Opinion ID: 573072
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Merits of the Qualified Immunity Defense

Text: 19 The qualified or good faith immunity enjoyed by police officers shields them from personal liability for damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); see also Hurlman v. Rice, 927 F.2d at 78; Robison v. Via, 821 F.2d 913, 920 (2d Cir.1987), or insofar as it was objectively reasonable for them to believe that their acts did not violate those rights, see Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987); Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986); Hurlman v. Rice, 927 F.2d at 78; Calamia v. City of New York, 879 F.2d 1025, 1035 (2d Cir.1989). The right not to be arrested or prosecuted without probable cause has, of course, long been a clearly established constitutional right. Probable cause to arrest exists when the authorities have knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been committed by the person to be arrested. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 208 n. 9, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 2254 n. 9, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979). An arresting officer is entitled to qualified immunity from a suit for damages on a claim for arrest without probable cause if either (a) it was objectively reasonable for the officer to believe that probable cause existed, or (b) officers of reasonable competence could disagree on whether the probable cause test was met. See Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. at 341, 106 S.Ct. at 1096; Robison v. Via, 821 F.2d at 921. In order to be entitled to summary judgment on such a defense, the officer must adduce sufficient facts that no reasonable jury, looking at the evidence in the light most favorable to, and drawing all inferences most favorable to, the plaintiff, could conclude that it was objectively unreasonable for the officer to believe that probable cause did not exist. See id. 20 Normally, the issuance of a warrant by a neutral magistrate, which depends on a finding of probable cause, creates a presumption that it was objectively reasonable for the officers to believe that there was probable cause, see United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 109, 85 S.Ct. 741, 746, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965), and a plaintiff who argues that a warrant was issued on less than probable cause faces a heavy burden, see, e.g., Rivera v. United States, 928 F.2d 592, 602 (2d Cir.1991) (search warrant). In order to mount such a challenge, the plaintiff must make a substantial preliminary showing that the affiant knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, made a false statement in his affidavit and that the allegedly false statement was necessary to the finding of probable cause. Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 155-56, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 2676, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978); see Magnotti v. Kuntz, 918 F.2d at 368 (Franks standard, established with respect to suppression hearings in criminal proceedings, also defines scope of qualified immunity in civil rights actions). Intentional or reckless omissions of material information, like false statements, may serve as the basis for a Franks challenge, see United States v. Campino, 890 F.2d 588, 592 (2d Cir.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1068, 110 S.Ct. 1787, 108 L.Ed.2d 788 (1990), and recklessness may be inferred where the omitted information was critical to the probable cause determination, see Rivera v. United States, 928 F.2d at 604; DeLoach v. Bevers, 922 F.2d 618, 622 (10th Cir.1990), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 65, 116 L.Ed.2d 41 (1991); Hale v. Fish, 899 F.2d 390, 400 (5th Cir.1990); United States v. Reivich, 793 F.2d 957, 961 (8th Cir.1986). Where an officer knows, or has reason to know, that he has materially misled a magistrate on the basis for a finding of probable cause, as where a material omission is intended to enhance the contents of the affidavit as support for a conclusion of probable cause, see generally, Rivera v. United States, 928 F.2d at 605; United States v. Strini, 658 F.2d 593, 597 (8th Cir.1981), the shield of qualified immunity is lost, see Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. at 344-45, 106 S.Ct. at 1097-98 (adopting standard set in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 923, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3420, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), as proper standard for objective reasonableness for qualified immunity purposes). An officer can have no reasonable grounds for believing that [a] warrant was properly issued [i]f the magistrate or judge in issuing a warrant was misled by information in an affidavit that the affiant knew was false or would have known was false except for his reckless disregard of the truth, United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. at 923, 104 S.Ct. at 3421. 21 Whether an item of information is material or not is, in the context of a motion for summary judgment, a mixed question of law and fact. See, e.g., TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., 426 U.S. 438, 450, 96 S.Ct. 2126, 2132, 48 L.Ed.2d 757 (1976). The legal component depends on whether the information is relevant to a given question in light of the controlling substantive law. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). The factual component requires an inference as to whether the information would likely be given weight by a person considering that question. TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., 426 U.S. at 450, 96 S.Ct. at 2132. 22 The district court properly applied these principles in the present case to deny appellants' motion for summary judgment. Appellants contend that they are entitled to immunity as a matter of law because it would have been objectively reasonable for them to believe that if the warrant affidavit were corrected to disclose all of the omitted information and to eliminate all of the misrepresentations, the affidavit as corrected would show probable cause to arrest and prosecute Golino. This contention, which assumes that the omissions and misrepresentations were not material, hardly views the facts in the light most favorable to Golino as is required on a motion for summary judgment. Viewed in the light most favorable to Golino, the record indicates that appellants deliberately withheld, inter alia, the information that most of the eyewitnesses described the killer as thin, whereas Golino at the time weighed 215 pounds; that most of them described the killer as being clean shaven, whereas Golino at the time had a mustache; that the one eyewitness who said the killer had a mustache immediately positively identified a person other than Golino as the killer, and the man identified turned out to be Serra's boyfriend; that Golino's prime accuser, his former wife (whose extreme bias against Golino was confirmed at the 1984 state hearing), had made statements both inconsistent with those quoted in support of the warrant and recanting those quoted in support of the warrant; that the police had fingerprints which they strongly believed to have been left by the killer but which did not match the prints of Golino; and that the police knew the blood type of the killer but had declined to test Golino for blood type. 23 Plainly the information that was misrepresented or remained undisclosed in appellants' presentations in support of probable cause were not immaterial to that question as a matter of law. Such matters as descriptions of the killer that did not fit Golino, an eyewitness's identification of another plausible suspect as the culprit, the non-matching of fingerprints and blood types, are entirely relevant to the question of whether a person of reasonable caution would believe the murder had been committed by Golino. Possession of the undisclosed information at the 1984 state hearing might well have led the state court to rule that probable cause to prosecute Golino was lacking or at least to postpone any ruling on probable cause until after Golino had been tested for blood type. The latter course plainly would have led to a finding of no probable cause. The weight that a neutral magistrate would likely have given the above information, along with the other information that was concealed or misrepresented, is not a legal question but rather is a question to be resolved by the finder of fact. 24 Given, in addition, the evidence that appellants' nondisclosure of the exculpatory information was deliberate, the district court properly concluded it could not rule as a matter of law that it was objectively reasonable for appellants to believe there was probable cause for the arrest and prosecution of Golino. Summary judgment was properly denied.