Opinion ID: 749838
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Shasta County and Sheriff Pope

Text: 15 A municipal defendant may only be held liable under § 1983 if the unlawful actions of its employees or agents were taken pursuant to that defendant's policies or customs, Monell v. Department of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2037-38, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), including a policy of being deliberately indifferent to the rights of its inhabitants, City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 389, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 1205, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). Henry claims that in removing his clothes; placing him in an unheated, urine-coated safety cell for a lengthy period of time; repeatedly threatening to leave him in that condition unless he complied with their demands; and ignoring his plea for the materials he needed to prepare a habeas petition, the staff of the Shasta County Jail acted pursuant to a county policy of abusing persons arrested for minor vehicle code infractions who refuse to sign notices to appear, or demand to be taken to a magistrate. Alternatively, he urges that the county has a policy of being deliberately indifferent to such conduct by its employees. In granting summary judgment in favor of Shasta County and its policymaker Sheriff Pope (collectively, the county), the district court held that there was no evidence that the abuse Henry suffered was inflicted pursuant to a county policy or custom, or that it resulted from deliberate indifference on the part of the county. Upon reviewing the complete record, and viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Henry, we conclude, to the contrary, that Henry did offer sufficient evidence to give rise to genuine issues of material fact as to whether the county had a policy or custom of flagrantly violating the constitutional rights of persons stopped for minor vehicle code infractions who refuse to sign a notice to appear or demand to be taken before a magistrate, or whether it was deliberately indifferent to such practices by its employees. We therefore reverse the grant of summary judgment as to the county. 16 Several pieces of evidence in the record go to the question of municipal liability: the declarations of Michael May and Robert Burns, facts recited in Henry's declaration, and a portion of Henry's jail medical record. 11 May and Burns each described being subjected to treatment at the Shasta County Jail virtually identical to Henry's after they were stopped for what were at worst only minor traffic infractions. Henry related that a number of different deputies and nurses, some acting in concert and some independently of one another, all participated in the flagrant violation of his constitutional rights. Jail personnel noted in Henry's medical record that he received the same treatment at the jail in 1986, apparently following his arrest for a similarly minor infraction. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Henry, the declarations of May and Burns, Henry's statements about the threats and actions of a large number of officials at different times over the course of a night and the following day, and the medical record are sufficient to raise genuine issues of material fact as to the municipal liability claim. We consider each of those pieces of evidence in turn. 17 Burns in his declaration states that, like Henry, he was arrested in conjunction with a traffic stop for a non-working tail light. The arrest occurred in February or March of 1994, two to three months after Henry filed the instant § 1983 action. The arresting officer took Burns to the Shasta County Jail, where, in response to his repeated requests to see an attorney, he was held naked in a rubber room until 1:00 p.m. the following day, when, while on the way to see a magistrate, he was informed that his case had been dismissed, and he was released. It is a reasonable inference--indeed, the only reasonable inference--that after Henry filed suit and successfully served process against the county, it knew about the alleged malfeasance of its employees at the jail. As we will explain more fully below, such post-event evidence may be used to prove the existence of a municipal policy in effect at the time that Henry was detained. See, e.g., Larez v. City of Los Angeles, 946 F.2d 630, 645 (9th Cir.1991) (where allegation was that police chief set tone condoning and encouraging excessive use of force, we can hardly think of better evidence than statements he made after incident that were consistent with those claims); McRorie v. Shimoda, 795 F.2d 780, 784 (9th Cir.1986) (Policy or custom may be inferred if, after [constitutional violations], ... officials took no steps to reprimand or discharge the [prison] guards, or if they otherwise failed to admit the guards' conduct was in error.) (citation omitted). Here, factual issues were presented that the county acted in accordance with an established policy or deliberate indifference to violation of rights by stripping and detaining in rubber rooms persons stopped for minor, non-jailable traffic offenses who refuse to sign a notice to appear, or demand to be taken before a magistrate. There was evidence that the county permitted an almost identical incident as that complained of by Henry to occur after the county was sued and after being put on notice unequivocally of its deputies' and nurses' unconstitutional treatment of Henry. 18 May's declaration provides further evidence of such a policy. A police officer approached May as he was sitting in a parked car, eating a hamburger. When May refused to cooperate with the officer's demands, he was arrested and taken to the jail. Because he continued to refuse to cooperate, and instead demanded to be taken to a magistrate, the jail staff placed him in a rubber room. Six officials working together held him on his hands and knees, handcuffed, with [his] neck forced down on a mattress on the floor, while they removed his clothing. They then left him on the bare mattress, where he lay without a blanket, naked and shivering, all night. Despite his repeated requests to make a phone call, he was held incommunicado in that condition until approximately noon the next day, in violation of both California law and his First and Fifth Amendment rights. See Cal.Penal Code § 851.5 (providing that arrestees are entitled to make three completed telephone calls immediately upon being booked); Carlo v. City of Chino, 105 F.3d 493, 500 (9th Cir.1997) (holding that Cal.Penal Code § 851.5 gives rise to federal procedural due process interest); Keenan v. Hall, 83 F.3d 1083, 1092 (9th Cir.1996) (acknowledging First Amendment right of prisoners to telephone access subject to reasonable security limitations); Strandberg v. City of Helena, 791 F.2d 744, 747 (9th Cir.1986) (same). May's detention occurred only two and one-half months after Henry's. Such close proximity in time of the two events lends further supports to Henry's claim that his treatment was not an isolated event but was instead inflicted in accordance with county policy. 19 In holding that the May and Burns declarations may be used to establish municipal liability although the events related therein occurred after the series of incidents that serves as the basis for Henry's claims, we reiterate our rule that post-event evidence is not only admissible for purposes of proving the existence of a municipal defendant's policy or custom, but is highly probative with respect to that inquiry. See, e.g., Larez, 946 F.2d at 645. The leading case on the use of post-event evidence in § 1983 municipal liability cases, which we cited with approval in Larez and McRorie, is Grandstaff v. City of Borger, 767 F.2d 161 (5th Cir.1985). In Grandstaff, the Fifth Circuit affirmed a jury verdict holding the City of Borger, Texas, liable when members of its police force mistook an innocent person for a fugitive and killed him. At the outset, the Grandstaff court noted that isolated instances of official misconduct are insufficient to establish municipal liability under Monell. 767 F.2d at 171. See, e.g., Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808, 105 S.Ct. 2427, 85 L.Ed.2d 791 (1985). It also recognized that the existence of the city policy at issue--that of deliberate indifference to the dangerous recklessness of its police department--must be inferred circumstantially from the conduct of individual officers and the police chief, and then explained that the plaintiffs had failed to point to even a single prior incident of police misconduct to serve as evidence of the existence of such a policy. Id. at 171. All that the plaintiffs had proven, the court stated, was that the conduct of the six officers comprising one shift of the Borger police force acted during a single night in ways that displayed a disregard for human life and safety. Id. Nevertheless, the court upheld the jury verdict against the city, concluding that the police chief's failure to respond to the situation or to make changes in order to prevent recurring violations evidenced the city's preexisting policy of deliberate indifference to the dangerous recklessness of its police officers. 12 Id. 20 Specifically, the Grandstaff court explained that in the aftermath of the shooting, 21 there were no reprimands, no discharges, and no admissions of error. The officers testified at the trial that no changes had been made in their policies. If that episode of such dangerous recklessness obtained so little attention and action by the City policymaker, the jury was entitled to conclude that it was accepted as the way things are done and have been done in the City of Borger. If prior policy had been violated, we would expect to see a different reaction. If what the officers did and failed to do ... was not acceptable to the police chief, changes would have been made. 22 This reaction to so gross an abuse of the use of deadly weapons says more about the existing disposition of the City's policymaker than would a dozen incidents where individual officers employed excessive force. The policymaker's disposition, his policy on the use of deadly force, after [the date of the shooting] was evidence of his disposition prior to [that date]. As subsequent conduct may prove discriminatory motive in a prior employment decision, and subsequent acts may prove the nature of a prior conspiracy, so the subsequent acceptance of dangerous recklessness by the policymaker tends to prove his preexisting disposition and policy. 23 767 F.2d at 171 (citations omitted). 24 If a municipal defendant's failure to fire or reprimand officers evidences a policy of deliberate indifference to their misconduct, surely its failure even after being sued to correct a blatantly unconstitutional course of treatment--stripping persons who have committed minor traffic infractions, throwing them naked into a rubber room and holding them there for ten hours or more for failing to sign a traffic ticket or asserting their legal right to be brought before a magistrate--is even more persuasive evidence of deliberate indifference or of a policy encouraging such official misconduct. 13 May's and Burns' declarations are sufficient to show for purposes of summary judgment that such abuse of people who commit minor infractions is the way things are done and have been done in Shasta County, and thus would allow a jury to make a finding as to the existence of a policy or custom. 25 Those declarations are by no means the only evidence Henry has offered to support his Monell claim, however. Henry's declaration includes the following facts, among others: (1) a sheriff's deputy not only refused to provide him with the materials he requested in order to prepare a habeas petition--materials to which he had a right under clearly established federal law, see, e.g., Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 824-25, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1496, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977) (It is indisputable that indigent inmates must be provided at state expense with paper and pen to draft legal documents with notarial services to authenticate them, and with stamps to mail them.); Straub v. Monge, 815 F.2d 1467, 1467-68 (11th Cir.) (holding that Bounds rights apply to pretrial detainees in county jail), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 946, 108 S.Ct. 336, 98 L.Ed.2d 363 (1987); Leeds v. Watson, 630 F.2d 674 (9th Cir.1980) (applying Bounds with equal force to persons in county jail)--but also repeated the request to various other jail personnel, who merely laughed and did not take any steps to comply with the request; (2) even after Henry ultimately told a second deputy that he would cooperate, and signed the statement placed before him (which he made clear he could not see to read and which was not read to him), that deputy twice threatened that if Henry did not continue to cooperate he would be put back in the safety cell; and (3) a third deputy later warned Henry that if [he] 'pissed off' the judge and came back down to the jail for any other reason than to be released, that [he] would be stripped naked, receive a body cavity search 14 and be placed back in the solitary confinement cell. 26 The continuing threats Henry received from various sheriff's deputies, both before and after he complied with their demands, provide substantial evidence that the jail personnel were acting in accordance with a county policy encouraging or at least condoning flagrantly unconstitutional treatment of persons stopped for non-jailable offenses who refuse to sign notices to appear or demand to be taken before a magistrate. In short, the evidence of the officials' conduct strongly suggests that Henry's treatment resulted from a widespread pattern of abuse by numerous individuals rather than a single instance of mistreatment by a solitary officer. The staff of the Shasta County Jail deals with detainees--including ones who refuse to answer questions and instead assert their rights under federal and state law--on a daily basis. Indeed, dealing with detainees is a, if not the, core function the county entrusts them with performing. In view of all the facts and circumstances of Henry's confinement, there is adequate evidence to suggest that the violations of his constitutional rights were not the result of a few officers acting on a lark or in violation of the orders or policies that governed their conduct. The fact that so many officials participated in the manner they did in the unconstitutional abuse of Henry throughout the period of his detention is thus further substantial evidence in support of his Monell claim. See, e.g., Kibbe v. City of Springfield, 777 F.2d 801 (1st Cir.1985) (conduct of ten officers, three of whom fired shots, during attempted apprehension of suspect was sufficient to support verdict against city on Monell claim). 27 Finally, there is evidence in the record that Henry himself was placed in a rubber room at the jail in 1986 under substantially similar circumstances. The Prison Health Services record on Henry's detention in the safety cell in 1993 includes the following notations: 28 [Henry] was placed in [a medical safety cell] to [rule out] suicidal ideation & to observe. He appeared to sleep all night. Refused breakfast. Inmate did this in 1986 also. He was arrested because he refused to sign a fix-it ticket for a taillight as it violates my constitutional rights. He was brought to jail. 1986 he did the same thing. Refused to answer med. questions. 29 Thus, there is evidence that a county policy of abusing persons stopped for minor infractions who refuse to sign a ticket or demand to see a magistrate by throwing them naked into a safety cell had been in existence since at least 1986. It suggests further that the Shasta County officials in charge of the jail consistently act on the premise that persons who insist on the full measure of legal rights in motor vehicle infraction cases are mentally unbalanced. 30 In sum, we conclude that, individually and collectively, the May, Burns, and Henry declarations along with the official records, are sufficient to raise genuine issues of material fact as to the Monell claim. That Henry himself encountered similar treatment some seven years before not only adds weight to his claims but also evidences that the policy was a long-standing one. Therefore, we reverse and remand the district court's grant of summary judgment with respect to the county.