer would believe that citizens' Fourth Amendment rights are somehow diminished in airports. Even if we were inclined to analyze as distinct the law of airport/courier stops, our conclusion would remain the same. That law was well developed by the time the events leading to this suit took place--virtually every case the parties discuss in their briefs had been decided several years earlier. 75 Moreover, the Supreme Court has made clear that in the context of Fourth Amendment violations, there can be no inquiry as to a police officer's subjective intent or belief. Rather, only an officer's objective 'good faith'--that is, whether he could reasonably have believed that [his conduct] did not violate the Fourth Amendment--may be relevant to the availability of the qualified immunity defense to monetary liability under § 1983. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 399 n. 12, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1873 n. 12, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) (emphasis in original). Thus, our conclusion that Officer Searle acted unconstitutionally as a matter of law is the end of our inquiry on qualified immunity. See, e.g., Kennedy v. Los Angeles Police Dept., 901 F.2d 702, 706 (9th Cir.1989) (Our preceding discussion about the obvious lack of probable cause is dispositive of the qualified immunity question.); Curnow v. Ridgecrest Police, 952 F.2d 321, 325 (9th Cir.1991) (where police officer had used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and relevant law was well established, officer is not entitled to qualified immunity); cf. Hopkins v. Andaya, 958 F.2d 881, 885 n. 3 (9th Cir.1992) (In Fourth Amendment unreasonable force cases, unlike in other cases, the qualified immunity inquiry is the same as the inquiry made on the merits.). 76 Defendants do not argue that Searle had an objective good faith belief that his actions were constitutional. Nor could such a finding comport with the facts of this case. We note in particular the fact that Agent Woessner testified that at the time Morgan turned and walked away from the officers, they did not have reasonable suspicion that would justify detaining Morgan for a brief investigatory stop. In light of that testimony, a claim of objective good faith would be difficult indeed. We find that the facts of this case and our analysis regarding reasonable suspicion preclude a finding that Searle could have objectively believed that his conduct was constitutional. Therefore, we find that the district court did not err in refusing to give a qualified immunity instruction.