Opinion ID: 733469
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: guerra's qualified immunity

Text: 42 Guerra argues that even if he violated Carlo's civil rights, his qualified immunity prevents liability for that violation. After de novo review of the doctrine of qualified immunity as it applies to this case, we disagree. 43 In order to hurdle a defendant's claim of qualified immunity, a plaintiff must satisfy a two-part test. First, the alleged violation must be of a right that is clearly established. Alexander v. County of Los Angeles, 64 F.3d 1315, 1319 (9th Cir.1995).  'The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.'  Id. (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)). Second, the defendant must show that a reasonable ... officer could have believed, in light of the settled law, that he was not violating a constitutional or statutory right. Gasho v. United States, 39 F.3d 1420, 1438 (9th Cir.1994), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 2582, 132 L.Ed.2d 831 (1995). 44 Qualified immunity creates a balance ... between the interests in vindication of citizens' constitutional rights and in public officials' effective performance of their duties by making it possible for officials reasonably [to] anticipate when their conduct may give rise to liability for damages.... It should not be surprising, therefore, that our cases establish that the right the official is alleged to have violated must have been 'clearly established' in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, 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, 483 U.S. at 639-40, 107 S.Ct. at 3039 (internal quotations omitted). This balancing test permits officials to exercise the discretion asked of them without the fear of liability to circumscribe their decision-making. That discretion is bounded, however, and thus officials are expected to act in accordance with clearly established law. In this case, Guerra cannot argue that he did not know that denying Carlo a telephone call was illegal. A California statute clearly provided that he should have permitted her up to three phone calls immediately upon being booked or at least within three hours thereof. Cal.Penal Code § 851.5(a), (c). 45 It is not enough to say simply that the right was clearly established by the California statute. The statute is relevant, however, in determining whether Carlo's constitutional right was clearly established. 46 Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984), held that officials sued for violations of constitutional rights do not forfeit their immunity by violating some other statute or regulation. Id. at 194 n. 12, 104 S.Ct. at 3019 n. 12 (emphasis in original). See Elder v. Holloway, 510 U.S. 510, 515-16, 114 S.Ct. 1019, 1023, 127 L.Ed.2d 344 (1994) (describing Davis as holding that the clearly established right [must] be the federal right on which the claim for relief is based). 47 Davis was careful to point out, however, that in that case there was no claim that the ... violation of the state regulation either [was] itself actionable under § 1983 or bears upon the claim of constitutional right that appellee asserts under § 1983. Id. at 193, 104 S.Ct. at 3018. It goes on to state that [n]either federal nor state officials lose their immunity by violating the clear command of a statute or regulation--of federal or of state law--unless that statute or regulation provides the basis for the cause of action sued upon. Id. at 194 n. 12, 104 S.Ct. at 3019 n. 12 (emphasis added). State law may bear upon a claim under the Due Process Clause when the ... interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment are created by state law. Id. at 193 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. at 3018 n. 11. Here, the California statute was the basis for Carlo's claim and thus bears on whether the federal right (procedural protection of the state-defined constitutional liberty right) was clearly established. 48 The existence of due process protection for state-created liberty interests for prisoners has been clearly established at least since 1974. That year Wolff held that where a state-created right has real substance and is sufficiently embraced within Fourteenth Amendment 'liberty'  it is entitled to those minimum procedures appropriate under the circumstances and required by the Due Process Clause to insure that the state-created right is not arbitrarily abrogated. 418 U.S. at 557, 94 S.Ct. at 2975. Cases following Wolff defined which state rights are protected liberty interests and which are not. See, e.g., supra Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983); Kentucky Dep't of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989). The clearly established test at the time of Carlo's arrest in 1991 asked whether the provision granting a right was framed in mandatory or discretionary language and whether it placed substantive limitations on an officer's discretion. 2 Helms, 459 U.S. at 463, 103 S.Ct. at 867; Gotcher v. Wood, 66 F.3d 1097, 1099 (9th Cir.1995). State statutes that did circumscribe discretion with substantive limits and mandatory language created protected liberty interests. Kentucky Dep't of Corrections, 490 U.S. at 462, 109 S.Ct. at 1909-10. See McFarland, 779 F.2d at 1428 (applying Helms test to find state statute created liberty interest in receipt of good-time credits); Sourbeer v. Robinson, 791 F.2d 1094, 1100-01 (3rd Cir.1986) (applying Helms test to find state statute created liberty interest in remaining housed with the general prison population), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1032, 107 S.Ct. 3276, 97 L.Ed.2d 779 (1987); Maldonado Santiago v. Velazquez Garcia, 821 F.2d 822, 827 (1st Cir.1987) (applying Helms standard to find Puerto Rico rule governing emergency segregation and transfer among prisons creates a liberty interest); Taylor By and Through Walker v. Ledbetter, 818 F.2d 791, 798-99 (11th Cir.1987) (applying Helms-like test to find a state-created liberty interest in social worker supervision of children in foster homes), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1065, 109 S.Ct. 1337, 103 L.Ed.2d 808 (1989); Long v. Norris, 929 F.2d 1111, 1116-17 (6th Cir.1991) (applying Helms test to find state-created liberty interest in prison visitation rights), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 863, 112 S.Ct. 187, 116 L.Ed.2d 148 (1991). 49 The California statute at issue drastically limits an officer's discretion. It requires that an arrestee be permitted to make three telephone calls. Its mandatory language entitles an arrestee to phone calls immediately upon being booked or no later than three hours after arrest, providing exceptions only for physical impossibility. Cal.Penal Code § 851.5(a), (c). Moreover, it holds criminally liable an officer who willfully deprives an arrested person of this right. Cal.Penal Code § 851.5(e). As required by the test applied in 1991, the statute uses mandatory language to bind an officer's discretion regarding whether to permit an arrestee to use a telephone. Under Helms, it was clearly established that the California statute created a liberty interest. 50 Two other circuits have addressed this qualified immunity question. The Sixth Circuit in 1985 interpreted Davis v. Scherer in a case involving a prisoner's state-created right to possess books not threatening to the security of the prison. The court held that a violation of a state statute is sufficient to cause officials to forfeit their qualified immunity when the statute provides the basis for the cause of action sued upon. Spruytte v. Walters, 753 F.2d 498, 510-11 (6th Cir.1985) (internal citation omitted), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1054, 106 S.Ct. 788, 88 L.Ed.2d 767 (1986). More recently in the Seventh Circuit, an inmate charged that prison officials violated the Fourteenth Amendment by depriving him of a state-created liberty interest without due process of law. The prisoner claimed the deprivation of a right to a haircut. The appellate court remanded to determine whether the prison regulation created a protected liberty interest under Sandin, but held there was no right to qualified immunity because it was established that state laws creating a liberty interest are protected by the federal Constitution. We agree with the Seventh Circuit's holding that [t]here is no novelty to this claim ... and therefore no basis for a defense of immunity. Anderson v. Romero, 72 F.3d 518, 527 (7th Cir.1995). 51 Given the clarity of the statute and the law defining liberty interests at the time, no reasonable officer could have believed that denying Carlo telephone calls did not violate her constitutional rights.