Opinion ID: 1822038
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was Plaintiff's Right to Due Process Violated?

Text: The pertinent text of the fourteenth amendment provides that a state shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; plaintiff would have an action for damages against defendant under section 1983 if defendant, acting under color of state law, had denied him due process and thereby deprived him of his liberty. See Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. at 537-38, 101 S.Ct. at 1913-14, 68 L.Ed.2d at 429-30. Any due process claim that we might infer from plaintiff's pleaded facts, however, is plainly without merit by reason of a controlling decision of the United States Supreme Court. In Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979), the plaintiff had been arrested on drug charges pursuant to a facially-valid warrant but contended that the sheriff had negligently failed to use identification procedures after arrest which would have revealed that he was not a person who should have been held in custody. The Court held there was no merit in his section 1983 claim against the sheriff based on the claimed violation of the due process clause, stating: Respondent's innocence of the charge contained in the warrant, while relevant to a tort claim of false imprisonment in most if not all jurisdictions, is largely irrelevant to his claim of deprivation of liberty without due process of law. The Constitution does not guarantee that only the guilty will be arrested. If it did, section 1983 would provide a cause of action for every defendant acquittedindeed, for every suspect released. Id. at 145, 99 S.Ct. at 2695, 61 L.Ed.2d at 442. The Court suggested in Baker that the plaintiff's section 1983 claim might have a valid due process basis if he had been detained indefinitely in the face of repeated protests of innocence even though the warrant under which he was arrested and detained met the standards of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 144, 99 S.Ct. at 2694, 61 L.Ed.2d at 441. That was not the situation in Baker, and neither is that the factual situation in this case. Like the plaintiff in Baker, plaintiff here was detained pursuant to a facially-valid warrant. Id.; see Brewer v. Blackwell, 692 F.2d 387, 399 (5th Cir.1982) (§ 1983 due process claim against police officer lacked merit because arrest was made pursuant to a facially-valid warrant; Baker controlling). Here plaintiff admitted in his deposition that after he was arrested and taken into custody pursuant to the arrest warrant, he made no protests of innocence until after his release from jail. Plaintiff has not made any showing that in this summary judgment record there is a genuine issue of material fact on which he might recover from defendant on any due process claim.