Opinion ID: 196071
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sheriff Havey's Qualified Immunity Claim

Text: 50 Although Somerset County Sheriff Spencer Havey did not participate in the events of May 15, 1992, plaintiff advances two related challenges to the summary judgment order entered in favor of Havey. First, plaintiff argues that Havey failed to train his officers adequately or to institute written standard operating procedures (SOPs), even though it was reasonably foreseeable that these deputy sheriffs likely would encounter so-called barricaded felon cases on a frequent basis in rural, wooded Somerset County. Second, even assuming that a need for additional training and SOPs had not been foreseeable prior to the Hegarty incident, Sheriff Havey's subsequent conduct would enable a factfinder to infer that Havey had condoned the officers' conduct, or been indifferent to the need for better training long before May 15, 1992. For example, Sheriff Havey refused to discipline his officers for the fatal shooting of Katherine Hegarty, as recommended in the Attorney General's final investigative report. Nor did he institute additional training, as recommended by a citizen review board convened by Havey in the wake of the tragic event.
51 Under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, supervisory law enforcement officers incur no respondeat superior liability for the actions of their subordinates. See, e.g., City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 385, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 1202-03, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). Absent participation in the challenged conduct, a supervisor can be held liable ... [only] if (1) the behavior of [his] subordinates results in a constitutional violation and (2) the [supervisor's] action or inaction was 'affirmative[ly] link[ed] ' to the behavior in the sense that it could be characterized as 'supervisory encouragement, condonation or acquiescence' or 'gross negligence [of the supervisor] amounting to deliberate indifference.'  Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico, 864 F.2d 881, 902-03 (1st Cir.1988) (emphasis added) (citations omitted); see Rodriques v. Furtado, 950 F.2d 805, 813 (1st Cir.1991) (discussing deliberate indifference to officer training). Deliberate indifference will be found only if it would be manifest to any reasonable official that his conduct was very likely to violate an individual's constitutional rights. Febus-Rodriguez, 14 F.3d at 92 (quoting Germany v. Vance, 868 F.2d 9, 18 (1st Cir.1989)). The affirmative link requirement contemplates proof that the supervisor's conduct led inexorably to the constitutional violation. See id.; see also Fraire v. City of Arlington, 957 F.2d 1268, 1281 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 462, 121 L.Ed.2d 371 (1992).
52 The determination that a subordinate law enforcement officer is entitled to qualified immunity from suit under section 1983 is not necessarily dispositive of the supervisor's immunity claim. Nevertheless, it does increase the weight of the burden plaintiff must bear in demonstrating not only a deficiency in supervision but also the essential causal connection or affirmative linkage between any such deficiency in supervision and the alleged deprivation of rights. We conclude that plaintiff has not carried this heavy burden. 53 We find the district court's preliminary analysis of Sheriff Havey's qualified immunity claim to be well reasoned and persuasive. The evidence demonstrates that Sheriff Havey, newly elected to office, had no notice that the deputy sheriffs were experiencing problems in dealing with barricaded suspect confrontations prior to the incident in question. Cf. Febus-Rodriguez, 14 F.3d at 92. Indeed, their police academy training and instruction time relating to warrantless entries exceeded the national average. See Canton, 489 U.S. at 389, 109 S.Ct. at 1205. Moreover, rather than simply ignore the Hegarty incident, Havey suspended all officers involved and convened a panel to investigate and make recommendations. Although it is entirely understandable that plaintiff would fault Sheriff Havey for not accepting or adopting the recommendations made by the advisory panel, such a decision is insufficient, standing alone, to establish deliberate indifference. See, e.g., Santiago v. Fenton, 891 F.2d 373, 382 (1st Cir.1989) (decision not to discipline or fault subordinates' conduct, following investigation, is insufficient, standing alone, to demonstrate supervisor's deliberate indifference); see also Fraire, 957 F.2d at 1278-79. 54 Even though the district court ruled that Havey's subsequent conduct did not amount to deliberate indifference, it expressed serious reservations concerning some of his conduct, see Bordanaro v. McLeod, 871 F.2d 1151, 1166-67 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 820, 110 S.Ct. 75, 107 L.Ed.2d 42 (1989) (postincident conduct may be relevant to deliberate indifference inquiry); Grandstaff v. City of Borger, 767 F.2d 161, 171 (5th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 916, 107 S.Ct. 1369, 94 L.Ed.2d 686 (1987) (same), notably Havey's failure to acknowledge the need to prescribe SOPs or to institute in-house training for handling barricaded felon cases. Nevertheless, the rationale for our decision that the individual officers at the scene acted within the bounds of objective reasonableness, see supra Section II.A, plainly undermines most of the district court's concerns. 55 Most importantly, plaintiff failed to demonstrate the required affirmative link between Havey's conduct and Katherine Hegarty's death. That is, he has not sustained the burden of establishing that any lack of barricaded felon training on the part of the Somerset County Sheriff's Department officers at the scene caused Katherine's death. Cf., e.g., Manarite v. City of Springfield, 957 F.2d 953, 958 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 113, 121 L.Ed.2d 70 (1992). First, even the plaintiff's expert declined to characterize the Hegarty incident as a typical barricaded felon case. And, unlike the typical barricaded felon case, these officers at the outset had no conclusive evidence but that their suspect remained at large. 56 Moreover, even assuming the best efforts of the most prescient supervisor, it simply is not possible to anticipate the entire array of atypical circumstances--upon which sensitive discretionary judgment calls must be made by the officer in the field--for inclusion in a law enforcement agency's standard operating procedures. For example, even indulging an impermissible measure of hindsight, we do not believe that SOPs, however elaborate, would have enabled the defendant officers at the scene to resolve by safer or more reliable means whether Katherine was inside the cabin at the time the officers first arrived. So, too, in the end, Sheriff Havey--after initiating an immediate investigation into the officers' actions--formed the professional opinion, rightly or wrongly, that the judgment calls made at the scene were reasonable. 57 Finally, though plaintiff would characterize Sheriff Havey's subsequent conduct as pure obstinacy, the cloak of qualified immunity nonetheless remains in place unless it would be manifest to any reasonable official in the supervisor's position that the failure to establish such a policy or to institute in-house training prior to the Hegarty incident was very likely to violate an individual's constitutional rights. Febus-Rodriguez, 14 F.3d at 92. As plaintiff failed even to approach the threshold for such a showing, we affirm the district court ruling allowing the qualified immunity claim asserted by defendant Havey. III