Court Opinion

ID: 9905095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-28 19:01:52.751438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:40.485043
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-10809    Document: 45-1      Date Filed: 11/28/2023   Page: 1 of 6

                                                   [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 23-10809
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

       GREG GARDNER,
       as guardian of and for the beneﬁt of Peter Gardner,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       LAURA MCCULLOUGH,
       Police Chief, Georgia Southern University
       Police Department in her oﬃcial and individual capacity,
       JOSHUA GAGE BARKER,
       in his oﬃcial and individual capacity,
       JACOB LANE-ALLEN HEATHERLY,
       in his oﬃcial and individual capacity,
       STEPHANIE MCCARTHY,
       in her oﬃcial and individual capacity,
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                 23-10809

       JAMES GRACEN, et al.
       in his oﬃcial and individual capacity,

                                                      Defendants-Appellees.

                            ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Georgia
                   D.C. Docket No. 6:22-cv-00030-JRH-CLR
                           ____________________

       Before JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               During Peter Gardner’s freshman year at Georgia Southern
       University, he was approached by police officers responding to a
       report that a man matching Peter’s description was seen in a stu-
       dent building taking pictures of a three-year-old girl. Officers re-
       viewed photos on Peter’s phone, which included photos and videos
       of the young girl as well as other photos taken going up female
       skirts and dresses. Peter admitted to being sexually attracted to
       girls in underwear and indicated that was why he took photos of
       the three-year-old girl. The officers took Peter to the university’s
       police station and then to the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office
       where he was booked and remained for six days.
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       23-10809                   Opinion of the Court                                3

              Defendant-Appellee Officer Barker, one of the officers who
       approached Peter on campus and interviewed him at the police sta-
       tion, applied for four arrest warrants for Peter. A magistrate judge
       reviewed, signed, and issued the arrest warrants. Peter then ap-
       peared before a judge for a bond hearing where he was ordered
       confined to his parents’ home unless under direct adult supervision
       and prohibited from having access to the internet or inappropriate
       television. Several years later, the district attorney’s office dis-
       missed the warrants.
               Greg Gardner, on behalf of his son, Peter, filed a 42 U.S.C. §
       1983 suit against multiple Georgia Southern University police of-
       ficers for various claims, including malicious prosecution. The dis-
       trict court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim. Gardner
       appeals the dismissal of the malicious prosecution claim, arguing
       that the district court erred in finding the officers were not the
       cause of the decision to prosecute and that it applied the incorrect
       standard regarding probable cause. After careful review of the par-
       ties’ arguments, we affirm. 1
              To prevail on a § 1983 claim for malicious prosecution
       against police officers, the plaintiff “must prove both ‘a violation of
       [his] Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizures’
       and ‘the elements of the common law tort of malicious

       1 “We review de novo a dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim, and

       we accept the allegations in the complaint as true and construe them in the
       light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Henderson v. McMurray, 987 F.3d 997,
       1001 (11th Cir. 2021).
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                 23-10809

       prosecution.’” Williams v. Aguirre, 965 F.3d 1147, 1157 (11th Cir.
       2020) (quoting Paez v. Mulvey, 915 F.3d 1276, 1285 (11th Cir. 2019)).
       Under the common-law elements of malicious prosecution, a
       plaintiff must prove (1) that the officers “instituted or continued” a
       criminal prosecution against him, (2) “with malice and without
       probable cause,” (3) that terminated in his favor, and (4) that caused
       damage to him. Id.
              Defendants-Appellees argued below and now on appeal that
       Gardner fails at prong one because he cannot demonstrate that the
       officers “instituted or continued” Peter’s prosecution. Rather, they
       say, two intervening acts broke the chain of causation: the magis-
       trate judge who reviewed the warrant applications and issued the
       warrants, and the superior court judge who held a bond hearing
       and decided to place Peter on home confinement. The district
       court agreed and held that Gardner failed at prong one finding that
       Gardner had “not sufficiently alleged a claim for malicious prose-
       cution against Defendants as there are no allegations they were re-
       sponsible for the decision to issue the warrants or to put Peter on
       home confinement which are the only possible bases for his mali-
       cious prosecution claim.”
              On appeal, Gardner argues that our decision in Williams has
       altered the analysis regarding the causal chain and that now the
       analysis is “whether the officer supplied the magistrate sufficient
       and accurate information to find probable cause.” In Williams, we
       explained that for plaintiffs who complain of seizure in violation of
       the Fourth Amendment, “the relevant injury is the seizure that
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       23-10809                  Opinion of the Court                                5

       followed the arrest warrant, not the broader prosecution.” 965
       F.3d at 1167. For disputes over seizure following the arrest war-
       rant, we ask “whether the officers intentionally provided materially
       false statements to support the arrest warrant that justified at least
       part of that seizure.” Id. If yes, “such false statements would be
       enough to establish a claim of malicious prosecution.”2 Id.
               While the district court did not use this exact formula when
       deciding that Defendants-Appellees were not the legal cause for Pe-
       ter’s prosecution, it did find that “Plaintiff’s Complaint, accepted as
       true, does not allege any falsity in Defendant Barker’s warrant ap-
       plications.” Because there are no allegations that there were false
       statements submitted to support the arrest warrants that were is-
       sued for Peter, we agree with the district court that Gardner has
       failed to state a claim for malicious prosecution.
                                      *       *       *
               As we understand from Gardner’s briefing, he also argues
       dismissal was improper because the district court used the “any-
       crime” standard of probable cause, and that under the proper anal-
       ysis, the officer who applied for the warrants should have known

       2 We understand that the Williams court was analyzing prong four here—

       whether the officers had caused damage—but we recognize that the interven-
       ing acts of others can be relevant under both prongs one and four of the mali-
       cious prosecution analysis. See Eubanks v. Gerwen, 40 F.3d 1157, 1161 (analyz-
       ing intervening acts of others under prong one); Barts v. Joyner, 865 F.2d 1187,
       1195 (11th Cir. 1989) (analyzing intervening acts of others under prong four);
       Williams, 965 F.3d at 1167 (citing both Eubanks and Barts in the prong four
       analysis).
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                23-10809

       he lacked probable cause or made misstatements in the warrant ap-
       plications. Gardner is correct that we held in Williams that the any-
       crime rule does not apply to malicious prosecution and that the
       charge-specific standard applies. 965 F.3d at 1162. Along this line,
       we ask “whether the judicial officer who made the probable-cause
       determination had sufficient, truthful information to establish
       probable cause.” Id. at 1163.
               This is, however, not relevant to the appeal currently before
       us. The district court did not reach a question of probable cause
       because, as discussed above, it dismissed the malicious prosecution
       claim on prong one—that the officers did not “institute or con-
       tinue” a criminal prosecution against Peter. The district court ex-
       plicitly acknowledged it was not addressing any other arguments,
       including the officers’ arguments that they had probable cause.
       Therefore, we will not address Gardner’s arguments regarding
       probable cause. We will not address the Defendants-Appellees’ ar-
       gument regarding qualified immunity for the same reason.
             AFFIRMED.