Opinion ID: 3052889
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defense of Privilege

Text: The government also argued in the district court that the officers’ conduct in detaining and questioning the Rodriguez family was “privileged” because they had a reasonable suspicion based on specific articulable facts that they would find Rodriguez-Wence in the Rodriguez family’s home.6 The dis- 6 On appeal, the parties do not brief in any detail the legal basis for the government’s defense of privilege. The district court’s order suggests that the government argued, citing 8 C.F.R. § 287.8 and California Civil Code § 43.55, that the officers’ conduct was privileged because the officers had a reasonable suspicion that someone at the Rodriguez family’s home was an alien or engaged in an offense against the United States. See 8 C.F.R. § 287.8 (“An arrest shall be made only when the designated immigration officer has reason to believe that the person to be arrested has committed an offense against the United States or is an alien illegally in the United States.”); Cal. Civ. Code § 43.55 (“There shall be . . . no cause of action . . . against, any peace officer who makes an arrest pursuant to a warrant of arrest regular upon its face if the peace officer in making the arrest acts RODRIGUEZ v. UNITED STATES 12301 trict court concluded that “it was reckless and frivolous for the Government to attempt to argue that the officers had a reasonable suspicion given the perfunctory search.” This conclusion was not clearly erroneous. The record does not support that the officers’ pre-Operation investigation gave the officers specific reasons to believe that they would find Rodriguez-Wence at the Rodriguez family’s home. The only evidence even remotely connecting Rodriguez-Wence to the Piedmont Street address was Thompson’s search that was not based on Rodriguez-Wence’s full name or any other identifying information. And that search yielded a name that is materially different from “Marisela Rodriguez-Wence.” Moreover, although the difference in names concerned Thompson, he neglected to compare identifying information associated with these names, such as driver’s license numbers, despite his ability to do so. [5] Other evidence in the record supports strongly that Rodriguez-Wence would not be found at that address. The INS had a number of other addresses for Rodriguez-Wence, none of which matched the Piedmont Street address. And no efforts were made to verify that Rodriguez-Wence lived at the Piedmont Street address before the Operation. Here, the district court concluded that government’s defense of privilege was so lacking in support that it constituted bad faith and the record supports that conclusion. See Lindberg, 220 F.3d at 1124 (stating that deference to a district court’s finding of bad faith is particularly appropriate because the “district court hears evidence from the beginning” and can best determine whether a party’s argument “is so lacking in support that it without malice and in the reasonable belief that the person arrested is the one referred to in the warrant.”). We need not pass on the applicability or merits of this defense in this appeal. Rather, we consider only whether the district court abused its discretion in concluding that, as presented by the government, this argument constituted bad faith. 12302 RODRIGUEZ v. UNITED STATES can only be . . . in bad faith”). Thus, the district court’s finding of bad faith with respect to the defense of privilege was not clearly erroneous.