Opinion ID: 4461213
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sergeant Sanders

Text: Several of Martinez’s allegations against Sergeant Sanders mirror those against Yambupah. With respect to Martinez’s claims that Sanders did not separate her from Pennington, provide her with information, or issue an emergency protective order, we conclude that Sanders’s 16 Yambupah failed to arrest Pennington because she was ordered not to do so by Sanders. This is discussed below as part of Sanders’s conduct. MARTINEZ V. CITY OF CLOVIS 19 conduct, like Yambupah’s, does not support a § 1983 claim. But, in other respects, Sanders’s conduct materially differed from Yambupah’s. Knowing that Pennington was an officer with the Clovis PD, Sanders ordered Yambupah not to arrest Pennington. This decision, on its own, did not leave Martinez in a more dangerous situation than the one in which he found her, and thus was not itself unconstitutional. See Hernandez, 897 F.3d at 1133; see also Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 768 (2005) (holding that “the benefit that a third party may receive from having someone else arrested for a crime generally does not trigger protections under the Due Process Clause”). But the record contains evidence of more than just Sanders’s order not to arrest Pennington. In instructing Yambupah not to arrest Pennington, which he did in Pennington’s presence, Sanders also expressed that the Penningtons were “good people.” 17 Sanders spoke positively about the Penningtons against the backdrop that everyone involved, including Sanders, knew that Pennington and his father were police officers. While hearing Sanders speak 17 While Martinez did not expressly testify that Sanders was the officer who had said that the Penningtons were “good people,” the context supports the inference that Martinez’s testimony pertains to Sanders. Pennington testified that he did not hear the “good people” comment. However, Martinez testified that Pennington was within earshot when Sanders ordered Yambupah not to arrest Pennington. She also characterized the “good people” comment as Sanders’s final comment before leaving. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Martinez, a jury could infer that Pennington heard both Sanders’s order not to arrest and heard Sanders say that the Penningtons were “good people.” 20 MARTINEZ V. CITY OF CLOVIS positively about the Penningtons, Martinez also “heard Sanders telling [Yambupah] that, you know, ‘We’re not going to arrest him. We’re just going to turn it over to Clovis PD,’ whatever.” (emphasis added). Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Martinez, a jury could reasonably find that Sanders’s positive remarks about the Penningtons placed Martinez in greater danger. The positive remarks were communicated against the backdrop that Sanders knew that Pennington was an officer and that there was probable cause to arrest 18— which the jury could infer Pennington, as a police officer, understood. A reasonable jury could find that Pennington felt emboldened to continue his abuse with impunity. In fact, the following day, Pennington abused Martinez yet again. Under these circumstances, the first requirement of the statecreated danger doctrine is satisfied.