Opinion ID: 6933777
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Denial of Declaratory and Injunctive Relief

Text: Simmons next contends that the District Court erred in denying declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that even if the warrant application had sufficiently supported a finding of probable cause, he was entitled to relief merely on the basis of the police’s allegedly unconstitutional use of the “race profile” in its warrant application. In so contending, Simmons appears to argue that the use of the race profile is a per se violation of his constitutional rights justifying injunctive relief. Because this argument is unsupported by the law, we affirm the District Court’s decision. The law is well settled that federal injunc-tive relief is an extreme remedy. In Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), a case similar to the one at bar, the Supreme Court considered a case filed by a petitioner against the City of Los Angeles and some of its police officers, alleging that he had been seized and applied a chokehold that rendered him unconscious and caused damage to his larynx; in addition to damages, the petitioner sought injunctive relief which would bar the use of chokeholds except where the proposed victim reasonably appeared to be threatening the immediate use of bodily force. 461 U.S. at 97-98, 103 S.Ct. at 1662-63. The Supreme Court, in rejecting the petitioner’s injunctive relief claim, held that petitioner Lyons was not entitled to equitable remedy, even if he had proper standing to seek an injunction: The equitable remedy is unavailable absent a showing of irreparable injury, a requirement that cannot be met where there is no showing of any real or immediate threat that the plaintiff will be wronged again — a “likelihood of substantial and immediate irreparable injury.” The speculative nature of Lyons’ claim of future injury requires a finding that this prerequisite of equitable relief has not been fulfilled. Id. at 111, 103 S.Ct. at 1670 (emphasis added). In so holding, the Court reaffirmed its decision in Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976), in which it held that injunctive relief was not appropriate to end alleged widespread unconstitutional conduct aimed at minority citizens because “past wrongs do not in themselves amount to that real and immediate threat of injury....” Id. at 103, 103 S.Ct. at 1666. Moreover, the Court found that Lyons had an adequate remedy at law for any damages that may have ensued from his injuries, such that in-junctive relief was not warranted. Id. at 113, 103 S.Ct. at 1671. The Court concluded, “Absent a sufficient likelihood that he will again be wronged in a similar way, Lyons is no more entitled to an injunction than any other citizen of Los Angeles; and a federal court may not entertain a claim by any or all citizens who no more than assert that certain practices of law enforcement officers are unconstitutional.” Id. at 111, 103 S.Ct. at 1670. Accordingly, we affirm the District Court’s decision to deny Simmons’s claim for declaratory and injunctive relief under .42 U.S.C. § 1983. First, it is clear that Simmons does not meet the standard articulated in Lyons for the granting of injunctive or declaratory relief. Because Simmons was released from police custody and eventually eliminated from the list of suspects in the case, he cannot show either a continuing wrong or a real or immediate threat that he would likely be irreparably injured by the use of the race profile in the instant case. Under the ease law, a future or conjectural threat of injury is insufficient to justify injunctive relief. Second, the Appellant’s argument that the District Court used the wrong legal analysis in denying injunctive relief is unsupported by the law. Simmons argues that the District Court should not have rejected his section 1983 claim on the perceived existence of independent probable cause, and should instead have analyzed the claim consistent with “mixed motive” civil rights and protected conduct cases. This is incorrect for several reasons. First, the case cited by Appellant in support of his argument, Mount Healthy City School Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977), addressed an instance in which injunctive relief was appropriate because the petitioner was suffering a continuing harm — he had been fired from a job and continued to be jobless; thus he, unlike Simmons, satisfied the Lyons requirement. Second, Mount Healthy expressly addressed the petitioner’s ability to engage in First Amendment conduct without fear of losing his job; in the instant case, there is no dispute over whether Simmons engaged in constitutionally protected conduct that made him vulnerable to his becoming a suspect in the rape. Third, and most important, Simmons fails to show that racial stereotyping even occurred, much less that it was a “substantial” or “motivating” factor in the issuance of the search warrant; thus, even under his own “mixed motive” test, Simmons’s claim must fail. Indeed, Simmons’s sole evidence of racial stereotyping is his reference to a number of literaiy works discussing race stereotyping of black males since Reconstruction as rapists; not once did the Appellant show that McCann or Poe were actually motivated by racial animus in including the race factor in the behavioral profile. Accordingly, we affirm the District Court’s decision to dismiss the Appellant’s claims for declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.