Court Opinion

ID: 9473135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:20:25.058893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:20.518547
License: Public Domain

MYRON L. GORDON, Senior District Judge,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that a constitutional violation occurs when a presumptively innocent person is incarcerated by the sheriff for 18 days without being taken before a judicial officer for an initial appearance. I cannot accept, however, the majority’s holding that the sheriff cannot be civilly liable for such a serious constitutional violation. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
In order to hold a state officer liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, he must in some manner have caused the alleged deprivation of rights. Dommer v. Crawford, 653 F.2d 289, 291 (7th Cir.1981). The test for causation under § 1983 was set out by this court in Crowder v. Lash, 687 F.2d 996, 1005 (7th Cir.1982):
“An official satisfies the personal responsibility requirement of section 1983 if she acts or fails to act with a deliberate or reckless disregard of plaintiff’s constitutional rights, or if the conduct causing the constitutional deprivation occurs at her direction or with her knowledge or consent.”
The majority suggests, although it does not base its holding on this ground, that it was the prosecutor rather than the sheriff who caused the constitutional violation in this case. I disagree. In Dommer, supra, 653 F.2d at 291, the court recognized that the city police and not the prosecutor have sole custody of arrestees and alone have the responsibility under Indiana law to bring arrestees before the court. Id.
*732In the present case, similarly, I believe that it was Sheriff Frantz and not the prosecutor who was personally responsible for Mr. Coleman’s prolonged detention. The prosecutor had no authority under Indiana law to direct the sheriff to detain an individual for a prolonged time period without being taken before a judicial officer. The Indiana law applicable to the sheriff at the time of Mr. Coleman’s arrest did provide, however, that the arresting officer take the accused before the court. Ind. Code §§ 35-l-8-l(a), 35-1-17-4 (Burns 1979) (repealed 1982).
It was the sheriff and not the prosecutor who held the keys to the jail cell; it was the sheriff who had sole custody of Mr. Coleman. That the prosecutor’s inaction may have also contributed to Mr. Coleman’s prolonged detention does not negate the sheriff’s personal responsibility for the detention. The sheriff must be held accountable for either securing a court appearance for the arrestee or, at some reasonable point, releasing him.
By holding the sheriff personally responsible for the prolonged detention of Mr. Coleman, it does not necessarily follow that any damage award would come out of the sheriff’s own pocket. Under Indiana law, a governmental entity may pay any judgment against a public official arising out of a federal civil rights violation by the official committed within the scope of his employment. Ind.Code § 34-4-16.7-1 (Burns Supp.1984). The governmental entity must also pay all costs and fees incurred by the public employee in defense of the suit. Id. When the sheriff acts within the scope of his employment, as in this case, it seems likely that any damages against him would be paid by the county rather than by the sheriff personally.
The majority holds that the sheriff is protected from liability under the doctrine of qualified immunity. The test for qualified immunity was enunciated by the Supreme Court in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818-19, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2739, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), wherein the Court rejected inquiring into a public official’s state of mind in favor of a completely objective standard. Under Harlow,
“... officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
Id. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. The test thus focuses on the “objective legal reasonableness” of the official’s conduct. Id. at 819, 102 S.Ct. at 2739.
The recognition of a qualified immunity defense reflects an attempt to balance the importance of a damage remedy to protect citizens’ rights and to deter unconstitutional conduct against the need-to allow public officials a margin of error when exercising their discretion “and the related public interest in encouraging the vigorous exercise of official authority.” Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 504-06, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 2909-10, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978); see also Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967). The broader the range of an official’s responsibilities and duties, the broader the range of discretion provided by the doctrine of qualified immunity. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 247, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1692, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1973). While his functions regarding this plaintiff were more than ministerial, the sheriff did not act as an executive endowed with broad discretion in exercising those responsibilities. He is, therefore, not entitled to as comprehensive a range of discretion under the qualified immunity doctrine as high executive officials.
Applying the test for qualified immunity, the majority concludes that the sheriff did not violate a clearly established constitutional right; in my view that finding is untenable. The majority observes that the sheriff’s actions were taken in accord with unofficial custom in the county and that the sheriff’s interpretation of the language of the warrant and Indiana statutes was reasonable. Under Harlow, the validity of the sheriff’s qualified immunity defense depends on whether his conduct violated a *733constitutional right which was clearly established at the time of the alleged constitutional violation. If so, the sheriff is not entitled to the shield of qualified immunity irrespective of his subjective belief that he was acting properly. See McKinley v. Trattles, 732 F.2d 1320, 1324 (7th Cir.1984). The heart of the qualified immunity test is whether a reasonable person would have known that the challenged conduct violated a constitutional right recognized at the time of the alleged violation. Davis v. Scherer, — U.S. —, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 3019-20, 82 L.Ed.2d 139.
I believe that the reasonable reading of Baker, supra, decided two years prior to Mr. Coleman’s incarceration, leads to the inescapable conclusion that the sheriff violated Mr. Coleman’s clear constitutional right either to be brought before a judicial officer for a first appearance within a reasonably prompt period of time following arrest and confinement or to be released from confinement if such an appearance could not be arranged. It is clear to me that Mr. Coleman’s 18 day detention squarely qualifies under the Supreme Court’s determination that “after the lapse of a certain amount of time” an arrestee will be deemed to have been deprived of liberty without due process of law. Baker, supra, 443 U.S. at 145, 99 S.Ct. at 2695. Jailing a presumably innocent person without affording him an initial hearing for a period of 18 days in the face of his repeated protests of innocence offends the Baker condemnation of an “indefinite” detention.
I cannot subscribe to the implication of the majority opinion that a law enforcement officer could have reasonably believed that holding a person in jail for 18 days without bringing him before a judicial officer for an initial appearance is constitutionally acceptable. The lengthy incarceration of Mr. Coleman, as the majority observes, is completely inconsistent with notions of “fundamental fairness” and “ordered liberty.” The outrageousness of the sheriff’s conduct in this case is exemplified by the fact that, according to the sheriff himself, administrative processing of arrestees normally takes less than one half hour. In addition, the Wells County jail is just over one block from the courthouse, hardly an 18 day trip. Requiring the sheriff to recognize Mr. Coleman’s due process rights under the circumstances of this case “imposes neither an unfair burden upon a person assuming a responsible office ... nor an unwarranted burden in light of the value which civil rights have in our legal system.” Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 322, 95 S.Ct. 992, 1001, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975).
The Supreme Court recently held that officials sued under § 1983 do not lose their qualified immunity solely because their conduct violates some federal or state statute or regulation unless the statute or regulation provides the basis for the cause of action sued upon. : Davis, supra, 104 S.Ct., at 3020. Thus, the sheriff is not foreclosed from attempting to assert a qualified immunity defense because of the provisions of Indiana law. However, the requirements of the warrant and the Indiana statutes are obviously designed in part to safeguard an arrested person’s due process rights; accordingly, the sheriff should have been alerted to the fact that he was depriving Mr. Coleman of his protected rights. Davis, supra, 104 S.Ct. at 3025 n. 2 (Brennan, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part).
The language of the warrant, substantially following the forms set forth in Ind. Code § 35-1-17-4 (repealed in 1982 and replaced by Ind.Code § 35-33-2-2), required that the sheriff “have [Mr. Coleman’s] body before the Judge of the Wells Circuit Court, instanter, then and there to answer the State of Indiana, on a charge of Receiving Stolen Property____” The warrant directed the sheriff, not the prosecutor or the court, to bring the defendant in person before the court, not merely to call the court or the prosecutor to attempt to arrange a court date. Returning the warrant and filing it with the clerk of court as well as calling the prosecutor to inquire about a court date for an arrestee are separate acts from actually taking the ar*734restee before a judicial officer and do not substitute for the latter.
The direction that the defendant be taken before the court “instanter” (the new form of warrant statute, Ind.Code § 35-33-2-2 (1982), uses the language “without unnecessary delay”) may afford the sheriff some limited discretion, but by no reasonable interpretation can it mean 18 days.
Moreover, Ind.Code § 35-l-8-l(a) (Burns 1979) (repealed 1982), required that “when an officer arrests an accused, he shall take the accused before the court issuing the warrant.” The language of this statute buttresses the conclusion that the sheriff had the ultimate responsibility in July 1981 for assuring that the defendant was brought before the court reasonably promptly. This statute was replaced by Ind.Code § 35-33-7-4 (1982), which was actually enacted prior to the detention of Mr. Coleman but did not take effect until 1982. Act of May 5, 1981, P.L. No. 298 § 2, 1981 Ind.Acts 2314, 2317. Section 35-33-7-4 requires that a person arrested pursuant to a valid warrant “be taken promptly for an initial hearing before the court.” (emphasis added). Cf. Ind.Code § 18-1-11-8 (Burns 1979) (repealed 1982) (required city police officers to bring arrested person before a court within 24 hours of arrest, or 48 hours if a Sunday intervened.) Read together, the language of the bench warrant and the relevant Indiana statutes only serves to reinforce the conclusion that the sheriff’s detention of Mr. Coleman for 18 days without bringing him before the court deprived the plaintiff of his clearly established constitutional right to due process.
Thus, because Sheriff Frantz violated Mr. Coleman’s right to due process through an initial judicial hearing, a right clearly established at the time of the violation, I would hold that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the sheriff. This conclusion, however, does not automatically establish the sheriff’s liability. The Supreme Court in Harlow, supra, 457 U.S. at 819, 102 S.Ct. at 2739, recognized that even if the law is settled, a public official may still be entitled to qualified immunity if he can demonstrate that “extraordinary circumstances” existed under which he can prove “that he neither knew nor should have known of the relevant legal standard.” This issue was not addressed by the court below. If on remand the sheriff can successfully show the existence of such circumstances, he may still be entitled to immunity.
The district court, in granting summary judgment for the defendant on the § 1983 count, also dismissed the plaintiff’s pendent state claims arising out of the sheriff’s detention of Mr. Coleman. Having concluded that the district court erred in its disposition of the § 1983 count, I would direct the district court, on remand, to reconsider its dismissal of the pendant state claims. United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725-26, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1138-39, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966).
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendant and remand the case for further proceedings.