Opinion ID: 6983251
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Unlawful Arrest of Ray Womack

Text: While the record is scant on the issue of Ray Womack’s arrest, Defendants characterize the arrest as an error that the officers rectified immediately upon locating and arresting Carroll. Where the police have probable cause to arrest one party but reasonably mistake a second party for the first, their arrest of the second party is valid. See Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 801, 91 S.Ct. 1106, 28 L.Ed.2d 484 (1971); see also Criss v. City of Kent, 867 F.2d 259, 262 (6th Cir.1988) (noting that “a valid arrest based on then-existing probable cause is not vitiated if the suspect is later found innocent”). Plaintiffs do not contest that the officers had probable cause to arrest Carroll. Nevertheless, we believe a genuine issue of fact existed as to whether the officers’ mistake in identifying Ray Wom-ack as Carroll was a reasonable one. See Hill, 401 U.S. at 801, 91 S.Ct. 1106. As the Supreme Court has recognized, while “room must be allowed for some mistakes” in officers’ determinations of probable cause, “the mistakes must be those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability.” Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 176, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949). Taking Plaintiffs’ assertions as true, Ray Womack was napping in his basement when apprehended by the police and thus could not have been the same man who attempted to sell drugs to Sgt. Dunlap and then outran several officers who were in “hot pursuit.” These facts give rise to the genuine issue of whether reasonable police officers would have mistaken a man who was or had been napping for one who had just finished outrunning them at top speed. Additionally, Plaintiffs produced deposition testimony suggesting that Ray Womack and Carroll do not even resemble each other. Specifically, Mrs. Davis testified that “Ray is light complected, very light” but that Carroll, who she knew from the neighborhood, is “[b]lack, black because I’m dark complected, but he was darker than I am, much darker.” (J.A. at 65.) As genuine issues of fact exist as to whether Defendants’ mistake in arresting Ray Womack was a reasonable one, the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendants as to Ray Womack’s claim was erroneous.