Opinion ID: 213143
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fourth Amendment Claim of Wrongful Arrest[2]

Text: For purposes of this appeal, Schutzman concedes that a genuine issue of material fact exists about the amount of noise that Kennedy made, and therefore whether Schutzman violated Kennedy's constitutional right to be free from wrongful arrest. At stake is the second question: whether Kennedy's constitutional right to be free from wrongful arrest in these circumstances was clearly established such that Schutzman should have known of it. We conclude that Kennedy's right was clearly established. [A]n arresting agent is entitled to qualified immunity if he or she could reasonably (even if erroneously) have believed that the arrest was lawful, in light of clearly established law and the information possessed at the time by the arresting agent. Harris v. Bornhorst, 513 F.3d 503, 511 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 554 U.S. 903, 128 S.Ct. 2938, 171 L.Ed.2d 865 (2008). Thus, even if a factual dispute exists about the objective reasonableness of the officer's actions, a court should grant the officer qualified immunity if, viewing the facts favorably to the plaintiff, an officer reasonably could have believed that the arrest was lawful. For Kennedy to defeat qualified immunity, his right must have been `clearly established' in a. . . particularized . . . sense: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). That courts adopt different verbal formulation[s] of the controlling standard is irrelevant so long as the conduct that they prohibit is not distinguishable in a fair way from the facts presented in the case at hand. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202-03, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), receded from on other grounds by Pearson, 129 S.Ct. 808. [G]eneral statements of the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning, and it is not necessary that the very action in question ha[ve] previously been held unlawful. Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 740-41, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). [N]otable factual distinctions between prior decisions and the facts of a case do not resurrect qualified immunity so long as the prior decisions gave reasonable warning that the conduct then at issue violated constitutional rights. Id. at 740, 122 S.Ct. 2508 (internal quotation marks omitted). [P]re-existing law must, however, make the unlawfulness . . . apparent. Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034. In the context of qualified immunity, preexisting, clearly established law refers to binding precedent from the Supreme Court, the Sixth Circuit, the district court itself, or other circuits that is directly on point. Holzemer v. City of Memphis, 621 F.3d 512, 527 (6th Cir.2010) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Pearson, 129 S.Ct. at 822-23 (finding a doctrine clearly established because three federal courts of appeals and two state supreme courts had unanimously accepted it, even though the circuit in which the conduct occurred had not done so). At the same time, `[w]hether an officer is authorized to make an arrest ordinarily depends, in the first instance, on state law.' Leonard v. Robinson, 477 F.3d 347, 354 (6th Cir.2007) (quoting Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31, 36, 99 S.Ct. 2627, 61 L.Ed.2d 343 (1979)). Put differently, state law defines the offense for which an officer may arrest a person, while federal law dictates whether probable cause existed for an arrest. See, e.g., Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 151-53, 125 S.Ct. 588, 160 L.Ed.2d 537 (2004) (using constitutional probable-cause standards when a plaintiff had been arrested for an alleged violation of state law and sued under § 1983 for unlawful arrest). Based on how the Kentucky statute defines disorderly conduct, we conclude that an officer could not reasonably believe that he had probable cause to arrest Kennedy. The statute provides that [a] person is guilty of disorderly conduct . . . when[,] in a public place and with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm, or wantonly creating a risk thereof, he, among other options, [m]akes unreasonable noise. Ky.Rev.Stat. § 525.060(1)(b). Commentary to the statute explains that `[r]easonable' in this context depends upon the time, place, nature[,] and purpose of the noise. It also clarifies that public alarm is not intended to include conduct which disturbs the peace and quiet of any one person. . . . [T]he statute requires public alarm as distinguished from private alarm. For example, a person may not be arrested for disorderly conduct as a result of activity which annoys only the police. The statute is not intended to cover the situation in which a private citizen engages in argument with the police so long as the argument proceeds without offensively coarse language or conduct which intentionally or wantonly creates a risk of public disturbance. [3] Ky.Rev.Stat. § 525.060 cmt. (emphasis added). Here, the district court found the volume of Kennedy's speech indeterminate in part because the lawyers for the defense pressed Kennedy about the volume of his speech before Kennedy equivocally agree[d] that his insults to Schutzman were spoken loudly. R. 28 (Dist. Ct. Op. at 11). Although we believe that the structure of the deposition does not make Kennedy's concession any less meaningful, the actual admissions, viewed in Kennedy's favor, were meager. He admitted that he [p]robably said [t]hat son of a bitch broke all of the zoning laws rather loudly, and that he probably did yell when calling Schutzman a fat slob. R. 22 (Kennedy Dep. at 78-80). Construing these probabilities in the light most favorable to Kennedy, we conclude that a genuine issue of material fact remains about whether Kennedy yelled or spoke loudly at all. Even if he did yell and speak rather loudly, the volume of his voice might not have been unreasonable. Finally, as the commentary to § 525.060 makes clear, Kentucky law does not criminalize arguments and noise that disturb only police officers because such conduct does not risk public alarm. Accord Payne v. Pauley, 337 F.3d 767, 777 (7th Cir.2003) (holding that, under Illinois law, [p]olice officers must be more thick skinned than the ordinary citizen and . . . must not conceive that every threatening or insulting word, gesture, or motion amounts to disorderly conduct (internal quotation marks omitted)). Indeed, because the First Amendment requires that police officers tolerate coarse criticism, the Constitution prohibits states from criminalizing conduct that disturbs solely police officers. See, e.g., City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 461-63, 107 S.Ct. 2502, 96 L.Ed.2d 398 (1987) ([T]he First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers. . . . The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.); Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130, 135, 94 S.Ct. 970, 39 L.Ed.2d 214 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring) ([A] properly trained officer may reasonably be expected to exercise a higher degree of restraint than the average citizen, and thus be less likely to respond belligerently to fighting words. (internal quotation marks omitted)); Arnett v. Myers, 281 F.3d 552, 560 (6th Cir.2002) (It is well-settled that the freedom to criticize public officials and expose their wrongdoing is a fundamental First Amendment value. . . .). Based on the evidence currently before this court, only city employees heard Kennedy speak and the city building was not open for business at the time, R. 22-4 (Citation), which minimizes any risk of public alarm. Given the context of the arrest as Kennedy has portrayed it, a reasonable officer could not conclude that Kennedy's outburst provided probable cause for his arrest. Cases interpreting Kentucky Revised Statute § 525.060 do not alter this conclusion. This court recently called the case law interpreting the statute very sparse, Nails v. Riggs, 195 Fed.Appx. 303, 311-12 (6th Cir.2006) (unpublished opinion), and only two Kentucky cases prior to the date of Kennedy's arrest mentioned the unreasonable-noise provision. Neither involved facts similar to Kennedy's circumstances. In Commonwealth v. Jones, a mother, who was accompanied by four infant children, complained to a police officer that the defendant was shouting obscenities at the military components of [a] parade. 880 S.W.2d 544, 544 (Ky.1994). The defendant then called the officer a `Nazi pig motherfucker' and was thereupon arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in violation of § 525.060(1)(b) and (d). Id. at 545. Following the defendant's criminal conviction and appeal, the Kentucky Supreme Court held that sufficient evidence supported the jury's guilty verdict because the officer had testified that the defendant's volume of speech [was] greater than a normal speaking voice and the defendant had admitted that she was yelling. Id. at 545-46. Application of the statute varies by context, and the court reasoned that [c]ontent, volume[,] and surrounding circumstances may be considered together when making a determination of reasonableness. Id. at 546; cf. Swiecicki, 463 F.3d at 499-500 (concluding that an officer lacked probable cause to arrest a fan at a baseball stadium for violating a city ordinance because the venue encourages fans to cheer and make noise, meaning that loud or even rowdy behavior was commonplace at games). The risk of public alarm was greater in Jones than in this case because here only three city employeesand no members of the publicwere present in the city building. The posture of the case also differs: perhaps Kennedy's admissions could support a jury verdict against him, but, in a qualified-immunity analysis at the summary-judgment stage, we are constrained to view the facts favorably to Kennedy. Once we do so, there is no basis on these facts on which an officer could conclude that he had probable cause to arrest Kennedy. Similarly, in Collins v. Commonwealth, No.2002-CA-001991-MR, 2004 WL 315035, at  (Ky.Ct.App. Feb. 20, 2004) (unpublished opinion), the defendant was convicted of disorderly conduct after he yelled and cursed at his girlfriend to leave the premises of his trailer and defied officers' repeated requests that he remain in his trailer. The court of appeals affirmed because the defendant had used offensively coarse language at 2:39 a.m. in a residential trailer park when there was no reasonable purpose for the noise. Id. In contrast, here Kennedy's outburst was not at night, and it occurred at a city building rather than a residential trailer park. Kennedy used coarse language, and, in light of the preexisting litigation and the instructions that prohibited the city employees from speaking to Kennedy, see R. 22 (Kennedy Dep. at 64-65, 72, 75), the exchange was purposeless. Yet Kennedy did not pose the risk of public alarm that Collins did. There were no third parties, such as Collins's girlfriend, whom an arrest would protect. There were also no third parties, such as the other trailer-park residents, whom Kennedy disturbed. In sum, the cases interpreting the unreasonable-noise provision do not show that Kennedy's conductviewed in the light most favorable to himprovided probable cause on which to believe that Kennedy had violated Kentucky law. Finally, the district court observed that the jury could conclude that Kennedy was arrested for insulting Schutzman as opposed to making `unreasonable noise.' R. 28 (Dist. Ct. Op. at 13). Unless discriminatory motive forms part of the cause of action itself, Poe v. Haydon, 853 F.2d 418, 430 (6th Cir.1988), the question whether a plaintiff's right was clearly established is objective, rendering irrelevant the official's motives, Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 517, 105 S.Ct. 2806 ( Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 [102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396] (1982), . . . purged qualified immunity doctrine of its subjective components.. . .). Regardless of why Schutzman made the arrest, the relevant inquiry is whether an officer with no ill will toward Kennedy could have believed that he had probable cause to arrest Kennedy. We answer no, rendering qualified immunity inappropriate on the claim of wrongful arrest. For these reasons, we therefore AFFIRM the district court's denial of Schutzman's motion for summary judgment with respect to the Fourth Amendment claim of wrongful arrest.