Opinion ID: 682733
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Objective Reasonableness of Officers' Beliefs

Text: 41 As already stated, a determination that the relevant right was clearly established at the time it was allegedly violated by the public officials does not end the qualified immunity inquiry. The defendants are still entitled to qualified immunity if it was objectively reasonable for them to believe their actions were lawful. See Kaminsky, 929 F.2d at 925. The district court held that factual disputes as to each defendant's conduct precluded resolution of this question on summary judgment. If such a factual determination of each defendant's conduct is material to the issue of qualified immunity, then we must dismiss this portion of the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, and review must await resolution of the factual dispute. See Cartier, 955 F.2d at 844. 42 While defendants concede that there is a factual dispute over what their actions were, they argue that this dispute does not preclude resolution of the qualified immunity issue because the disputed issues of fact are not material. Even accepting plaintiff's factual allegations as true, and viewing them in the light most favorable to plaintiff, defendants claim they are entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law because it would have been objectively reasonable for them to have believed the actions they took were lawful. 43 Plaintiff has alleged that Czajka advised Investigators Holt and Harrison that there was probable cause to arrest Weaver and directed them to attempt to coerce a confession from Weaver before arresting him, and that the other two officers carried out this instruction and extracted incriminating, involuntary statements from Weaver. According to plaintiff's allegations, officer Harrison accused him of being the cause of Brenner's emotional troubles and stated that if Weaver cooperated they could keep this out of the newspapers. Investigator Holt confronted Weaver with the taped telephone conversations and officer Harrison repeatedly stated that Weaver was facing over a year in jail. Harrison read Brenner's statement to Weaver and stated that if Weaver did not work with the police it would be very hard on his family. Weaver denied Brenner's accusation several times, and Harrison continuously responded This is fact, each time in a louder voice, slapping the paper with his hand loudly. 44 Investigator Holt falsely told Weaver that a former student of Weaver's had signed a statement that he had the same relationship with Weaver as Brenner claimed to have had. The same officer also said there were other boys whom the police had spoken with who said the same thing. Officer Harrison reinforced this by telling Weaver he fit within the profile of a pedophile, and that the only reason he had been a scoutmaster was because he needed young boys. Officer Holt stated that Weaver's action had resulted in Brenner's attempted suicide. When Weaver attempted to provide the two interrogators with the names of other people who would support him, he was ignored. Officer Harrison told Weaver that it was an undisputed fact that Weaver had slept with Brenner on March 25, 1984 and Weaver admitted that they were on the same bed, although he denied that anything improper had taken place. The officer continued to insist that Brenner's statement was fact and demanded that Weaver recognize it as such. 45 Review of this record leads us to conclude that there are genuine issues of material fact as to whether defendants engaged in the alleged coercive conduct. Since defendants hotly dispute plaintiff's allegations, a factual determination of their conduct is needed to resolve the issue of qualified immunity. Thus, the order denying summary judgment on this issue is not final. Consequently, we must dismiss this portion of the appeal. IV Cross-Appeal 46 Weaver seeks review of the district court's partial grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants based on a finding of qualified immunity for the false arrest and malicious prosecution causes of action. While acknowledging that an order partially granting summary judgment is interlocutory and thus generally not immediately appealable, plaintiff asks us to exercise our discretion to entertain his cross-appeal under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. Since we have exercised jurisdiction over an issue in this case, we may consider other nonappealable issues in our discretion, if the appealable and nonappealable issues sufficiently overlap to warrant our exercising plenary authority over the appeal. See San Filippo v. U.S. Trust Co., 737 F.2d 246, 255 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1035, 105 S.Ct. 1408, 84 L.Ed.2d 797 (1985). We also avoid the waste of scarce judicial resources and exercise discretion to hear pendent interlocutory orders when failure to do so may leave an entire district court judicial proceeding full of error. See McCowan v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 908 F.2d 1099, 1104 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 897, 111 S.Ct. 250, 112 L.Ed.2d 209 (1990). 47 Plaintiff does not contend that the dismissal of his false arrest and malicious prosecution causes of action is likely to infect the proceedings on his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment claims with error. Rather, he maintains there is a significant overlap in law and facts pertinent to the appeal and the cross-appeal. Such overlap, if any, is not sufficient to justify departing from the normal rules that pertain to appellate review. We have already determined the only appealable issue before us is whether plaintiff's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from in-custody police coercion designed to extract an incriminating statement were clearly established in 1989. To resolve this issue requires a legal inquiry totally separate and distinct from that necessary to resolve the issue plaintiff wishes us to address, i.e., whether it was objectively reasonable to believe there was probable cause to arrest him. 48 Nor is there significant overlap in the facts relevant to each inquiry present. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment causes of action concern only the facts surrounding the February 21, 1989 interrogation of plaintiff by the defendant investigators of plaintiff. In contrast, the reasonableness of defendants' beliefs that there was probable cause to arrest and prosecute plaintiff depends upon consideration of a much broader set of circumstances. Since there is no intertwining of the factors relevant to the appealable and nonappealable issues, we decline to exercise discretion to review plaintiff's cross-appeal and therefore dismiss it as a non-final order.