Opinion ID: 1459439
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: procedural background and factual allegations

Text: A year after enduring the raid on Club Retro, plaintiffs Club Retro, L.L.C.; Lyle K. Doublet; Dar J. Doublet; Erica L. Doublet, individually and on behalf of her minor daughter, Olivia Lynn Marie Doublet; Christine A. Smith, individually and on behalf of her minor daughter, Carley A. Smith; Jonathan K. Frost; and Ronnie M. Mabou filed a federal lawsuit. Their complaint alleged, inter alia, § 1983 claims of violations of their freedoms of expression, association, and assembly under the First Amendment, unlawful search and seizure and false arrest under the Fourth Amendment, and equal protection and due process violations under the Fourteenth Amendment. [1] They alleged these claims against defendants Rapides Parish Sheriff William Hilton and Rapides Parish deputy sheriffs Michael Slocum, Ricky Doyle, Michael LaCour, and James Rauls, acting in their individual and official capacities. Defendants immediately moved to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) on various grounds, including qualified immunity for the federal constitutional claims against them in their individual capacities. Plaintiffs responded to the motion to dismiss by filing a response and a motion to amend or correct their complaint. The court referred the motion to dismiss and motion to amend or correct the complaint to a magistrate judge. The magistrate judge granted plaintiffs' motion to amend or correct their complaint. Plaintiffs filed a supplemental and amending complaint which amended parts of the complaint (collectively, the amended complaint), and defendants reasserted their motion to dismiss. The magistrate judge issued a report recommending that the district court grant in part and deny in part the motion to dismiss. It stated, inter alia, that the district court should reject the defense of qualified immunity (1) to all defendants for plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment unreasonable search and seizure claims; (2) to deputy sheriffs Slocum and Doyle for Dar's, Lyle's, and Erica's Fourth Amendment false arrest claims; and (3) to Sheriff Hilton and deputy sheriffs Slocum, LaCour, and Rauls for plaintiffs' Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claims. On the other hand, the magistrate judge recommended dismissal of Club Retro's, Lyle's, and Dar's First Amendment and plaintiffs' due process claims based on qualified immunity. After the parties filed objections to the report and recommendation, the district court entered judgment, adopting most of the magistrate judge's recommendations but  without substantial comment  refusing to dismiss the First Amendment claims. The district court dismissed without prejudice plaintiffs' due process claims. Defendants filed a timely appeal. Because this case comes to us on appeal from the district court's order denying defendants' motion to dismiss, we consider the facts that plaintiffs set forth in their amended complaint.
Lyle and Dar Doublet were the owners of Club Retro, L.L.C., a business enterprise that owned and operated Club Retro, a nightclub located in Alexandria, Louisiana. Lyle managed Club Retro, L.L.C. Lyle and Dar are Creole, and Club Retro's clientele was mixed-race. Before opening to the public in October 31, 2005, Club Retro passed various inspections and received permits to serve alcohol. As part of the inspection process, the state fire marshal set Club Retro's capacity at 680 persons. Lyle and Dar also confirmed that they could permit persons under the age of twenty-one but over the age of eighteen in the club, so long as they did not serve them alcohol. While deputy sheriff Slocum and assistant district attorney Thomas B. Searcy stated that the matter was a grey area, Searcy received confirmation from District Attorney James C. Downs that it was permissible. On January 21 and 28, 2006, two Rapides Parish deputy sheriffs checked Club Retro to ensure that the doors were locked and closed at 2:00 a.m. On January 21, after Lyle and Dar protested, the officers left and promised to return with a copy of the applicable ordinance. A few days later, the Doublets visited the office of the Rapides Parish Sales and Use Tax Department where they confirmed that Club Retro could remain open after 2 a.m. on Sunday mornings if they stopped selling and prevented patrons from consuming alcohol after 2 a.m. The following weekend, despite the Doublets' protestations, a deputy sheriff and his lieutenant ordered the club closed, and the Doublets complied with their order. On the night of Saturday, February 4, 2006, and into the early hours of Sunday, February 5, 2006, Club Retro hosted a number of popular hip hop artists. Club Retro hired private security guards to search all patrons entering the club. [2] At approximately 12:15 a.m. Sunday morning, the club was crowded with approximately 500 patrons when persons waiting in line outside of the club crashed through the front door, pursued by forty Rapides Parish deputy sheriffs  some outfitted in full S.W.A.T. gear and black ski masks  who stormed Club Retro with shotguns, AR-15 assault rifles, and pistols drawn and pointed at both patrons and employees. At least one patron was injured in the chaos near the entranceway when a deputy sheriff stomped on her leg. Once inside the club, the officers forced many patrons to the ground at gunpoint, and the deputy sheriffs may have used tasers on club patrons. The deputy sheriffs were acting pursuant to Operation Retro-Fit, a plan authorized by Sheriff Hilton; written, supervised, and executed by deputy sheriffs Slocum, LaCour, and Rauls; and supervised and executed by deputy sheriff Doyle. The sheriffs memorialized Operation Retro-Fit in a written plan that plaintiffs have attached to their complaint. The plan called for a warrantless raid on Club Retro using a S.W.A.T. team for the purposes of detecting the sale or possession of illegal narcotics, the sale of alcohol to minors, and fire code violations. The deputy sheriffs would be assisted by officers from the Metro Narcotics Unit, a K-9 Unit, the Louisiana Department of Revenue Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control, and Louisiana Probation and Parole. As soon as the raid began, the deputy sheriffs seized, assaulted, battered, and handcuffed Lyle and Dar, who were then transported to a warehouse holding facility and held for over six hours. Several hours later, Slocum had Judge John C. Davidson of the Ninth Judicial District Court for Rapides Parish sign arrest warrants against Lyle and Dar, based on affidavits sworn by LaCour. Although Judge Davidson initially refused because of the lack of probable cause on the night of the raid, he eventually relented and signed the warrants. The crime identified in both warrants was keeping Club Retro open past 2:00 a.m. on January 4, 2006, in violation of Louisiana Revised Statutes Annotated § 33:1236(6). The warrants additionally state that deputy sheriffs warned Lyle and Dar on January 27 and 28, 2006, that they were operating in violation of the law. [3] Because of the scale and ferocity of the raid, many of Club Retro's employees thought that they were being robbed by armed gunmen. A deputy sheriff hurled himself across the bar into the bartending area and pushed bartender Krista Frost to the ground with a gun pointed at her head. Jonathan Frost, another bartender, was chased, thrown to the ground, and stepped on by a deputy sheriff after Jonathan held up his hands to surrender. The deputy sheriff then pressed a 9mm pistol against Jonathan's neck as he searched him. Another deputy sheriff forced Christine Smith, a manager of Club Retro, to the ground at gunpoint and searched her. When masked officers reached the stage, they slammed the performers to the ground or the wall. Matt Mabou, Club Retro's disc jockey, looked up from his stereo equipment into the barrel of a gun. The deputy sheriff on the other end of the gun forced Mabou to turn the music off and the lights on and then searched him at gunpoint. The deputy sheriffs also rounded up Club Retro's other staff members at gunpoint and searched and detained them. The deputy sheriffs handcuffed some of the staff, and one of the staff members was hit on the head with a rifle butt. The deputy sheriffs and other officers blocked all points of exit. They searched every patron and employee and required most patrons to walk by drug-sniffing dogs. As part of the search, some women were instructed to reach under their shirts, lift up their bras, and shake them so the deputy sheriffs could see if any illegal drugs would fall out. The deputy sheriffs separated patrons over twenty-one years of age from patrons between eighteen and twenty-one years of age. One-hundred-twenty-one patrons between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one were given citations for being in an alcohol-serving establishment. The parties dispute the lawfulness of those citations under Louisiana law. See infra n.24. At most seven patrons  approximately one percent of the total number of patrons  were arrested for drug-related crimes. The deputy sheriffs also announced to the patrons that they should never come back unless they wanted to risk another raid. They detained the patrons and employees between three and five hours and denied them access to the restrooms for a long period of time, during which some patrons urinated in empty bottles and one patron fainted. Eventually, deputy sheriffs permitted some persons to use the restrooms if escorted by an official. The deputy sheriffs proceeded to search the entire club, including the attic. Cash was confiscated from the registers. Mirrors, the cash registers, and the office areas were trashed. An armed officer kicked down the door to a separate, attached apartment that was protected by a security guard and not open to the public. Lyle and Erica resided in the apartment on nights when the club was open. Inside the apartment were plaintiff Olivia Doublet, Erica's minor daughter, and her two babysitters, one of whom was plaintiff Carley Smith, Christine's minor daughter. The officer pinned Carley against the wall and then forcibly removed the three girls from the room. The deputy sheriffs brought the girls into the bar area, placed them on stools, and photographed them as if they were bar patrons. Olivia had been sleeping and was in her pajamas at the time. Erica and Christine attempted to reach their daughters, but the officers denied them access. Slocum and another unnamed deputy sheriff announced that both girls would be taken by the Louisiana Department of Social Services Office of Community Services (OCS). After Erica explained that the girls had been removed from the private apartment and Slocum realized that OCS was not going to take the girls, he told an officer to arrest Erica for gun possession. Erica was cuffed and removed to the same holding facility as Lyle and Dar. The deputy sheriffs transported Christine, Olivia, Carley, and the other babysitter with Erica, and briefly detained them at the holding facility, but Christine was eventually allowed to leave with the three girls. At the holding facility, Slocum and LaCour placed Erica in the room with Lyle and Dar, where all three were handcuffed to their chairs. Slocum and LaCour made threatening and obscene comments to her, including threats of sexual assault. Earlier, during the preliminary stages of the raid, Slocum had looked at Erica, who is Caucasian, and said, And you think you are white? You are not f____ing white. Slocum and LaCour also threatened Lyle and Dar. Tensions rose until Dar, an Iraq war veteran, commented, After I have served a tour of duty in Iraq, I come home to this and experience terrorism in my own country. At that point, Slocum and Doyle ceased their threats, and tensions eased. Because the deputy sheriffs' search of Club Retro produced handguns that Lyle and Dar kept in the club's office, Slocum and Doyle arrested Lyle, Dar, and Erica for possessing firearms in an alcohol retail establishment. In addition, the fire marshal estimated that, at the time of the raid, there were 822 people in Club Retro, so Slocum and Doyle charged Lyle and Dar with violating the fire marshal's order limiting Club Retro's capacity. The officers' count of cash in the cash registers used for the entry fees  a count that was captured on video  evidenced that there were not more than 500 people in the club when it was raided. Doyle booked Lyle, Dar, and Erica at the Rapides Parish detention center. He charged Lyle and Dar with GENERIC CHARGE-CHGE LATER, FIREARM POSSESSION/BAR, and FAILURE TO COMPLY FIRE MARSH. He booked Erica for IMPROPER SUPERVIS. OF MINOR and FIREARM POSSESSION/BAR. Within a week, Lyle and Dar were arrested a second time and charged with allowing persons aged between eighteen and twenty-one years into Club Retro. On the night of the raid, Club Retro advertised a performance by Paul Wall that was to take place the following Saturday, February 11, 2006. That Saturday night, a fire marshal and two Rapides Parish deputy sheriffs entered Club Retro and stayed until the concert started. Two other deputy sheriffs parked their patrol cars conspicuously in Club Retro's parking lot for the duration of the evening. Many potential patrons who intended to attend the concert did not do so  some were seen driving into the parking lot where the patrol cars were parked and then departing. They did not want to experience a repeat of the events of February 5 and 6. Only sixty-seven patrons attended the concert. About one-half mile down the road from Club Retro was GG's, a long-established, white-owned nightclub with a white clientele. GG's has never been raided in a manner similar to Operation Retro-Fit.