Opinion ID: 495206
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The probable cause claim

Text: 110 In addition to objecting to the manner in which he was arrested, Martin asserts that his fourth amendment rights were violated because there was no probable cause to arrest and detain him for disorderly conduct and disobeying a police officer's orders. It is well settled that an arrest without probable cause violates the fourth amendment. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 111, 95 S.Ct. 854, 861, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975). Under Martin's version of the facts, probable cause to arrest was indisputably absent. Martin asserted that [a]fter Malhoyt threw me into my car and obtained my permit and registration, he returned to his police car without saying anything to me. 80 When Martin got out of [his] car ... and went behind [it] to open the door for his passengers, Malhoyt, in Martin's words, suddenly got out of his police car and while appearing to be extremely angry and upset, and without saying one word to me  handcuffed Martin and put him in the police car. 81 111 Since Martin claims that Malhoyt said nothing at all to him at the relevant time, let alone something that could be construed as an order, under the facts as we must take them at this stage of the case, there was no probable cause for an arrest for disobeying a police officer's order. As to the charge of disorderly conduct, the only elements of the offense possibly relevant here are: (1) Act[ing] in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others; ... [or] (4) interfer[ing] with any person in any place by jostling against such person or unnecessarily crowding him with the intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or under circumstances such that a breach of the peace may be occasioned thereby. D.C.CODE ANN. Sec. 22-1121 (1), (4) (1981); see Gueory v. District of Columbia, 408 A.2d 967 (D.C.1979). Martin relates that he did nothing but get out of his car and stand behind it. True, as we observed above, Malhoyt might have had cause to be wary of Martin, but Martin was doing nothing to annoy or interfere with anyone at the time of his arrest. We think it plain that, accepting Martin's version of the disputed events as true, Martin's arrest was without probable cause and therefore violated the fourth amendment. 112 We turn, then, to Malhoyt's plea of qualified immunity from suit. The district court reasoned that because the relevant law--probable cause is required to arrest--was clearly established, Malhoyt cannot surmount the Harlow threshold; 82 observing that the conflicting versions of the events presented a genuine issue as to the existence of probable cause, the district court refused to enter summary judgment for Malhoyt on his qualified immunity plea. 83 113 We agree with the district court's conclusion but not its reasoning. That probable cause may have been absent when viewing the arrest ex post does not in and of itself establish that the officer acted in an objectively unreasonable manner ex ante. The relevant inquiry, as the Supreme Court recently made clear, is whether in the light of preexisting law the unlawfulness of Martin's arrest was apparent. Anderson, --- U.S. at ----, 107 S.Ct. at 3039; see also id. (indicating as the pivotal issue the objective (albeit fact-specific) question whether a reasonable officer could have believed Martin's arrest to be lawful in light of clearly established law and the information [Malhoyt] possessed). 114 Resolution of Malhoyt's motion thus turns not on whether probable cause to arrest Martin in fact existed, but on whether Malhoyt has established as a matter of law that a reasonable officer in Malhoyt's shoes would have believed it to have existed. We are confident, again assuming the truth of Martin's version of the disputed events, that no reasonable officer could have believed that an individual who merely gets out of his car has committed either of the offenses with which Martin was charged, even assuming that Malhoyt reasonably believed that Martin was attempting to evade a citation for a parking violation. Without resolving the factual dispute as to what actually transpired between Martin and Malhoyt, we cannot say that Malhoyt has established the requisite objective reasonableness of his actions. We therefore affirm the district court's denial of Malhoyt's motion for summary judgment as that motion relates to the fourth amendment, lack of probable cause claim. 115