Opinion ID: 24829
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Qualified Immunity for Carney

Text: 21 Even if an official's conduct violates a constitutional right, he is entitled to qualified immunity if the conduct was objectively reasonable. 21 The objective reasonableness of allegedly illegal conduct is assessed in light of the rules clearly established at the time it was taken. 22 A right will be considered clearly established only when its contours are sufficiently clear so that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. 23 This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent. 24 Furthermore, If reasonable public officials could differ on the lawfulness of the defendant's actions, the defendant is entitled to qualified immunity. 25 22 The district court found that, Assuming that McClendon has alleged facts sufficient to show a violation of a constitutionally protected right, he cannot show that Carney's conduct was not objectively reasonable under the circumstances, in light of clearly established law. 26 The court based this determination on the conclusion that, at the time of the shooting, July 12, 1993, the state created danger theory was not a viable theory in this circuit. Therefore, the court found, it was not clearly established law at the time of this incident. 23 The district court was correct in stating that, at the time of the incident, this court had only addressed the state created danger theory once, in Salas v. Carpenter. 27 We conclude, however, that the discussion in Salas was sufficient to give notice that a police officer's deliberate indifference could lead to liability for a violation of the victims's due process rights. 28 In Salas, we stated that: 24 If the state actor has a requisite mental state, a due process deprivation could occur under two sets of circumstances. First, a procedural or substantive due process violation could occur if a state official causes injury by arbitrarily abusing governmental power. Second, a substantive due process violation could occur if uncommon circumstances create a duty for the state to protect a particular person. . . . 25 We have held that a constitutional deprivation can result from tortious conduct exceeding mere negligence but not quite rising to the level of intentional, e.g., deliberate (or conscious) indifference, recklessness, or gross negligence. 29 26 We recognized that other circuits had found a denial of due process when the state creates the faced dangers. We did not reject the doctrine as unsound, rather we merely found that the officer in that case had not increased the plaintiff's vulnerability to danger in the sense envisioned by the Court in DeShaney. 30 27 In DeShaney, the Supreme Court held that state officials could not be liable for failing to protect citizens from private violence. As stated above, however, the Court was careful to note that the state had played no part in creating the danger or leaving the plaintiff more vulnerable to the danger. The clear implication of the Court's language, which was written in 1989, was that a state could be liable when it affirmatively acts to create, or increases a plaintiffs vulnerability to, danger from private violence. 28 Although generally in cases of qualified immunity we look to the law of this circuit and the Supreme Court to determine whether the applicable law was clearly established at the time of the constitutional violation, we are not limited to looking only at these decisions to make this determination. We have noted previously that: 29 As a general proposition, we will not rigidly define the applicable body of law in determining whether relevant legal rules were clearly established at the time of the conduct at issue. Relying solely on Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court cases, for example, would be excessively formalistic, but they will loom largest in our inquiries. In determining what the relevant law is, then, a court must necessarily exercise some discretion in determining the relevance of particular law under the facts and circumstances of each case, looking at such factors as the overall weight of authority, and the status of the courts that render substantively relevant decisions, as well as the jurisdiction of the courts that render substantively relevant decisions. 31 30 Our examination of the law in other circuits at the time of the shooting demonstrates that numerous federal cases had recognized and adopted this theory, including several of our sister circuits. 32 At the relevant time, although many cases had found that the requirements of the theory had not been met, no case had explicitly rejected the theory. The overwhelming authority in the United States was that this was a viable theory of law. 31 In Wood v. Ostrander, 33 a police officer arrested a drunken driver, impounded the car, and left the female passenger, Wood, stranded on the side of the road in a high crime area five miles from her home. Wood was then picked up by an unknown man who then took her to a secluded area and raped her. The Ninth Circuit found that the law was unclear regarding whether grossly negligent or reckless official conduct that infringes upon an interest protected by the due process clause is actionable under section 1983. 34 The court then determined, however, that under City of Canton v. Harris, 35 a state actor acting with deliberate indifference to a citizen's safety in the face of known dangers could result in a constitutional violation. In deciding the question of qualified immunity, the court looked to the decisions of the Seventh Circuit in White v. Rochford, 36 Jackson v. City of Joliet, 37 and Bowers v. DeVito. 38 In those cases, the Seventh Circuit noted the difference between a state placing a man in a position of danger and then failing to protect him and a state officer merely failing to avert danger created by another. The Wood court found that by 1984 the law had been established in White and clearly articulated in Bowers and Jackson. The court then held that, if the facts asserted by the plaintiff were proved at trial, the officer in that case would not be entitled to qualified immunity. As a result, the court reversed the lower court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the officer. 32 Freeman v. Ferguson, 39 involved a claim that the police chief had directed officers not to respond to a woman's complaints that her estranged husband was violating his restraining order. The estranged husband, a close friend of the police chief, eventually killed his former wife. The Eighth Circuit found that a constitutional duty to protect an individual against private violence may exist . . . if the state has taken affirmative action which increases the individual's danger of, or vulnerability to, such violence beyond the level it would have been at absent state action. 40 Three years later, the circuit, in an en banc decision, again affirmed the viability of this theory in Gregory v. City of Rogers, Arkansas. 41 33 In Dwares v. City of New York, 42 flag-burning demonstrators alleged that police officers had violated their constitutional rights when the police officers told skinheads that they would not interfere if the skinheads assaulted the demonstrators. The Second Circuit concluded that a constitutional violation had been alleged. The court explained that the police officer's affirmative conduct had made the demonstrators more vulnerable to assault, even if the police officers were under no constitutional duty to rescue the demonstrators from an assault. 34 We find it beyond peradventure that a police officer's actions of giving a person a weapon in a situation the officer knows or should know has a strong potential for violence constitutes deliberate indifference on the part of the officer. Considering our statements in Salas, the inference which can be made from DeShaney, and the prevailing law across the nation, it seems apparent that no reasonable public official could have believed at the time of the incident that Officer Carney's actions, if proven as alleged in the petition, were lawful. We conclude that, at the time of the shooting it was clearly established that a state actor creating a danger, knowing of that danger, and using his authority to create an opportunity for a third person to commit a crime that otherwise might not have existed, was subject to liability for a violation of the victim's rights. Accordingly, Carney would not be entitled to qualified immunity and summary judgment was inappropriate at this stage. 35