Opinion ID: 159615
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Claim Arising Out of Probable Cause Affidavits

Text: 31 In contrast to the wrongful detention claim, Agent Childers's appeal of the denial of qualified immunity as to the claim arising out of her execution of the probable cause affidavits does involve the kind of abstract legal issues separate from the fact-related issues that will arise at trial. Johnson v. Martin, 195 F.3d 1208, 1214 (10th Cir. 1999); see also Foote, 118 F.3d at 1422 (concluding that appellate jurisdiction exists when a defendant challenges on appeal the district court's determination that under either party's version of the facts the defendant violated clearly established law). In particular, Agent Childers argues that a public official could reasonably conclude that, under Oklahoma law, evidence that one has lied to a police officer may be sufficient to support a charge of being an accessory after the fact to the commission of a felony. As a result, she maintains, she is entitled to qualified immunity from the claims arising out of her execution of the probable cause affidavits.
32 In considering Agent Childers's qualified immunity argument, we must first assess the district court's conclusion that the doctrine of collateral estoppel bars her from challenging the September 15, 1997 finding of the Coal County District Court. That court found that the probable cause affidavits were legally insufficient to support the accessory-after-the-fact charge. As noted, the district court reasoned that the Coal County ruling was a final appealable decision, that there was no indication that the decision had been appealed, and that as a result, Agent Childers could not challenge it in the instant 1983 case. 33 In determining the preclusive effect of the Coal County ruling, we apply Oklahoma law. See 28 U.S.C. 1738; Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81 (1984). Under Oklahoma law, 'once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, the same parties or their privies may not relitigate the issue in a suit brought upon a different claim.' Kinslow v. Ratzlaff, 158 F.3d 1104, 1105 (10th Cir. 1998) (quoting Fent v. Oklahoma Natural Gas Co., 898 P.2d 126, 133 (Okla. 1994)). A party is precluded from litigating an issue only if he or she has had 'a full and fair opportunity' to litigate the issue in the prior action. Fent, 898 P.2d at 133 (quoting Underside v. Lathrop, 645 P.2d 514, 516 n.6 (Okla. 1982)). We have considered the application of collateral estoppel (or issue preclusion) in circumstances analogous to the instant case. See Kinslow, 158 F.3d at 1105-07. In Kinslow, a plaintiff filed a civil rights action against two police officers who had arrested him for various traffic violations. Prior to the filing of the civil rights action, an Oklahoma court had found no probable cause to prosecute the plaintiff and had dismissed the charges against him. In the civil rights case, the plaintiff argued that the Oklahoma court's dismissal precluded the federal district court from granting the officers qualified immunity. 34 We rejected that argument. Noting that [i]n order for issue preclusion to apply . . . [the police officers] must have been parties to that criminal proceeding or in privity with the parties in that action, id. at 1106, we observed that the officers were not parties to the state court criminal case. As to the question of privity, we reasoned that under Oklahoma's definition of privity, the officers were not in privity with the State of Oklahoma. The officers are being sued in their individual capacity in this action and their personal interests, which were not at stake in the criminal proceeding, differ from Oklahoma's interests. Id.; see also id. at n.3 (While a government official sued in his official capacity may be in privity with the government, we are aware of no case in which a person, sued individually, has been precluded from litigating an issue because of a ruling adverse to the state in a prior criminal proceeding.) (citation omitted). 35 Kinslow is applicable here. Like the police officer defendants in that case, Agent Childers has been sued in her individual capacity. Like the defendants in Kinslow, Agent Childers was not a party to the prior criminal case. Because she has been sued in her individual capacity, she is not in privity with the parties in that case. We therefore conclude that Agent Childers is not precluded in the instant case from challenging the Coal County District Court's September 15, 1987 ruling. 2
36 Because the Coal County ruling is not preclusive, we proceed to the merits of Agent Childers's argument that she is entitled to qualified immunity from Ms. McFarland's claim arising out of the execution of the probable cause affidavits. That claim is based on the allegation that Agent Childers's execution of the affidavits caused Ms. McFarland to be arrested without probable cause, thereby violating the Fourth Amendment. 37 Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, 'government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' Ramirez v. Oklahoma Dept. of Mental Health, 41 F.3d 584, 592-93 (10th Cir.1994) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)); see also Workman v. Jordan, 958 F.2d 332, 336 (10th Cir.1992) (If [defendants'] actions are those that a reasonable person could have believed were lawful, defendants are entitled to dismissal before discovery.). In order for a right to be clearly established for purposes of assessing entitlement to qualified immunity: 38 The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law, the unlawfulness must be apparent. 39 Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987) (citations omitted). 40 The right at issue here is Ms. McFarland's right not be seized, detained, and prosecuted without probable cause. See generally Taylor v. Meacham, 82 F.3d 1556, 1559-61 (10th Cir. 1996) (discussing Fourth Amendment protections against baseless seizures and prosecutions). Probable cause to make an arrest exists if facts and circumstances within the arresting officer's knowledge and of which he or she has reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient to lead a prudent person to believe that the arrestee has committed or is committing an offense. Jones v. City & County of Denver, 854 F.2d 1206, 1210 (10th Cir. 1988). Accordingly, Agent Childers is entitled to qualified immunity if a reasonable police officer could have believed that probable caused existed to arrest [the plaintiff]. See Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 228 (1991). 41 In rejecting Agent Childers's qualified immunity defense, the district court observed that the Coal County District Court specifically, and correctly, found that no crime exists in Oklahoma for lying to a police officer or investigator of a crime. Aplt's App. at 443 (Dist. Ct. Order, filed Feb. 4, 1999). The district court also observed that Ms. McFarland had submitted affidavits from two police officers stating that nothing in their training or experience would lead to the conclusion that lying to a police officer is a crime and that they have made no such arrests themselves. Id. at 442. The court added that Agent Childers herself had acknowledged that she knows of no instance where a crime has been charged as a result of lying to a police officer. Id. As a result, [t]his calls into question whether a reasonably competent law enforcement officer would know that the crime for which [Agent Childers] was executing probable cause affidavits did not exist. Id. 42 The district court's reading of Oklahoma law is based on Farmer v. State, 40 P.2d 693 (Okla. Crim. App. 1935) (per curiam). In that case, the defendant appealed a conviction under Oklahoma's accessory-after-the-fact statute, which provided: 43 All persons, who after the commission of any felony, conceal or aid the offender, with knowledge that he has committed a felony, and with intent that he may avoid or escape from arrest, trial, conviction, or punishment, are accessories. 44 Id. at 693 (citing 1931 Okla. Sess. Laws 1809) (now codified at Okla. Stat. tit. 21, 173). The evidence presented by the prosecution at trial established that the defendant had falsely told the sheriff investigating an assault that he did not know who the guilty parties were and that the defendant had done so with the intent that such parties might escape from the arrest, trial and conviction for such offense. Id. at 694. 45 In response to the defendant's appeal in Farmer, the Oklahoma Attorney General filed a confession of error, stating that he believe[d] that the mere fact of the telling the sheriff a falsehood under such circumstances does not amount to a violation of the [accessory-after-the-fact] statute. Id. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals approved the confession of error. It cited cases from Virginia, Texas, and Nevada discussing the elements of an accessory charge. See id. (citing Wren v. Commonwealth, 67 Va. (26 Gratt.) 952, 1875 WL 5715 (Va. Apr. 22, 1875); Chenault v. State, 81 S.W. 971 (Tex. Crim App. 1904); Ex parte Overfield, 152 P. 568 (Nev. 1915)). Those decisions held that the following acts were not sufficient to establish an accessory after the fact charge: merely suffering the principal to escape and knowing of a felony [and] fail[ing] to make it known to the proper authorities; id. at 694 (quoting Wren, 1875 WL 5715, at ); and failure to disclose the whereabouts of a felon by one who had knowledge, id. at 694 (discussing Overfield). According to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, the Texas decision (Chenault) held that in order to make one an accessory after the fact some overt active assistance rendered to the felon personally was necessary. Id. (discussing Chenault). 46 In this appeal, Agent Childers argues that a case decided by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals more than forty years after Farmer--Wilson v. State, 552 P.2d 1404 (Okla. Crim. App. 1976)--supports her defense of qualified immunity. In Wilson, the prosecution charged the defendant with second degree murder, but the trial court allowed the jury to be instructed on the offense of accessory to a felony pursuant to Okla. Stat. tit. 21 173. Wilson, 552 P.2d at 1406. After the jury returned a guilty verdict on the accessory charge, the defendant appealed. In reversing the conviction, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial court had erred in giving a lesser included offense instruction. See id. ([I]t is a necessary concomitant that a felony must already have been committed in order for a person to be an accessory to the crime. . . . It necessarily follows that the offense of accessory to a felony is a separate and distinct substantive crime, and is not a lesser included offense of the principal crime.). 47 Importantly, the Court of Criminal Appeals also concluded that there is sufficient evidence to justify the filing of a new information charging [the defendant] with the offense of Accessory to a Felony if the District Attorney, in his discretion, so desires. Id. at 1407. The Wilson court set forth the testimony upon which it based this conclusion about the evidence supporting an accessory charge, observing that, during cross-examination, the defendant had testified as follows: 48 Q. Now, is it your story that all this was made up, that the story you gave the Sheriff that night was made up in order to protect the people that had actually committed the shooting? 49 A. Yes. 50 Q. You knew a crime had been committed. You knew a person had been shot? 51 A. After they picked us up, yes. 52 Q. At the time you gave the story to the Sheriff, the one you say was made up, you knew that a man had been killed . . . or a person had been killed? 53 A. Yes. 54 Q. You say you knew who had done it? 55 Q. Sir? 56 Q. You knew who had committed it? 57 A. No, I didn't know who. 58 Q. You were making up this story in order to protect the person that actually pulled the trigger, is that correct? 59 A. Yes. 60 Q. All of you agreed, to protect one another. 61 A. I don't understand the question. 62 Q. All of you agreed to make up the story to protect one another? 63 A. We agreed that . . . 64 Q. Protect everybody but Charlie is that what you're telling us? 65 A. Yes. 66 Id. n.16. (quoting Trial Tr. at 255). 67 In our view, Wilson supports Agent Childers's argument that her probable cause affidavits sufficiently alleged an accessory offense under Oklahoma law. The testimony that the Wilson court deemed sufficient to support an accessory charge consisted of no more that the defendant's admission that he had lied to a sheriff about who had committed a murder (i.e., had ma[de] up this story in order to protect the person that actually pulled the trigger, id.). There is no discussion in the Wilson opinion of any additional elements required to support an accessory charge. The element that the Farmer court had required forty years earlier--active assistance personally to the party charged with the felony, Farmer, 40 P.2d at 694--is not mentioned. 68 Our research has revealed no case decided after Wilson that has addressed the issue of whether the act of lying to a police officer is sufficient to support an accessory after the fact charge in Oklahoma. We note in passing that courts in other jurisdictions have resolved the issue in various ways. See United States v. Osborn, 120 F.3d 59, 64 (7th Cir. 1997) (noting uncertainty regarding the question of whether something more than a simple lie may be required in order to establish a violation of [18 U.S.C. 3, the federal accessory statute], and that, at the time of the events in question here, it was not clear that [the defendant's] lie to authorities fell outside the scope of 18 U.S.C. 3); People v. Duty, 74 Cal. Rptr. 606, 609 (Cal. Ct. App. 1969) (concluding that evidence of supplying an affirmative and deliberate falsehood to the public authorities was sufficient to support an accessory charge and noting contrasting conclusions reached by courts in other jurisdictions). In any event, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals decision in Wilson reveals uncertainty regarding the application of the accessory statute to allegations of lying to law enforcement officers. 3 69 We acknowledge that the expansive interpretation of the Oklahoma accessory statute advanced by the prosecution in the case against Ms. McFarland raises serious concerns. The statute refers to persons who conceal or aid the offender. See Okla Stat. tit. 21, 173. Although there are arguably some false statements that may conceal or aid offenders, there may be instances in which the prosecution is unable to demonstrate that a false statement provided such assistance to the offender. As this court has observed in applying the federal accessory statute, 18 U.S.C. 3, it is doubtful that anyone who engages in less than enthusiastic cooperation with investigating authorities should be subject to prosecution as an accessory. United States v. Lepanto, 817 F.2d 1463, 1468 (10th Cir. 1987). Here, it is unclear from the record before us how Ms. McFarland's initial false statements concealed or aided the offenders. 70 Unfortunately, aside from the conflicting reasoning in Farmer and Wilson, the Oklahoma courts have provided little guidance on the question of whether some false statements may support an accessory charge and, if so, how one can distinguish false statements that conceal or aid offenders from false statements that do no so conceal or aid. In light of the uncertainty in Oklahoma law, we conclude that it was not clearly established when Agent Childers executed the challenged probable cause affidavits in 1996 that Ms. McFarland's false statements to law enforcement officers were not sufficient to support an accessory-after-the-fact charge. Agent Childers is therefore entitled to qualified immunity as to the claim arising out of the execution of the probable cause affidavits. 4