Opinion ID: 810771
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Officer Crumrine

Text: Tsao’s § 1983 claim against Crumrine is relatively straightforward. The dispositive question is whether Crumrine had probable cause to arrest Tsao for obstructing his investigation, in violation of NRS § 197.190. The facts are undisputed, so the existence of probable cause is a question of law. See Peng v. Mei Chin Penghu, 335 F.3d 970, 979-80 (9th Cir. 2003); Act Up!/ Portland v. Bagley, 988 F.2d 868, 873 (9th Cir. 1993). The District Court held as a matter of law that Crumrine had probable cause to think that Tsao was obstructing his investigation. We agree. In his Declaration of Arrest, Crumrine stated: Due to the fact that Tsao gave a different last name than the one she is registered to DMV with, the only legal name that I could access to verify Tsao’s identity, I placed Tsao under arrest for Providing False TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC. 12873 Information to a Police Officer NRS 197.190 and transported Tsao to Clark County Detention Center where she was booked accordingly. Section 197.190 of the Nevada Revised Statutes, “Obstructing public officer,” states in its entirety: Every person who, after due notice, shall refuse or neglect to make or furnish any statement, report or information lawfully required of him by any public officer, or who, in such statement, report or information shall make any willfully untrue, misleading or exaggerated statement, or who shall willfully hinder, delay or obstruct any public officer in the discharge of his official powers or duties, shall, where no other provision of law applies, be guilty of a misdemeanor. According to Crumrine, he arrested Tsao for violating that part of NRS § 197.190 that punishes the making of “any willfully untrue . . . statement” to a “public officer” after “due notice,” assuming that the information requested was “lawfully required” of the individual. Under NRS § 171.123, police officers may detain individuals reasonably suspected of criminal behavior in order “to ascertain the person’s identity and the suspicious circumstances.” NRS § 171.123(3). The same statute provides that a person so detained “shall identify himself or herself, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any peace officer.” Id. Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177, 190-91 (2004) upheld NRS § 171.123’s requirement that a suspect identify herself to a police officer against several constitutional challenges. [17] The only question, then, is whether Crumrine had probable cause to believe that Tsao was obstructing his investigation in violation of NRS § 197.190. Notably, we need not confine our inquiry to Crumrine’s declaration of arrest, which 12874 TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC. said that Tsao was being arrested for “providing false information to a police officer”; the question is whether Crumrine had probable cause to arrest Tsao for any offense. Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 152-54 (2004) (noting that an officer’s “subjective reason for making the arrest need not be the criminal offense as to which the known facts provide probable cause”). We hold that he did. Probable cause exists if Crumrine knew “reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing that [Tsao] had committed or was committing an offense.” Arpin v. Santa Clara Valley Transp. Agency, 261 F.3d 912, 924-25 (9th Cir. 2001) (quoting Allen v. City of Portland, 73 F.3d 232, 236 (9th Cir. 1995)) (internal quotation marks omitted). While an officer may not ignore exculpatory evidence that would negate a finding of probable cause, “ ‘[o]nce probable cause is established, an officer is under no duty to investigate further or to look for additional evidence which may exculpate the accused.’ ” Broam v. Bogan, 320 F.3d 1023, 1032 (9th Cir. 2003) (alteration in original) (quoting Ahlers v. Schebil, 188 F.3d 365, 371 (6th Cir. 1999)). [18] Crumrine had probable cause to believe that Tsao was willfully delaying his investigation in violation of the statute by refusing to provide a name through which her identity as the person previously “trespassed” could be confirmed or disproved. Tsao was not lying when she gave her married name, Chang, which does appear on her passport. But by doing so, she did impede her arrest for trespass for some time, while Desert Palace security and police looked for her car and checked her other identifying information. And her motives for doing so were clearly suspect. In her deposition, Tsao admitted that she did not want the casino to know that her name was Tsao, because “that was the most pertinent name” and because she had had trouble with it at another casino. She also knew that Tsao was the name on her driver’s license, bank accounts, credit cards, and Social Security card, so that withholding that name might make it harder to connect her to TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC. 12875 the previously trespassed person. As it happened, Crumrine soon learned that Tsao’s car was in the casino parking lot through the use of the panic button on her keys, and was able to pull up DMV records using the license plate. The disconnect between Tsao’s insistence that her name was Chang and the records associated with her license plate and Social Security numbers gave Crumrine probable cause to believe she had been obstructing his investigation. She made a statement regarding her name that was misleading and calculated to delay the discovery of her identity, even though the name given was not literally false. Tsao relies on Arpin for the proposition that Crumrine’s duty to investigate included a duty to allow her to explain herself before being arrested. In Arpin, however, an officer arrested a bus passenger without performing any independent investigation whatsoever, relying entirely on the bus driver’s report that the passenger had assaulted him. 261 F.3d at 924-25. The officer, we noted, “refused to identify himself, would not inform [Arpin] of the reason she was being arrested, and did not allow Arpin to explain her side of the story prior to arresting her.” Id. at 925. Probable cause for Crumrine’s belief that Tsao had committed a crime, by contrast, was not based on the report of a third party; it arose from the very investigation Crumrine performed. Unlike Arpin, Tsao was given an opportunity to answer questions and explain the situation. It was Tsao’s obfuscatory answers to Crumrine’s simple questions that created probable cause to arrest her. Tsao had many opportunities to tell Crumrine the name she had every reason to know—and indeed indicated that she did know—was the one he wanted for his investigation. Crumrine had probable cause to believe that Tsao had delayed his investigation with her misleading response. That Crumrine later learned that Tsao and Chang were the same person did not destroy probable cause for an arrest based on her earlier violation of the statute. [19] We therefore affirm the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to Crumrine on Tsao’s § 1983 claim. 12876 TSAO v. DESERT PALACE, INC.