Opinion ID: 218176
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 3 Deputy Lutz arrived at the Coffins’ home on April 18, 2006, shortly before 6:30 PM, during daylight hours. Lutz was there to serve Mr. Coffin with an Order of Temporary Injunction Against Repeat Violence, which Mr. Coffin’s tenant had obtained six days earlier from the Circuit Court for Charlotte County, Florida.2 The injunction required Mr. Coffin to surrender any firearms or ammunition in his possession to the Sarasota County Sheriff and ordered “[t]he Sheriff of Sarasota County, or any other authorized law enforcement officer . . . to serve this temporary injunction upon Respondent as soon as possible after its issuance.” The Coffins’ home faces the street and is in close proximity to the sidewalk. The attached garage also faces the street and was fully open at the time Deputy Lutz arrived, exposing its interior. The driveway leads directly from the street to the garage, and a pathway veers left from the driveway up to the front door. Between the front door and the garage, the house has a large front bay window which had its curtains drawn open at the time Lutz arrived. Upon his arrival, Lutz approached the Coffins’ front door and rang the bell. Cynthia Coffin answered the door and Lutz explained that he had papers to deliver 2 The injunction had been issued by the Circuit Court of Charlotte County, pursuant to Fla. Stat. Ann. § 784.046 (West 2011). Section 784.046 allows a petitioner to obtain an “injunction for protection in cases of repeat violence” after “two incidents of violence or stalking [are] committed by the respondent, one of which must have been within 6 months of filing of the petition, which are directed against the petitioner or [an] immediate family member. Fla. Stat. Ann. § 784.046(1)(b), (2). 4 to Mr. Coffin.3 Ms. Coffin responded that Mr. Coffin was in the bathroom and Lutz would have to wait. She then shut and locked the front door. After waiting a few minutes, Lutz walked back down the pathway facing the front bay window and, believing he had made eye contact with Ms. Coffin through the window, waved the paperwork above his head as a reminder that he was waiting. Under the impression that Ms. Coffin had seen him, Lutz walked back up to the front door expecting her to open it and give him an update. As he approached the front door, he overheard a man’s voice asking, “What did he want?” Lutz then either rang the bell or knocked on the front door for a second time but received no answer. He then walked up to the front window to try to get the Coffins’ attention. Ms. Coffin, upset that Lutz was walking through her bushes, began shouting for him to get out of her bushes and off her property and threatened to call the police. Lutz backed up from the window and walked over to his patrol car, parked on the street at the driveway, in order to call for backup because he felt the Coffins were trying to avoid service and there was a possibility of obstruction. About five to eight minutes after calling for backup, Deputy Brandau arrived at the scene. Around the time of Brandau’s arrival, Lutz saw a man that he 3 It is undisputed that Lutz did not know that the woman who opened the door was Ms. Coffin at the moment she opened the door but that events following this made her identity clear to him. 5 assumed was Mr. Coffin through the front window.4 Brandau was on the phone with her supervisor while Lutz was apprising her of the situation at the Coffin house. According to Lutz, the Deputies were standing in front of the open garage door while Brandau was talking on the phone with a supervisor about what to do next when they heard the interior garage door open and close and the rolling garage door start to close. Brandau interrupted the phone call, and walked into the open garage, tripping the electronic sensor and causing the garage door to retreat to its open position. Lutz followed, and saw Brandau go and knock on the interior door from the garage to the kitchen, whereupon Ms. Coffin came out into the garage and yelled at both Deputies to get off her property. Brandau announced to Ms. Coffin an intention to arrest her for obstructing service of process. According to Ms. Coffin, she opened the door from the kitchen to the garage, reached out and pushed the automatic button to close the garage door, at which time she saw Brandau followed by Lutz walk into the garage and trip the electronic sensor causing the garage door to return to its open position. She then walked into 4 The paperwork to be served contained a description of Mr. Coffin that the man inside appeared to fit. 6 the garage to talk with Brandau, feeling more comfortable talking to a female.5 The parties agree that the Deputies attempted to arrest Ms. Coffin for obstruction of service of process and that a struggle ensued as the Deputies attempted to handcuff Ms. Coffin. The struggle began between the Deputies and Ms. Coffin in the garage, and when Mr. Coffin intervened included both Deputies and both Coffins and expanded from the garage to the house.6 Additional deputies arrived and both Mr. and Ms. Coffin were ultimately arrested.7 5 To the extent the versions in the preceding two paragraphs differ, the differences are not material. 6 The Coffins present only two claims on appeal, and the details of the struggle are not relevant to either claim. It is clear that appellants’ only challenges on this appeal are: 1) whether the Deputies’ initial entry into the open garage as the door was shutting violated appellants’ Fourth Amendment rights; and 2) whether the arrest of Ms. Coffin violated her Fourth Amendment rights. Because the Fourth Amendment consequences of the Deputies’ entry into the open garage depend upon Plaintiffs’ expectation of privacy, the facts of the subsequent struggle in the garage and house are not relevant. Similarly the Fourth Amendment consequences of the arrest depend upon probable cause, arguable probable cause, and/or the fruit of any illegal entry into the garage. Again the details of the subsequent struggle are not relevant. Thus, the dissent’s extensive recitation of appellants’ version of the struggle in the garage and in the house is not relevant to the legal issues on appeal. See Barkett, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part, infra at 3–5 (hereinafter “Dissenting Op.”). If the Deputies here were bad, as the Plaintiffs’ version of the facts of the struggle suggest, those bad, but irrelevant, facts should not lead us to an inaccurate application of precedent. 7 Ms. Coffin was charged with the misdemeanor of obstruction of justice without violence under Fla. Stat. Ann. § 843.02. Mr. Coffin was charged with several felonies: two counts of battery on a law enforcement officer under Fla. Stat. Ann. § 784.07(2)(b) and § 784.03(1); resisting an officer with violence under Fla. Stat. Ann. § 843.01; two counts of use of a weapon on a law enforcement officer under Fla. Stat. Ann. § 790.054; and depriving an officer of means of protection or communication under Fla. Stat. Ann. § 843.025. Because the Deputies lacked a warrant for Mr. Coffin’s arrest, these charges, with the exception of the § 843.025 charge, were 7 We are no longer required to follow the two-step process once mandated by Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 121 S. Ct. 2151 (2001). Thus, we are free to address the question of whether the facts that the plaintiff alleged showed a violation of a constitutional right or the question of whether the right at issue was clearly established in the order most appropriate for the case at hand. As noted, the Coffins present only two claims. Both Coffins challenge the Deputies’ entry into the garage; only Ms. Coffin challenges her arrest.8 We address first Ms. Coffin’s claim for an unlawful arrest. Then we address whether the entry into the garage violated the Coffin’s Fourth Amendment rights. Because we conclude that the entry did violate Fourth Amendment rights, we address finally whether there was a violation of clearly established Fourth Amendment law.