Opinion ID: 2782387
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Wrongful Seizure

Text: The Fourth Amendment provides that, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. Const. amend IV. A seizure occurs when “under the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person would have believed that he or she was not free to walk away.” United States v. Alston, 375 F.3d 408, 411 (6th Cir. 2004). The Supreme Court has distinguished two forms of seizure, each of which garners a different level of scrutiny. An officer may detain an individual for a short time for investigatory purposes if, under the totality of the circumstances, he has “reasonable suspicion,” that is, “a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person . . . of criminal activity based on specific and articulable facts.” Hoover v. Walsh, 682 F.3d 481, 494 (6th Cir. 2012); see also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) (establishing the permissibility of an investigatory stop based on reasonable suspicion). For such a stop to be reasonable, “the degree of intrusion into the suspect’s personal security [must be] reasonably related in scope to the situation at hand.” Smoak v. Hall, 460 F.3d 768, 779 (6th Cir. 2006). If “the length and manner” of the stop, including any force used, are not “reasonably related to the basis for the initial No. 14-1392 Brown v. Lewis, et al. Page 10 intrusion,” then the stop ripens into an arrest, for which the officers must show probable cause. Houston v. Clark County Sheriff Deputy John Does 1-5, 174 F.3d 809, 814 (6th Cir. 1999). We begin by determining the “basis for the initial intrusion.” As first articulated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221 (1985), an officer may conduct a stop based on information obtained from fellow officers. This is known as the “collective-knowledge doctrine.” When an officer executes a stop based in part on information obtained from another law-enforcement official, the doctrine imputes to the officer conducting the stop the knowledge of those with whom he communicated. “[I]f a flyer or bulletin has been issued on the basis of articulable facts supporting a reasonable suspicion that the wanted person has committed an offense, then reliance on that flyer or bulletin justifies a stop to check identification, to pose questions to the person, or to detain the person briefly while attempting to obtain further information.” Id. at 232 (citations omitted). However, “if 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; see also Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 568 (1971) (holding unconstitutional a search executed on the basis of a dispatcher’s incorrect statement that a warrant had been issued). Furthermore, “the stop that in fact occurred [must not be] significantly more intrusive than would have been permitted” based on the reasonable suspicion. Hensley, 469 U.S. at 232. For § 1983 individual-capacity cases such as this one, we have recognized a limitation on the collective-knowledge doctrine: [I]n a case such as this where one officer's claim to qualified immunity from the consequences of a constitutional violation rests on his asserted good faith reliance on the report of other officers, we consider: (1) what information was clear or should have been clear to the individual officer at the time of the incident; and (2) what information that officer was reasonably entitled to rely on in deciding how to act, based on an objective reading of the information. Humphrey v. Mabry, 482 F.3d 840, 848 (6th Cir. 2007); see also Hensley, 469 U.S. at 232 (noting a potential “good-faith defense” to civil suit in collective-knowledge cases). This limitation ensures that an officer is not subjected to liability if he, through no improper action or inaction on his part, conducts a stop that is unconstitutional due to the error of a generally trustworthy source. No. 14-1392 Brown v. Lewis, et al. Page 11 Strict application of the collective-knowledge doctrine would result in a determination that the officers did not have reasonable suspicion to stop Brown. The 911 operator did overhear certain statements made by an intoxicated male which could potentially establish reasonable suspicion, namely his statements about hiding from the police and about wanting to “kill that bitch.” But no one in the room took the statement seriously; all of the other voices on the call dispute, criticize or laugh at these statements. The statements could therefore support, at most, reasonable suspicion to stop the intoxicated male but no other individual in the house. The 911 operator, moreover, could hear the same intoxicated male voice, still within the house, after the officers saw Brown’s car pull away from the house. Because the 911 operator knew that the intoxicated male—the sole individual for whom the police had reasonable suspicion—could not be in the car, the police did not have reasonable suspicion to stop the car. Because this is an individual-liability suit, however, we must apply the limitation articulated in Humphrey, which leads to a different conclusion. Considering the information available to the officers at the time of the stop, there is no evidence that they knew the intoxicated male was still in the house. The 911 operator never communicated that information to the officers. Nor were they told the circumstances and statements heard by the 911 operator that would lead an officer not to take the caller’s statements seriously. Excluding this information and examining what each officer could have known, the police could reasonably believe that the male caller drove the car away from the house. The officers had no basis to believe, however, that there had been a woman at the house engaged in criminal activity. Once they could tell that the male caller was not driving the car, the available information no longer supported reasonable suspicion. Having determined that the officers had a basis to initiate the stop, we turn to the nature of the seizure. Because Brown pulled into the gas station before realizing that the police were trying to stop her, the Fourth Amendment seizure began when the police approached her car, with guns drawn, and opened her car door. The district court described the nature of the seizure after that point, correctly viewed in the light most favorable to Brown, as follows: “her car was swarmed by officers armed to the teeth, with numerous guns pointed directly at her head. She was ordered out of her car, and when she moved to comply, she was grabbed by two officers and thrown to the ground. One of the No. 14-1392 Brown v. Lewis, et al. Page 12 officers then kneeled on the small of her back, while others still had guns trained on her head and handcuffed her. All the while the Officers responded to her questions and pleas by telling her to ‘shut up’ and ‘be quiet.’” Brown v. Lewis, No. 1:12-cv-14953, 2014 WL 353842 at  (E.D. Mich. Jan. 31, 2014). Brown also testified that the officers cursed at her throughout the seizure. “When the nature of a seizure exceeds the bounds of a permissible investigative stop, the detention may become an arrest that must be supported by probable cause.” Dorsey v. Barber, 517 F.3d 389, 398 (6th Cir. 2008). This occurs “[w]hen police actions go beyond checking out the suspicious circumstances that led to the original stop.” United States v. Obasa, 15 F.3d 603, 607 (6th Cir. 1994). “Courts consider the length of the detention, the manner in which it is conducted, and the degree of force used in determining whether an investigative stop is reasonably related to the basis for the original intrusion.” Smoak, 460 F.3d at 781 (internal quotation marks omitted). “‘[T]he investigative methods employed should be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer’s suspicion in a short period of time.’” Bennett v. City of Eastpointe, 410 F.3d 810, 836 (6th Cir. 2005) (quoting Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500 (1983)). Because there is no basis for the officers to argue that they had probable cause to arrest Brown, the stop violated the Fourth Amendment if it ripened into an arrest. The seizure exceeded the bounds of a permissible Terry stop in two respects. First, it was unconstitutional for the officers to continue to detain Brown once they could determine that the male 911 caller was not in her car. At that point, the detention had lasted long enough to dispel their suspicions that they had the person who was evading police and who had stated a desire to “kill that bitch.” The actions during the stop as Brown describes them did not give the officers any reason to believe that she was dangerous or involved in criminal activity; she was compliant with officer instructions throughout the stop. Under the version of the events most favorable to Brown, the officers should have been aware of her gender and that she was alone in the car at least as soon as they opened her car door and heard her screaming, but they nonetheless threw her to the ground, handcuffed her, and kept her in handcuffs for about ten minutes. No. 14-1392 Brown v. Lewis, et al. Page 13 Even putting the gender issue aside, the nature of the stop, as described in Brown’s testimony, was significantly intrusive—to a degree that was not rationally related to the basis of the original intrusion. “[T]he use of guns, handcuffs, and detention in a police cruiser do not automatically transform a Terry stop into an arrest, [but] these displays of force must be warranted by the circumstances.” Smoak, 460 F.3d at 781. Intrusive measures are warranted to secure a detainee only where specific facts lead to an inference that the detainee poses a risk of flight or of violence to the officers. We have held, for example, that securing a detainee is justified when he admits to having a weapon and is agitated. O’Malley v. City of Flint, 652 F.3d 662, 670-71 (6th Cir. 2011) (handcuffing a detainee did not ripen stop into an arrest because the detainee “was angry, raised his voice, turned his back and lifted his shirt, called [officer’s] inquiry ‘bulls—t,’” and admitted that he had a gun in vehicle); see also Radvansky v. City of Olmsted Falls, 395 F.3d 291, 309 (6th Cir. 2005) (detainee said he was armed with stun gun). Sometimes, an unarmed detainee may display aggressive or erratic behavior during the stop that gives rise to a reasonable belief of dangerousness. United States v. Atchley, 474 F.3d 840, 849 (6th Cir. 2007) (handcuffing a detainee did not ripen stop into arrest because of detainee’s nervous behavior). Similarly, an attempt to flee could justify the use of handcuffs or another form of detention to prevent additional flight during the investigatory stop. United States v. Jacob, 377 F.3d 573, 579-80 (6th Cir. 2004) (car containing suspected drug traffickers lurched forward as if to flee after police had cornered it in parking lot). The details of the suspected crime may also provide the specific facts justifying an inference of dangerousness. In Humphrey, the police were responding to a 911 call reporting that an acquaintance had “just tried to pull a gun out and shoot my dad.” 482 F.3d at 842. In Houston, 174 F.3d 809, the sheriffs’ deputies likewise believed that they were searching for a driver who had shot someone, potentially even a police officer. In both cases, officers confronted the detainee at gunpoint and used handcuffs. While in both cases the police turned out to have detained the wrong person (and in Houston, no shooting had actually occurred), the nature of the suspicion was closely related to a belief in the ongoing dangerousness of the detainee, and the intrusive methods of conducting the stop did not convert it into an arrest. No. 14-1392 Brown v. Lewis, et al. Page 14 Though some crimes may not directly involve violence, they may be so closely associated with violence as to support an inference of dangerousness that justifies intrusive measures during the investigatory stop. See Atchley, 474 F.3d at 849 (methamphetamine manufacture); Radvansky, 395 F.3d at 309 (burglary); United States v. Foster, 376 F.3d 577, 587–88 (6th Cir. 2004) (use of PCP, a drug known to cause violent hallucinations); United States v. Hurst, 228 F.3d 751, 758 n.3 (6th Cir. 2000) (burglary). If there is no specific reason for the officers to believe that the detainee poses a risk of flight or violence, “a bare inference” or speculation that the detainee may somehow be violent is not sufficient to justify the use of handcuffs. In Smoak, the defendant troopers had received a ‘be on the lookout’ notification for the Smoaks’ car because it “had been seen traveling at a high rate of speed and had lost a large amount of currency,” as well as a second notification that the “vehicle was possibly involved in a robbery.” 460 F.3d at 774. As a result, the troopers stopped the Smoaks, ordered them at gunpoint to exit the car and get on their knees, and handcuffed them. Id. at 775. The Smoaks were forced to stay in that position even after one of their dogs escaped from the car and a trooper shot the dog. Id. at 775–76. Finally, the Smoaks were placed in the back of police cruisers for several minutes. Id. We held that the seizure was unreasonably intrusive. Id. Similarly, in Bennett, the defendant police officers stopped a group of youths on bicycles with a reasonable suspicion that the youths may have been ‘casing’ a gas-station convenience store. 410 F.3d at 837. However, the officers had no “reasonable belief that the youths were armed and dangerous,” particularly since the officers had already conducted (illegal) pat-down searches which revealed no weapons. Id. We likewise held that it was unconstitutional to handcuff the youths and place them in the back of a police cruiser in those circumstances. In the present case, the officers referenced a wide range of speculative inferences from the information conveyed over police radio. The broad range of possibilities they invoked illustrates the lack of concrete information in the police’s possession at the time of the stop—and the limited ground for suspicion that a reasonable officer would have. (In their minds, the unidentified male caller could have been engaged in an ambush of police or a hostage situation or a sexual assault or drug activity. See Kamp Dep., R. 18-5, at Page ID 156; Richnak Dep., R. No. 14-1392 Brown v. Lewis, et al. Page 15 18-7, at Page ID 183–84.) The only specific piece of information the police had even suggesting that the male caller may have been armed or violent was his overheard comment of “I’m gonna kill that bitch.” This stray comment is too thin a reed to support a belief that the caller posed significant danger such that, with several guns pointed at his head, it would still be unsafe to question him before he was forced to the ground and handcuffed. When Brown was thrown to the ground and handcuffed, the stop ripened into an arrest without probable cause, and she was seized unlawfully.
At the time of the stop, the law clearly established limits on both the duration and nature of an investigatory stop. As for the duration of the stop, in 2006 we held, “The law is clear that once the purposes of the initial traffic stop are completed, there is no doubt that the officer cannot further detain the vehicle or its occupants unless something that occurred during the traffic stop generated the reasonable suspicion to justify a further detention.” Smoak, 460 F.3d at 782 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). The officers therefore are not entitled to qualified immunity for the stop from the point at which they could have determined that Brown was a woman and alone in the car. The limitations on the intrusive nature of the stop were also clearly established. In Smoak, the court held that a similarly intrusive stop was a constitutional violation, though one that at that point had not yet been clearly established. Id. (“Although the use of guns and handcuffs in the present case was unreasonably intrusive, prior decisions had not made this clear.”) The Smoak decision itself clearly established the law for later incidents. The officers nonetheless argue that Dorsey v. Barber shows that the law on when an investigatory stop ripens into an arrest was not clearly established when the officers seized Brown. In Dorsey, an officer received a ‘be on the lookout’ bulletin describing two car-theft suspects in terms that also described Dorsey and his co-plaintiff, whom the officer saw walking down the street. 517 F.3d at 391–92. Upon orders to stop and hold the two men, the officer pulled up behind them and ordered them to stop and lie down on the ground. Id. at 392. When they did not comply and questioned the officer’s order, the officer pulled his gun, ordered them to the ground again, and they complied. Id. The panel concluded that the officer had “made a mistake.” Id. at 400. “Considering that the suspects were wanted in connection with an auto No. 14-1392 Brown v. Lewis, et al. Page 16 theft investigation, and that plaintiffs did not manifestly pose an immediate threat to anyone’s safety or a risk of flight, [the officer] should have been able to ‘stop and hold’ them without brandishing his firearm and ordering them to lie face-down on the pavement.” Id. Although finding that the officer had used “arguably unreasonable” and “unnecessarily intrusive means,” this court granted qualified immunity. Id. The officers argue that we should apply the same “due deference to the exercise of law enforcement discretion” and find that the actions of these officers were not “so egregious as to suggest outright incompetence” or “knowing[] and deliberate[] violat[ions of] plaintiffs’ right to be free from unreasonable seizure.” Id. at 400–01. Dorsey is inapplicable for two reasons. First, the seizure in Dorsey was both less intrusive and more justified than the seizure in the present case. In Dorsey, the detainees did not comply with initial commands of a single officer; one officer unholstered a gun; and the detainees were forced to lie on the ground. In the present case, Brown was entirely compliant; there were multiple officers and multiple guns; the guns were pointed at Brown’s head; officers threw Brown to the ground and put a knee in her back; and Brown was handcuffed. Second, the officers seem to interpret Dorsey as establishing additional deference for law-enforcement decision-making, beyond the constitutional and clearly-established prongs of the qualified-immunity standard. Such an interpretation is incorrect. Our court had, before Pearson, 555 U.S. 223, attributed a third prong of “objective unreasonableness” to the qualified immunity analysis. See Sample, 409 F.3d at 696 & n.3; Feathers v. Aey, 319 F.3d 843, 848 (6th Cir. 2003); Mehra, 186 F.3d at 691. The recent Supreme Court cases of Pearson and Plumhoff v. Rickard, __ U.S. __, 134 S. Ct. 2012 (2014), make clear, however, that the test for qualified immunity has only two prongs—whether the defendant violated a constitutional right and whether the right at issue was clearly established; there is no separate “objective unreasonableness” prong. See Plumhoff, 134 S. Ct. at 2020; Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232, 236. Reasonableness, however, does sometimes play a role in the two prongs. In a Fourth Amendment case, the constitutional test applied in the first prong requires a determination of objective reasonableness. On the second prong, a court must determine whether there was clearly established law at a sufficient level of specificity to put a reasonable officer on notice that the conduct at issue was unconstitutional. See Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc., 380 F.3d 893, 902 (6th Cir. 2009). But there is no additional, separate hurdle of reasonableness for Brown to overcome. No. 14-1392 Brown v. Lewis, et al. Page 17 In summary, qualified immunity does not protect these officers against an unlawfulseizure claim from the point they became aware that Brown was a woman and no male was in the car. Nor, at this stage, does qualified immunity protect these officers against the unlawful seizure claim based on the nature of the stop because, taking the facts in Brown’s favor, the severe intrusiveness of the stop was not justified by any specific facts giving rise to a reasonable fear that Brown was dangerous or a flight risk.