Opinion ID: 66499
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Shepard’s Burden

Text: Because Officer Budnick was acting within his discretionary authority, the burden shifts to Shepard to show (1) that Officer Budnick violated a constitutional right and (2) that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.
Shepard’s amended complaint raises a Fourth Amendment violation in alleging that Officer Budnick violated his constitutional right to privacy by entering his home without a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances and arresting him six feet inside his living room. Citing Byrd, Officer Budnick argued before the district court that by voluntarily opening the door to the officers’ knock and announcement and not making an objection, Shepard consented to his entry. 481 So. 2d 468. On appeal, Officer Budnick does not address whether his actions amounted to a constitutional violation, but rather argues that, “even assuming the facts as alleged by Plaintiff-Shepard are true, he has failed to show that the law was clearly established that a doorway arrest was unlawful in 2002.” However, under Scott v. Harris, we first must address whether a constitutional violation occurred 11 here. 550 U.S. at 372, 127 S. Ct. at 1774. The Fourth Amendment establishes “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “An arrest is quintessentially a seizure of the person, and therefore subject to the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement.” McClish v. Nugent, 483 F.3d 1231, 1238 (11th Cir. 2007). It is a “‘basic principle of Fourth Amendment law’ that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 1380 (1980). “This basic principle is founded on ‘the very core’ of the Fourth Amendment: the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Bashir, 445 F.3d at 1327 (quotation marks omitted). Although the Fourth Amendment shields one’s home from unwanted and warrantless intrusions by law enforcement officers, “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness,’ [and thus,] the warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions.” Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 1947 (2006). A warrantless search made pursuant to consent is one “specifically established and well-delineated” exception. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S. Ct. 507, 514 (1967). When the consent exception 12 is invoked, “an officer who conducts a warrantless search or seizure inside the home bears the burden of proving that his conduct was justified.” McClish, 483 F.3d at 1241. For the consent exception to the warrant requirement to apply, the consent must be voluntary, or, as we have stated, “‘the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice.’” United States v. Gonzalez, 71 F.3d 819, 829 (11th Cir. 1996) (quoting United States v. Garcia, 890 F.2d 355, 360 (11th Cir. 1989)). We also have addressed the issue of implied consent. We have consistently stated that “‘whatever relevance the implied consent doctrine may have in other contexts, it is inappropriate to sanction entry into the home based upon inferred consent.’” McClish, 483 F.3d at 1241 (quoting Gonzalez, 71 F.3d at 830). Moreover, we have determined that a defendant’s act of opening his door, stepping back, and placing his hands behind his head did not amount to implied consent to be arrested. United States v. Edmondson, 791 F.2d 1512, 1515 (11th Cir. 1986). Construing the factual allegations in the light most favorable to Shepard, the record shows that Shepard opened the door in response to the officers’ knock and announcement, asked, “May I help you?”, to which Officer Davis replied, “We are here to arrest you[;] [y]ou are Dwayne Shepard correct?” After confirming his identity, Shepard asked the officers for a warrant. According to Shepard’s 13 amended complaint, the officers then entered through the front door, grabbed Shepard by the arm, and pushed him about six feet into the living room. Nothing in Shepard’s amended complaint places him in the threshold or inside the doorway. Rather, Shepard alleges the officers came through the door and pushed him six feet back into the living room and onto his sofa. The officers arrested Shepard on the sofa. Shepard’s response to the motion to dismiss adds that he “remained standing inside of his home” at all material times. However, even ignoring that response, the amended complaint itself does not place Shepard in the threshold or inside the doorway. Accordingly, construing the facts in the light most favorable to Shepard, Officer Budnick did not have Shepard’s consent, either express or implied, to enter the home and arrest him in his living room, six feet within his home. Although one may voluntarily surrender to the police at the door, the facts alleged here show that Shepard neither surrendered to the police nor had an opportunity to do so. See McClish, 483 F.3d at 1241. Consequently, Officer Budnick violated Shepard’s constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.8 We now examine whether those rights were clearly established on August 5, 2002, the date the arrest occurred. 8 Officer Budnick does not argue that exigent circumstances justified his warrantless entry and arrest, and we find none from our review of the record as of this juncture. 14
A constitutional right is “clearly established” when the “contours of the right [are] sufficiently clear [such] that a reasonable officer would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Creighton, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S. Ct. at 3039. To avoid having his suit barred by qualified immunity, a plaintiff need not show that the officer’s conduct specifically has been held unlawful, but rather that “in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness [was] apparent.” Id. As the Supreme Court has explained, “general statements of the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear warning, and in other instances a general constitutional rule already identified in the decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741, 122 S. Ct. 2508, 2516 (2002). In our qualified immunity analysis, “decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the highest court of the pertinent state (here, the Supreme Court of Florida) can clearly establish the law.” McClish, 483 F.3d at 1237; see also Marsh v. Butler County, 268 F.3d 1014, 1032, n.10 (11th Cir. 2001) (en banc). Officer Budnick concedes that a warrantless arrest inside a home violates Payton, but argues that under New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14, 110 S. Ct. 1640 (1990), “the arrest at a doorway may not.” Relying also on Byrd, 481 So. 2d 468, 15 and Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S. Ct. 2406, Officer Budnick argues that in 2002 the law was not clearly established that a doorway arrest would have been unlawful. In Santana, a plurality of the Supreme Court held that an arrest set in motion in a public place is proper even if the arrest ultimately is made in the home. Undercover officers who had arrested one suspect involved in a drug-sting operation went to Santana’s home after the arrested suspect informed them that “Mom Santana” had the marked bills. Santana, 427 U.S. at 40, 96 S. Ct. at 2408. As the officers pulled up to the house, they saw Santana—who was holding a brown paper bag—already standing in the doorway, so that “one step forward would have put her outside, one step backward would have put her in the vestibule of her residence.” Id. at 40 n.1, 96 S. Ct. at 2408 n.1. After the officers pulled up to within 15 feet of Santana, got out of the van, and began approaching her, Santana retreated into the vestibule. Id. at 40, 96 S. Ct. at 2408. Under these facts, a plurality of the Supreme Court held that “a suspect may not defeat an arrest which has been set in motion in a public place, and is therefore proper under Watson [involving a warrantless arrest in a restaurant], by the expedient of escaping to a private place.” Santana, 427 U.S. at 43, 96 S. Ct. at 2410 (emphasis added). In so holding, the plurality reasoned that, armed with probable cause, an officer could effectuate the kind of warrantless, public arrest approved in United 16 States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 96 S. Ct. 820 (1976), and that a suspect could not “thwart an otherwise proper arrest” by retreating into her home. Santana, 427 U.S. at 42, 96 S. Ct. at 2409.9 Four years after Santana, the Supreme Court held that in the absence of consent or exigent circumstances, the warrantless search or seizure of a suspect in his home violates the Fourth Amendment. Payton, 445 U.S. at 590, 603, 100 S. Ct. at 1382, 1388. The Supreme Court specifically rejected the government’s argument that Watson’s rationale applied to justify warrantless arrests effectuated in one’s home because “neither history nor this Nation’s experience requires us to disregard the overriding respect for the sanctity of the home that has been embedded in our traditions since the origins of the Republic.” Id. at 601, 100 S. Ct. at 1387–88. In so holding, the Supreme Court stated that “[i]n terms that apply equally to seizures of property and to seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house.” Id. at 590, 100 S. Ct. at 1382. As the Payton Court explained, an officer must have an arrest warrant before demanding that a suspect open his door and allow the officer’s entry. If there is sufficient evidence of a citizen’s participation 9 In Watson, the Supreme Court approved the warrantless arrest of a defendant as reasonable under the Fourth Amendment where officers, who had probable cause based on reliable information from an informant, arrested Watson in a restaurant and removed him to the street. 423 U.S. at 412–13, 424, 96 S. Ct. at 822, 828. 17 in a felony to persuade a judicial officer that his arrest is justified, it is constitutionally reasonable to require him to open his doors to the officers of the law. Thus, for Fourth Amendment purposes, an arrest warrant founded on probable cause implicitly carries with it the limited authority to enter a dwelling in which the suspect lives when there is reason to believe the suspect is within. Id. at 602–603, 100 S. Ct. at 1388 (emphasis added). In Harris, decided ten years after Payton, the Supreme Court made clear that a warrantless arrest of a suspect inside his home violates the Fourth Amendment unless exigent circumstances are present or the suspect consents. The Supreme Court was addressing whether the exclusionary rule required the suppression of statements made at the police station after an in-home warrantless arrest. Harris, 495 U.S. at 16, 110 S. Ct. at 1642. In that case, police officers with probable cause to believe that Harris committed a murder went to Harris’s home, knocked on the door, and displayed their guns and badges; Harris allowed them to enter. Id. at 15–16, 110 S. Ct. at 1642. Accepting the New York Court of Appeals’s conclusion that Harris did not consent to the officers’ entry, the Supreme Court stated, “[i]t is also evident, in light of Payton, that arresting Harris in his home without an arrest warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.” Harris, 495 U.S. at 17, 110 S. Ct. at 1642. Byrd, decided by the Supreme Court of Florida in 1985, held merely that a 18 person could be arrested at the threshold of his residence if he so consented. Byrd, 481 So.2d at 472. In Byrd, the court addressed whether statements obtained after the defendant’s warrantless home-arrest should have been suppressed in his subsequent criminal trial. Id. On the question of whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred, the Supreme Court of Florida found the entry lawful under Payton by holding that “the arrest of appellant at the threshold of his residence was the result of a consensual entry.” Id. In the court’s view, without any evidence of the officers’ deception or forced entry, “the appellant consented to the law enforcement officers’ entry into the threshold area by voluntarily opening the door, stepping back, and standing in the threshold after knowing who was present.” Id. One year after Byrd, we rejected the government’s similar argument that “because Edmondson went to the door to open it after the FBI agent ordered him to do so, stepped back, and placed his hands on his head, his actions amounted to an implied consent to be arrested.” Edmondson, 791 F.2d at 1515. Under the same circumstances presented in Byrd, we held that “[a] suspect does not consent to being arrested within his residence when his consent to the entry into his residence is prompted by a show of official authority.” Id. Furthermore, only two months before the events at issue in this case, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the central rule from Payton, reiterating that the “firm line at the entrance to the house . . . may 19 not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.” Kirk v. Louisiana, 536 U.S. 635, 638, 122 S. Ct. 2458, 2459 (2002). In the context of warrantless searches of a home, we have concluded that meaningful consent cannot be derived from the mere failure to object to a search, and that “whatever relevance the implied consent doctrine may have in other contexts, it is inappropriate to ‘sanction[ ] entry into the home based upon inferred consent.’” Gonzales, 71 F.3d at 829 (quoting United States v. Shaibu, 920 F.2d 1423, 1426 (9th Cir.1990)). Here, Shepard opened the door and asked the officers, “May I help you?” and “Do you have a warrant?” Construing the amended complaint in Shepard’s favor, the officers in this case ignored Shepard’s questions, entered through the front door, grabbed Shepard’s arm and pushed him six feet in his living room and onto the sofa, where they arrested him. In essence, the officers not only failed to acquire a warrant or obtain consent before going to Shepard’s house, but also forced their entry into his home. Shepard’s questions about the warrant, if anything, showed a lack of implied consent. Considering the above precedents, on August 5, 2002, the preexisting case law from the Supreme Court, this circuit, and the Supreme Court of Florida clearly established that (1) in the absence of consent or exigent circumstances, a 20 warrantless arrest made within a suspect’s home is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment; and (2) a person does not consent to being pushed back into his home and arrested in his living room by merely opening the front door in response to a knock and announcement by law enforcement officers, especially when that person immediately asks if the officers have a warrant. Applying this clearly-established law to the facts of this case, a reasonable officer would have had “fair and clear warning” that he could not go to a suspect’s home, knock on his front door, wait for him to answer, and without hearing anything else besides, “May I help you . . . I am Dwayne Shepard,” or “Do you have a warrant,” grab the suspect’s arm, push him six feet into his living room, and arrest him on his couch, all without a warrant of any kind. At this juncture, there is nothing in Shepard’s amended complaint that places him in the threshold or inside the doorway. Simply put, Shepard’s arrest was not a “threshold” arrest. Accordingly, because Officer Budnick violated Shepard’s clearly-established Fourth Amendment rights by arresting Shepard in his home without a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances, we find that he is not entitled to qualified immunity on Shepard’s unlawful arrest claim. Finally, our holding in McClish v. Nugent, 483 F.3d 1231 (11th Cir. 2007), does not support Officer Budnick’s argument that the law as to arrests within the 21 home was not clearly established in August 2002. In McClish, we held that an officer who grabbed a suspect from within his home but pulled the suspect out of his home before making the arrest was entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 1233. We recognized that a constitutional violation occurred during the non-consensual arrest,10 reemphasizing the language from Payton that the “Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house.” Id. at 1240 (quotation marks omitted). Nonetheless, “we ha[d] no basis upon which to conclude that a reasonable law enforcement officer fairly would have known that the arrest alleged by McClish, within the house yet within reach of an officer standing outside, was unlawful.” Id. at 1249. We therefore concluded that the illegality of McClish’s arrest was not clearly established at the time of the arrest. This case is entirely different from McClish. According to Shepard, he was arrested six feet inside of his house. McClish, on the other hand, was pulled outside of his house, where he then was arrested. Id. at 1233. As the aforementioned cases make clear, and McClish reaffirmed, at the time of Shepard’s arrest, the law was clearly established that a warrantless arrest could not be made within the home absent consent or exigent circumstances. Officer Budnick had fair 10 Notably, in determining that McClish did not consent to the arrest, we held, “McClish did not completely surrender or forfeit every reasonable expectation of privacy when he opened the door, including, most notably, the right to be secure within his home from a warrantless arrest.” McClish, 483 F.3d at 1247. 22 warning that his conduct violated the Fourth Amendment, and he therefore is not entitled to qualified immunity.