Opinion ID: 657374
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Fourth Amendment Instruction.

Text: 9 Neimi points out that the Fourth Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights are applied to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. So much is true, and has been for decades. Indeed, that concept has been on the legal landscape for so long that it is seldom even noticed. Neimi's next step is far more problematic. He argues that because the Bill of Rights' provisions do flow through the Fourteenth Amendment, the principles developed for deciding general claims of violation of due process must apply to the decision of claims regarding specific violations of the provisions of the Bill of Rights. Thus, he says, instruction of the jury on the Fourth Amendment standard was error. We disagree because, as we will show, the law is squarely against that contention. But before we do so, we must digress to discuss Larson's claim that Neimi did not preserve his instruction objection. 10 Larson's waiver argument turns on a colloquy that took place after the district court instructed the jury. The court asked if there were any objections to the instructions as read, and Neimi's counsel said, No. The requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 51 that specific objections to instructions must be made before the jury retires is strictly enforced in the Ninth Circuit. Hammer v. Gross, 932 F.2d 842, 847-48 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 582, 116 L.Ed.2d 607 (1991). [T]he sole permissible deviation from the strictures of Rule 51 is that, where the trial court is aware of the party's concerns with an instruction and further objection would be unavailing, we will not require a formal objection. Id. at 847. 11 Neimi falls within the exception. The instruction was first discussed before trial, and the district court said it would give no such instruction. Nevertheless, Neimi filed a proposed instruction in that form and at the end of the jury charge conference he objected to the omission of that instruction. The district judge then stated his reasons for refusing to give the instruction. It is pellucid that the district court was well aware of Neimi's position and that further objection would have been unavailing. The fact that counsel courteously refrained from carrying on about the form of the instructions the district court gave did not, and does not, change the posture of the case. Neimi preserved his claim of error. See id.; Brown v. Avemco Inv. Corp., 603 F.2d 1367, 1370-73 (9th Cir.1979) (court was aware of objection through examination of witnesses, proposed instructions and a directed verdict motion); Martinelli v. City of Beaumont, 820 F.2d 1491, 1493-94 (9th Cir.1987) (court was fully aware of the objection where proposed alternate instructions and discussion made that clear); compare, United States v. Parsons Corp., 1 F.3d 944, 945 (9th Cir.1993) (a mere suggestion cannot take the place of an objection). We return to the main theme. 12 Neimi argues that the district court should have applied the principles developed by the Supreme Court in Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 106 S.Ct. 668, 88 L.Ed.2d 677 (1986), and Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986). In those cases the plaintiffs alleged that their due process rights had been violated by the actions of prison authorities. In Davidson's case an official had negligently failed to supply adequate protection after being informed of threats by another inmate. 474 U.S. at 345-46, 106 S.Ct. at 669. In Daniels' case an official had negligently left a pillow on the prison stairway. Daniels stumbled on it and was injured. 474 U.S. at 328, 106 S.Ct. at 663. The Supreme Court opined that these due process claims were little more than tort actions dressed up in constitutional garb. It expressed a lack of interest in making the Constitution a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States. Id. at 332, 106 S.Ct. at 665 (quotation and citation omitted). It characterized the rule to be applied to the two cases before it in the following manner: 13 In Daniels, we held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not implicated by the lack of due care of an official causing unintended injury to life, liberty or property. In other words, where a government official is merely negligent in causing the injury, no procedure for compensation is constitutionally required. 14 Davidson, 474 U.S. at 347, 106 S.Ct. at 670. 15 It is that language which Neimi seizes upon and which drives his argument that a negligence standard must be applied to this case. What Neimi overlooks is the fact that the Supreme Court was dealing with merely negligent acts which were said to violate due process simply because they were performed by governmental officials. It was not dealing with situations where an official took a direct action against the citizen which violated a specific constitutional command. Nor was it dealing with an area where it had said that the specific constitutional provisions involved were to be enforced against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment according to the same standards that protect those personal rights against federal encroachment. Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 10, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 1495, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964). 16 The case more directly in point is Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). In that case, the plaintiff sought to recover damages for injuries allegedly sustained when law enforcement officers used physical force against him during the course of an investigatory stop. Id. at 388, 109 S.Ct. at 1868. The Court first rejected the notion that all excessive force claims should be addressed with a general Fourteenth Amendment due process standard. Id. at 393-94, 109 S.Ct. at 1870. 17 It went on to say that the first task is to identify the precise nature of the alleged constitutional violation. Id. Then: 18 In most instances, that will be either the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures of the person, or the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments, which are the two primary sources of constitutional protection against physically abusive governmental conduct. The validity of the claim must then be judged by reference to the specific constitutional standard which governs that right, rather than to some generalized excessive force standard. 19 Id. at 394, 109 S.Ct. at 1870-71. The Court continued by holding: 20 [A]ll claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force--deadly or not--in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other seizure of a free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its reasonableness standard, rather than under a substantive due process approach. Because the Fourth Amendment provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against this sort of physically intrusive governmental conduct, that Amendment, not the more generalized notion of substantive due process, must be the guide for analyzing these claims. 21 Id. at 395, 109 S.Ct. at 1871. 22 Neimi attempts to deflect this blow to his argument by noting that Graham involved an excessive force claim, whereas this case involves an illegal seizure claim. That is a distinction. That is all it is because the Fourth Amendment also provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against this sort of physically intrusive governmental conduct.... Id. (emphasis added.) Its prohibition against unreasonable seizures of the person is, in fact, one of the ... primary sources of constitutional protection against ... abusive governmental conduct. Id. at 394, 109 S.Ct. at 1871. It prohibits the unreasonable seizures of citizens, and Neimi had to comply with its standards or suffer the consequences. 23 Our prior decisions are in complete accord with this exegesis on the enforcement of Fourth Amendment rights. In Caballero v. City of Concord, 956 F.2d at 206, for example, we declared that Fourth Amendment, rather than general due process, standards applied to claims of unconstitutional seizures of the person. In Borunda v. Richmond, 885 F.2d 1384, 1391 (9th Cir.1988), we reached the same conclusion, although not quite as directly. A number of our other decisions are to the same effect, although they do not discuss the distinction between the specific and general standards. See, e.g., Morgan v. Woessner, 997 F.2d 1244, 1252-54, 1256-60 (9th Cir.1993); Maag v. Wessler, 960 F.2d 773, 775-76 (9th Cir.1992). 24 Neimi argues that our prior decisions did not explicitly indicate our understanding that the Fourth Amendment was being applied to governmental officials through the Fourteenth Amendment. We now state explicitly what was implicit in our previous holdings. We do understand the route by which the Fourth Amendment has come to be applied to the states. See Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 30-31, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1628, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 650-55, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 1689-91, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). Understanding that, we continue to hold that Fourth Amendment standards must be used when a person asserts that a public official has illegally seized him. 25