Opinion ID: 1404175
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the grants were pretrial detainees

Text: The Graham court stated that [o]ur cases have not resolved the question whether the fourth amendment continues to provide individuals with protection against the deliberate use of excessive force beyond the point at which arrest ends and pretrial detention begins. Graham, 109 S.Ct. at 1871 n. 10. Unfortunately, the Court did not provide any guidance in determining when arrest ends and pretrial detention begins. However, we need not make that determination in a vacuum, given the decisions of other courts which have grappled with the question in the wake of Graham. In Jones v. County of DuPage, 700 F. Supp. 965, 970-72 (N.D.Ill. 1988), the federal district court was confronted with the question of whether a defendant who had been arrested without a warrant and jailed was an arrestee or a pretrial detainee for the purpose of fourth amendment analysis. That court reasoned that: Although defining the precise moment at which a seizure ends and detention begins will not always be an easy task, there is a line of authority in Fourth Amendment case law strongly suggesting that, in the case of warrantless arrests, a fixed rule can be established. As noted above, the Supreme Court held in Gerstein [ v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975)] that when the police make a warrantless arrest the Fourth Amendment requires them to bring the arrestee before a judicial officer for a probable cause determination within a reasonable period of time. 420 U.S. at 125, 95 S.Ct. at 868. Semantically Gerstein can be read to mean either that the Fourth Amendment reasonableness test applies not only to `arrests' but also, in these cases, to `detentions,' Fisher v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Authority , 690 F.2d [1133] at 1140 [4th Cir. 1982], or, alternatively, that the `arrest' does not become a `detention' until the judicial officer finds probable cause to hold. One thing, however, is clear: The Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable `seizures' applies, at least with respect to the duration of the seizure, until the individual is taken before a judicial official, see Gramenos v. Jewel Companies, 797 F.2d 432, 437 (7th Cir.1986); Bergren v. City of Milwaukee, 811 F.2d 1139, 1143 (7th Cir.1987), and does so irrespective of whether the individual remains in the custody of the arresting officers throughout the time prior to his appearance. Fisher v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Authority, 690 F.2d at 1141, n. 11. This court can see no reason for applying the Fourth Amendment differently in cases where the person challenges, not merely the duration of the seizure, but the conditions as well. See Fisher v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Authority, 690 F.2d at 1141 n. 11 (conditions of confinement remain subject to Fourth Amendment strictures until the individual receives a judicial determination of probable cause), discussed with approval, Moore v. Marketplace Restaurants, Inc., 754 F.2d 1336, 1350-51, 1351-52 (7th Cir. 1985). Compare Justice v. Dennis, 834 F.2d 380 (4th Cir.1987) (affirming trial court's `shocks the conscience' instruction in case involving alleged excessive force following a magistrate's determination of probable cause). ... . Precedent aside, there are good reasons for holding government officials to the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard until a judicial determination of probable cause has been obtained. An individual arrested without a warrant is in a uniquely vulnerable position. Not only has he been arrested based solely on the probable cause determination of police officials, but, as far as he knows, only the police know his whereabouts. Whatever fear and distress he might feel on account of his having been arrested at all might remain magnified until he comes before a judicial officer. Furthermore, the emotions of government officials are likely to be at their highest in the period following a warrantless arrest. Unlike an arrest pursuant to a warrant, the warrantless arrest places on the police officials the sole responsibility for the propriety of their conduct. United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 823 n. 32, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 2172 n. 32, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982) (`[I]n choosing to search without a warrant on their own assessment of probable cause, police officers of course lose the protection that a warrant would provide to them in an action for damages brought by an individual claiming that the search was unconstitutional.') This added tension renders the arrested individual even more vulnerable to the overzealousness of officials seeking evidence to vindicate their action. Accordingly, this court finds that an individual arrested without a warrant remains an arrestee for the purposes of Lester's Fourth Amendment analysis until he is brought before a judicial officer for a probable cause determination. Jones, 700 F. Supp. at 970-71. One year later the same federal district court had before it potentially conflicting case law on the arrestee/detainee issue: Graham, Wilkins v. May, 872 F.2d 190 (7th Cir.1989), and its own Jones opinion. The court resolved the conflict as follows: In other words, Graham and Wilkins agree that the Fourth Amendment applies until the initial seizure comes to an end, but Graham seems to hold, contrary to Wilkins, that when the police beat an individual senseless after gaining control over (initially seizing) him, the Fourth Amendment still can provide the appropriate framework for assessing the lawfulness of their conduct. Graham thus appears to undercut Wilkins's view that a seizure ends at the moment the police gain custody and control over the suspect. If the seizure does not end then, then when does it end? Without its `custody' rationale, Wilkins leaves us with a holding that a seizure is over by the time custodial interrogation begins, but no principled basis for reaching this result. In Jones v. County of DuPage, 700 F. Supp. 965 (N.D.Ill. 1988), decided after Lester [ v. City of Chicago, 830 F.2d 706 (7th Cir.1987)] but before Wilkins and Graham, this court ruled that, at least in the case of a warrantless arrest, `seizure ends and detention begins' when the police bring the arrestee before a judicial officer for a probable cause determination. Id. at 970. Analogies from other areas of Fourth Amendment law suggested this division, see Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), and practical concerns supported imposing a higher standard of care on officers until such time as they receive judicial approval for their seizures. See 700 F. Supp. at 970-71. Without citing Jones, Wilkins rejected the analysis. Its reasons for doing so, however, prove significant. Gerstein had held that `the Fourth Amendment requires a judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to extended restraint of liberty following arrest.' 420 U.S. at 114, 95 S.Ct. at 863. Jones found Gerstein instructive in determining the time at which a seizure comes to an end, reasoning that Gerstein's ruling that a state may not subject a person to pretrial detention without a judicial determination of probable cause supports the view that a seizure does not become a detention until such a determination is obtained. 700 F. Supp. at 970. Wilkins acknowledged an analogy between Gerstein and the question of when a seizure ends in an excessive force case, 872 F.2d at 193, but pointed out that because Gerstein involved an interpretation of the Fourth Amendment's requirement of probable cause, rather than its Reasonableness Clause, it did not necessarily control in the excessive force context. Id. Jones, too, recognized that Gerstein served only as an analogy, not a precedent. 700 F. Supp. at 970. Turning to practical considerations, Jones then determined that an individual's enhanced vulnerability, and an officer's higher emotional state, prior to an individual's appearance before a magistrate favored applying the strong protections of the Fourth Amendment until such time. Id. at 971. As noted earlier, Wilkins viewed the practical considerations very differently. According to Wilkins, the fact that even minimal force against a person once he is in custody could be called unreasonable renders the Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard too severe after this point. 872 F.2d at 193-94. The Court thus rejected the Gerstein analogy. Graham made no mention of Gerstein, but its willingness to apply the Fourth Amendment standard to the officers' use of force after they had the plaintiff securely in custody, indeed its specific rejection of the notion that such a standard would turn every `push and shove' into a constitutional violation (109 S.Ct. at 1872), weakens Wilkins's criticism of the Jones approach. In light of this, Wilkins does not stand as an obstacle to employing Jones's line of demarcation between seizure and detention, and hence between Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment scrutiny. Cf. LeVick v. Skaggs Companies, Inc., 701 F.2d 777, 778 (9th Cir.1983). Unless the Seventh Circuit rules otherwise, this court will adhere to that ruling. Henson v. Thezan, 717 F. Supp. 1330, 1335-36 (N.D.Ill. 1989) (footnotes omitted). The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has also endorsed arraignment as the proper line of demarcation between arrest and pretrial detention. See Powell v. Gardner, 891 F.2d 1039, 1044 (2d Cir.1989); see also Hammer v. Gross, 884 F.2d 1200 (9th Cir.1989) ( Graham controls in case in which DUI arrestee was forceably restrained by officers for purpose of drawing blood); cf. Titran v. Ackman, 893 F.2d 145, 147 (7th Cir.1990) (defendant's presence in the jail and the completion of the booking marked the line between `arrest' and `detention'). The focus on arraignment as the break between arrest and detention makes sense both from the legal standpoint and from the standpoint of common sense. It is at the arraignment that the actions of the police in seizing the defendant are either ratified or rejected. It is at the arraignment that a determination of probable cause or lack thereof to hold and charge the arrestee is first made. And, it is at the arraignment that the decision is made either to release or to detain the arrestee pending trial. For all of these reasons, we conclude that, for purposes of determining whether the fourth amendment or fifth amendment constitutional guarantees apply, a person is an arrestee until such time as he or she is arraigned and a probable cause determination has been made. Since the Grants had not been arraigned prior to the alleged applications of excessive force, they were arrestees, entitled to the protection of the fourth amendment's objective reasonableness standard. It was therefore reversible error for the trial court to instruct the jury on the fifth amendment standard, which turns on the subjective state of mind of the officer. On retrial: The court must instruct the jury to determine whether the officers' use of force was objectively reasonable by balancing `the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests' against the interests of the police in [treating the Grants] in the particular manner [they were treated]. Graham, 109 S.Ct. at 1871. The jury must also keep in mind that Not every push or shove, even if it may later seem unnecessary in the peace of a judge's chambers, violates the Fourth Amendment. The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments  in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving  about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation. Graham at 1871 (quotations and citations omitted). Thus, the jury should be instructed to give careful attention to the facts and circumstances of the case, `including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.' Graham at 1871. Miller v. Lovett, 879 F.2d 1066, 1070 (2d Cir.1989).