Court Opinion

ID: 9601492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:45:38.594143+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:21.399767
License: Public Domain

CALLAHAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
What happened to Mr. Rodis was unfortunate, and certainly could have been handled in a different manner. Arresting him due to a failure to recognize an older series 100 dollar bill, however, was not an intentional violation of Mr. Rodis’s constitutional rights, nor was the law that probable cause for arresting someone on suspicion of violating 18 U.S.C. § 472 requires proof of the suspect’s subjective intent clearly established. Therefore, the officers are entitled to qualified immunity. In fact, prior case law established that in order to have probable cause to arrest someone for a suspected violation of 18 U.S.C. § 472, an officer simply had to have evidence that 1) someone attempted to pass a false note, and 2) the identity of the person suspected of passing the note. See United States v. Everett, 719 F.2d 1119, 1120 (11th Cir.1983) (collecting cases).
I. The officers did not violate Mr. Ro-dis’s constitutional rights.
Our analysis should begin with the basic principles of qualified immunity. “Qualified immunity is ‘an entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of litigation.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001) (quoting Mitchell, 472, U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985)). “The privilege is ‘an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial.’” Id. at 200-01, 121 S.Ct. 2151 (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. at 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806). “[I]t is fundamental that in a defense of qualified immunity in order to have the public official relieved from time-consuming pre-trial procedures and trial itself, it is important to resolve this issue at an early stage of the litigation.” Cunningham v. City of Wenatchee, 345 F.3d 802, 808 (9th Cir.2003).
“A court required to rule upon the qualified immunity issue must consider, then, this threshold question: Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts show the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right?” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. The reason for this initial inquiry is to state principles that “will become the basis for holding that a right is clearly established” to advance the interpretation of the law. Id. “If no constitutional right would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified immunity.”1 Id.
A. Officers are allowed to make reasonable mistakes of fact without violating constitutional rights.
Mr. Rodis contends that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights by arresting him without probable cause to believe that he possessed the intent to defraud, one of the elements of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 472. “Officers can have reasonable, but mistaken, beliefs as to the facts establishing the existence of probable cause or exigent circumstances, for example, and in those situations courts will not hold that they have violated the Constitution.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 205, 121 S.Ct. 2151. “Section 1983 imposes liability for *1103violations of rights protected by the Constitution, not for violations of duties of care arising out of tort law.” Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 146, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979).
In this case, the officers made a simple mistake — they mistook a genuine 1985 series 100 dollar bill for a fake because the clerk who received the bill from Mr. Rodis, the manager who examined the bill, and the officers who responded to the scene had never seen a pre-1991 100 dollar bill before.2 The bill Mr. Rodis presented lacked the security thread, watermarks, microprinting, and other anticounterfeiting features of current 100 dollar bills.3 The fact that there is another branch of government, the Department of the Treasury, that has agents specifically trained and tasked with detecting counterfeit bills shows that the average street-level officer is not held to have infallible counterfeit detection skills. The fact that a clerk, and the manager both continued to think that the bill was counterfeit indicates that the officers’ mistake was objectively reasonable. That we have a different view of the evidence should not change our analysis. See Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 226-27, 112 S.Ct. 534, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (reversing the Ninth Circuit’s refusal to grant qualified immunity because officials are entitled to an accommodation for reasonable error as a matter of law). Although qualified immunity does not protect “the plainly incompetent,” in this case the failure of the officers to recognize an outdated bill lacking modern security features was not plainly incompetent, but rather an unfortunate mistake that any reasonable officer could have made. Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986).
B. The majority improperly uses the standards for conviction in creating a new standard for probable cause to arrest under 18 U.S.C. § 472.
Assuming the mistake of fact does not completely dispose of Mr. Rodis’s claim, the majority opinion improperly imposes the government’s burden of proof at trial on the probable cause inquiry. “Probable cause must be evaluated from the viewpoint of prudent and cautious police officers on the scene at the time of arrest.” Long v. United States, 422 F.2d 1024, 1026 (9th Cir.1970). “The issue is whether police officers, acting together, in particular circumstances, all conditioned by their observations and information and guided by their total police experience, reasonably could have believed that a crime had been committed by the person to be arrested.” Id. Our court has acknowledged time and time again that “[p]robable cause exists when there is a fair probability or substantial chance of criminal activity.” United States v. Rodriquez, 464 F.3d 1072, 1078 (9th Cir.2006) (quoting United States v. Soriano, 361 F.3d 494, 505 (9th Cir.2004)). The Supreme Court has long held that “[pjrobable cause does not require the same type of specific evidence of each element of the offense as would be needed to support a conviction.” Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 149, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972); see also Draper v. *1104United States, 358 U.S. 307, 311-12, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959).
Yet the majority does precisely that by stating that “[i]t was clear well before Rodis’s arrest that ‘[t]o support a conviction for possession of counterfeit currency with intent to defraud under ... § 472, the government must prove three elements: (1) possession of counterfeit money; (2) knowledge, at the time of possession, that the money is counterfeit; and (3) possession with intent to defraud.’ ” (emphasis added) (Maj. Op. at 1098) (quoting United States v. Rodriguez, 761 F.2d 1339, 1340 (9th Cir.1985)). The majority cites over and over cases concerning what must be proven at trial to sustain a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 472, not cases specifically stating what is required for probable cause to believe that a person has attempted to pass a counterfeit note with intent to defraud. (Maj. Op. at 1098, 1098-1100.) The government’s burden at trial is not the same as the standard for probable cause. Conflating the two and imposing a new requirement that officers must have conclusive evidence of specific intent in order to have probable cause to arrest violates the basic principles of qualified immunity in arrest cases.
C. Under existing law, the officers had probable cause to arrest Mr. Rodis on suspicion that he violated 18 U.S.C. § 472; therefore they did not violate his constitutional rights.
So what was the proper inquiry for analyzing whether the officers had probable cause to arrest Mr. Rodis? In Everett, 719 F.2d at 1120, the Eleventh Circuit held that, “[t]he passing of a counterfeit note coupled with an identification of the person who passed the note furnishes probable cause to arrest the individual identified as passing the note.” “Generally, probable cause to arrest for the offense of passing a counterfeit note is established by circumstances showing the passing of a counterfeit note coupled with an identification of the individual who passed the note.” United States v. Hernandez, 825 F.2d 846, 849 (5th Cir.1987). In United States v. Blum, 432 F.2d 250, 251-53 (9th Cir.1970), we upheld a finding of probable cause based on a merchant’s report that he received bills he believed were counterfeit, and the officer’s examination of the bills. The arrest in that case was based solely on the report of the service station owner, his description of the suspect and the suspect’s car, and the officer’s examination of the bill and determination that it was a counterfeit bill. Id. at 251-52. A bulletin was broadcast on the radio, and an officer arrested the defendant without a warrant a short time later. Id. at 252. After discussing the probable cause standard at length, this court affirmed the denial of a motion to suppress, stating “we conclude that on the basis of the facts and circumstances known to the police officers involved, or as to which they had reasonably trustworthy information, that probable cause existed for Blum’s arrest.” Id. at 253.
Nothing in our case law undermines the premise of Blum, or the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit’s determination that probable cause that a person violated 18 U.S.C. § 472 is satisfied upon the attempted passing of an apparently counterfeit note and the identification of the person who tried to pass the note. See also United States v. Allison, 616 F.2d 779, 782 (5th Cir.1980) (concluding that officer’s lack of firsthand knowledge concerning defendant’s intent to defraud does not eliminate probable cause created by reliable information that possessor attempted to pass bill as genuine); United States v. McCoy, 517 F.2d 41, 43 n. 1 (7th Cir.1975) (“[T]he record clearly shows that the arresting officer had knowledge of facts — namely, that McCoy had attempted to acquire merchandise in exchange for a counterfeit bill — which estab*1105lished probable cause to believe that appellant had violated § 943.38 of the Wisconsin Criminal Code (Forgery).”). Because “[i]ntent and knowledge may be inferred from [a suspect’s] overall actions,” the officers had probable cause to arrest him, and did not have to have probable cause of Mr. Rodis’s specific intent to defraud. United States v. Lorenzo, 570 F.2d 294, 299 (9th Cir.1978). An attempt to pass a counterfeit bill, even if the bill is recognized and rejected, is sufficient to sustain the intent element for the purposes of a conviction. See id. at 295-96, 299 (noting waitress rejected counterfeit bill, but sustaining conviction); see also United States v. McCall, 592 F.2d 1066, 1068 (9th Cir.1979) (affirming conviction where the defendant told inconsistent stories about the source of the counterfeit bills, even though the manager detected the counterfeit bill and called police immediately). Even the case cited by the majority, United States v. DeFilippis, 637 F.2d 1370, 1373 (9th Cir.1981), declined to impose any additional elements, or to raise the burden of proof to sustain a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 472. Based on well-established principles concerning probable cause, and case law specifically holding that officers have probable cause to arrest someone on suspicion of having violated 18 U.S.C. § 472 if there is evidence of the passing of an allegedly counterfeit note and the identification of a suspect, I would conclude that the officers did not violate Mr. Rodis’s constitutional right to be free from arrest absent probable cause.
Applying the majority’s newly announced standard will also result in absurd results. If a suspect simply says that he does not know if the bill is real or fake, or if he carries around a real bill and offers to substitute it for the counterfeit one, officers may not arrest him to investigate the probable unlawful conduct. In the case of a clever criminal who is skilled at lying, officers would be powerless to arrest the suspect even when he attempts to pass a clearly counterfeit bill, if the suspect verbally disavows knowledge or intent and pays with a legitimate bill. A criminal could test the counterfeit detection skills of clerks, bartenders, and other consumers at will without fear of arrest.
Imposing a requirement that asks officers to read criminals’ minds to discern their subjective knowledge and intent is not practical or grounded in reality. Intent to defraud is often established through evidence concerning knowledge such as additional counterfeit bills, reproduction equipment, plates, ledgers, and other evidence that officers would no longer be able to gather incident to arrest or through a search warrant. For example, if the bill in this case happened to be counterfeit, further investigation would have established that Mr. Rodis genuinely lacked the specific intent to defraud, making him a victim of counterfeiting. Detectives, or more likely Secret Service agents, would then investigate to determine the origin of the bill, and hopefully arrest the counterfeiters.
In this particular case, however, the officers made the reasonable mistake of failing to recognize a genuine pre-1991 100 dollar bill. The majority uses this mistake to impose a new, higher standard for probable cause based on the elements necessary to sustain a conviction, instead of concentrating on whether it is more probable than not that a crime occurred under these circumstances. (Maj. Op. at 1098, 1098-1100.) I would follow our prior decision in Blum, as well as the rulings in other circuits establishing the standard for probable cause for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 472 and conclude that the officers did not violate Mr. Rodis’s Fourth Amendment rights because they had sufficient probable cause for the arrest.
*1106D. There is no constitutional requirement that an officer fully investigate a suspect’s defenses, including his lack of the required mental state, before arrest.
As an additional justification for concluding that the officers did not have probable cause, the majority faults the officers’ investigation under the circumstances, arguing that certain facts reduced the probability that Rodis had the specific intent necessary to secure a conviction. (Maj. Op. at 1098-1100.) This argument concerning inadequate investigation of the intent element is foreclosed by Baker v. McCollan, where the Supreme Court granted qualified immunity after the arrest and detention of a suspect in a case involving mistaken identity. “[Ijnnocence of the charge ... is largely irrelevant to [a] claim of deprivation of liberty without due process of law.” Baker, 443 U.S. at 145, 99 S.Ct. 2689. “The Constitution does not guarantee that only the guilty will be arrested.” Id. An arresting officer is not “required by the Constitution to investigate independently every claim of innocence, whether the claim is based on mistaken identity or a defense such as lack of requisite intent.” (emphasis added) Id. at 145-46, 99 S.Ct. 2689. “Nor is the official charged ... to perform an error-free investigation of such a claim.” Id. at 146, 99 S.Ct. 2689. “The ultimate determination of such claims of innocence is placed in the hands of the judge and jury.” Id.
Consistent with Baker, the officers were allowed to arrest Mr. Rodis because they had objective evidence that Mr. Rodis attempted to pass the note, and Mr. Rodis did not contest the clerk and the manager’s statements that he attempted to pay for goods with the suspicious note even though the clerk, the manager, and the officers were mistaken and the note turned out to be genuine. After further investigation, the officers discovered their mistake and released Mr. Rodis. The officers were not constitutionally required to conduct ah exhaustive investigation into Mr. Rodis’s state of mind before making an arrest. See id. at 145-46, 99 S.Ct. 2689; see also Marks v. Carmody, 234 F.3d 1006, 1009-10 (7th Cir.2000) (concluding officers acted reasonably in arresting even though suspect presented evidence tending to show that he lacked the intent to defraud); United States v. Bertram, 719 F.2d 735, 737-38 (5th Cir.1983) (rejecting defendant’s argument that officers lacked probable cause to arrest because the counterfeit Krugerrands had the word “copy” on them, making it impossible for him to defraud anyone). Nor was the officers’ mistake of fact a violation of Mr. Rodis’s constitutional rights. Therefore, I would hold that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because they did not violate Mr. Rodis’s Fourth Amendment rights.
II. The majority’s opinion announces a new principle that officers must have specific evidence of intent to defraud in order to have probable cause to arrest; therefore, the law was not clearly established and the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
This is precisely a case where “an official could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent legal developments.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). As noted above, the case law in this and other circuits, prior to today’s holding, uniformly stated that the standard for probable cause to arrest on suspicion of violating 18 U.S.C. § 472 required only 1) an attempt to pass an allegedly counterfeit note, and 2) an identification of the person who attempted to pass the note. See Blum, 432 F.2d at 251-53; Everett, 719 F.2d at 1120; United States v. Sheppard, 455 F.2d 1081, 1083 (10th Cir.1972); see also United *1107States v. Ford, 461 F.2d 534 (9th Cir.1972) (per curiam) (noting attempt to pass counterfeit money, a description of the suspect by a storekeeper, and the key exhibit falling out of the suspect’s pocket as supporting probable cause); Bates v. United States, 352 F.2d 399, 399-400 (9th Cir.1965) (per curiam) (discussing identification of suspect). Our own cases involving other statutes that require intent to defraud do not require officers to accept a suspect’s version of events or to determine whether he actually had that intent. See United States v. Mayo, 394 F.3d 1271, 1276 (9th Cir.2005) (affirming a finding of probable cause to arrest for “placing a stolen registration sticker on a license plate, with intent to defraud” where there was “no dispute that Mayo admitted that he was driving the car that day, was in the process of buying it, and had been in possession of it for the last month”); United States v. Thomas, 835 F.2d 219, 222 (9th Cir.1987) (discussing act and identity).4 The Eleventh Circuit recently reiterated in a § 1983 false arrest case that “even for a criminal statute that requires proof of an intent to defraud for a conviction, an arresting officer does not need evidence of the intent for probable cause to arrest to exist.” Jordan v. Mosley, 487 F.3d 1350, 1356 (11th Cir.2007).
In essence, the specific intent to defraud is inferred from the attempted passing of the bill. It is the rare case that a person intending to defraud will admit it. The case law discussed above concerning the lack of a duty to investigate a suspect’s proffered defense of a lack of intent exists precisely because almost every suspect— innocent or not, will profess a lack of intent. The majority’s additional requirement that the officer have some conclusive level of evidence of intent to defraud is inconsistent with these precedents.
The majority cites to no case specifically requiring that officers have explicit evidence of a suspect’s subjective intent to defraud before they have probable cause to arrest on suspicion of violating 18 U.S.C. § 472. This lack of precedent to support the majority’s approach is telling, and I cannot find that an officer must have conclusive evidence of intent to defraud before arresting a suspect was clearly established. In my view, the case law allowing officers to infer the intent to defraud from the attempted passing of the counterfeit note is sufficient to establish probable cause was the clearly established law prior to this decision. We cannot expect the officers to anticipate the majority’s ruling that they should have had explicit and conclusive evidence of the suspect’s subjective intent to defraud prior to arrest, because it is found nowhere else in any federal court’s jurisprudence concerning probable cause to arrest under 18 U.S.C. § 472. Therefore, I cannot join in the majority’s conclusion that such a requirement was clearly established prior to today, and I would grant the officers qualified immunity.
What happened to Mr. Rodis was an unfortunate mistake. We cannot allow bad facts to make bad law. Simple and reasonable mistakes of fact are not constitutional violations, however, nor should a mistake subject the officers to a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The case law simply does not support the majority’s view that probable cause to arrest under 18 U.S.C. § 472 requires specific and conclusive evidence of a suspect’s subjective intent to defraud. The majority’s error is *1108compounded by the fact that it fails to recognize that it is adding a wholly new requirement to the probable cause inquiry that has no support anywhere in federal statutory or ease law, and therefore cannot be clearly established. I would vacate the district court’s order and remand with instructions to grant the officers qualified immunity from suit and grant their motion for summary judgment.

. The majority's opinion appears to begin its analysis by deciding that the right to avoid arrest if there is no evidence of specific intent is clearly established without first finding a constitutional violation. (Maj. Op. at 1098.) The Supreme Court specifically rejected this approach in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. at 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151.

. The district court noted that Officer Liddi-coet testified that the bill looked real to her. However, a review of the record shows that Liddicoet testified that the bill did not look real.

. The Treasury introduced security thread and microprinting in $50 and $100 bills in 1990 to deter counterfeiting. See Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, http://www. frbsf.org/federalreserve/money/funfacts.html (last accessed August 9, 2007). The Treasury also redesigned and added new security features to the $100 bill in 1996. Id.

. The majority cites two cases, Easyriders Freedom F.I.G.H.T. v. Hannigan, 92 F.3d 1486, 1499 (9th Cir.1996) and Gasho v. United States, 39 F.3d 1420, 1429 (9th Cir.1994) where the specific intent required was a form of specialized knowledge. For intent to defraud cases, the specific intent is usually inferred from the act itself.