Court Opinion

ID: 9499609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:52:48.043772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:36.901105
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join the opinion of the court except in its treatment of the plaintiffs’ claim that Deputy Krieger’s conduct deprived them of their right to intimate association. In my view, the district court erroneously dismissed this claim at this early stage of the proceedings. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from this portion of the court’s disposition and, in the following sections, shall explain why I believe that the panel majority opinion is both factually and legally in error.
A.
At the outset, it is important to note the procedural posture of the case as it comes to us. The district court dismissed this claim for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Like the district court, we therefore must take all the well-pleaded allegations of the complaint as true. See Hentosh v. Herman M. Finch Univ. of Health Sci/The Chicago Med. Sch., 167 F.3d 1170, 1173 (7th Cir.1999). Indeed, we must construe those allegations in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs. See Lee v. City of Chicago, 330 F.3d 456, 459 (7th Cir.2003). In a civil rights action such as this one, we cannot require that the plaintiffs set forth their claim with any more specificity than required for any other claim. Although our circuit at one time made such a demand upon litigants, see Sivard v. Pulaski County, 959 F.2d 662, 667 (7th Cir.1992) (“This Court demands that plaintiffs suing a municipal body under § 1983 plead with greater specificity *467than might ordinarily be required.”), the Supreme Court has made it clear that there is no legal justification for such a requirement, see Leatherman v. Tarrant County, 507 U.S. 163, 168, 113 S.Ct. 1160, 122 L.Ed.2d 517 (1993).
In its analysis of the claim,1 the panel majority simply characterizes the Deputy’s actions as “[wjatching people from a squad car.” Op. at 464. The complaint, on the other hand, provides a more disturbing account of the Deputy’s alleged actions; it paints a picture of a far more pervasive intrusion into the lives and the relationship of the plaintiffs. Specifically, the complaint alleges in paragraph 12 that Deputy Krieger engaged “in a pattern of on-duty conduct designed to harass, annoy, and intimidate” the plaintiffs by engaging in, among other things, the following actions:
A. Repeatedly following the Plaintiffs while they are driving lawfully to and from their destinations, both individually as well as together, and while they are engaged in lawful conduct;
B. Repeatedly parking his squad car at or near Plaintiff CHRISTENSON’S [sic] place of employment and conducting surveillance of her lawful activities, as well as monitoring her lawful conduct while employed as a Clerk at Kelly Williamson Mobil Co.;
C. Abandoning service calls and traffic stops to follow the Plaintiffs upon recognizing that they are in the vicinity of where he is located;
D. Parking his squad car outside of businesses where Plaintiffs’ vehicles are parked when they are patronizing said businesses, in an effort to cause them difficulties with the proprietors of such establishments.
R.3 at 4. Most importantly, the complaint alleges specifically that the Deputy carried out this “pervasive plan of intimidation” with the specific intent to harm the plaintiffs in their relationship “with each other.” Id. The allegations set forth above do not simply describe an individual sitting in a police car watching individuals from afar. Rather, the allegations describe a police officer not only stalking a couple as they go about performing the daily tasks of living in a community, but also stalking in a manner designed to intrude upon and to injure their relationship.
B.
My colleagues are quite right to emphasize that claims based on the concept of substantive due process must be approached with great care and circumspection. As our own case law reflects, the Supreme Court has made clear that the scope of substantive due process is very limited. See, e.g., Tun v. Whitticker, 398 F.3d 899, 902 (7th Cir.2005) (citing Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997)). This reluctance is grounded, in part, in the realization that “guideposts for responsible de-cisionmaking in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended.” Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992). It also finds roots in our reluctance to fix the boundaries of due process in a way that intrudes into the state’s proper domain of fashioning principles of private tort law. The Due Process Clause is intended as a “limitation of the State’s power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security.” DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. *468189, 195, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989).
Nevertheless, the concept of substantive due process remains an important part of our constitutional jurisprudence and, in its limited domain, plays an important role in the protection of individual liberty. As we noted in Tun, the essence of substantive due process is protection of the individual from the exercise of governmental power without reasonable justification. See Tun, 398 F.3d at 902. In the context of the action of law enforcement authorities, the situation that we face in this case, “[i]t is most often described as an abuse of government power which ‘shocks the conscience.’ ” Id. (quoting Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 172, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952)).
Despite the dangers inherent in the implementation of a constitutional standard that lacks built-in guidelines, the task is hardly beyond careful judicial implementation. First of all, we must remember that, while the “shocks the conscience” standard seems at first glance to be highly subjective, the Supreme Court has made it quite clear that it is objective in nature. In determining what kind of conduct can be said to shock the judicial conscience, judges invariably start by “asking whether or not the objective character of certain conduct is consistent with our traditions, precedents, and historical understanding of the Constitution and its meaning.” County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 857, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998) (Kennedy, J., concurring); see also id. at 847-48 n. 8, 118 S.Ct. 1708. The court must ask whether the conduct in question “can be said to have found historical acceptance, or at least tolerance, among traditional executive practices.” Galdikas v. Fagan, 342 F.3d 684, 690 n. 3 (7th Cir.2003), abrogated on other grounds by Spiegla v. Hull, 371 F.3d 928, 941-42 (7th Cir.2004). The determination, of course, also must include an “objective assessment” of the necessities of contemporary law enforcement, an area in which “the police must be given substantial latitude and discretion.” County of Sacramento, 523 U.S. at 857, 118 S.Ct. 1708 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Although negligent action never can be sufficient to meet the “shocks the conscience” standard, “actions intended to injure in some way unjustifiable by any governmental interest” are those most likely to rise to the conscience-shocking level. Id. at 849, 118 S.Ct. 1708. In assessing the particular governmental conduct at issue, a court cannot view that conduct in abstracto. It is important that all the facts and circumstances of the situation be considered. See Miller v. City of Philadelphia, 174 F.3d 368, 375 (3d Cir.1999).
Usually, a court is faced with the task of assessing conduct that took place in the course of undertaking official duties. In such a context, it is often important to differentiate between situations in which the state actor is acting under exigent circumstances and those situations in which the state actor is working at a more deliberate pace. “Where a defendant is ‘confronted with a hyper-pressurized environment such as a high-speed chase ... it is usually necessary to show that the officer deliberately harmed the victim.’ Where a defendant has ‘the luxury of proceeding in a deliberate fashion ... deliberate indifference may be sufficient to shock the conscience.’ ” Kaucher v. County of Bucks, 455 F.3d 418, 426 (3d Cir.2006) (quoting Estate of Smith v. Marasco, 430 F.3d 140, 153 (3d Cir.2005)); see also, e.g., Armstrong v. Squadrito, 152 F.3d 564, 581 (7th Cir.1998) (holding that deliberate indifference of jailors to prisoner’s repeated complaints, over many days, that he was being held without a hearing shocked the conscience).
*469Although courts usually are asked to assess the actions of a government official who is performing official duties, a court sometimes is faced with a situation in which an officer has not simply acted unreasonably in the execution of his duties but has used his office not in connection with any official duty but for his own purposes. Such an abuse of governmental power, when directed against the exercise of a fundamental liberty interest, is an arbitrary abuse of power that shocks the conscience. See Hawkins v. Holloway, 316 F.3d 777, 787 (8th Cir.2003). Such conduct, “intended to injure in some way unjustifiable by any government interest,” is the sort of conduct “most likely to rise to the conscience-shocking level.” County of Sacramento, 523 U.S. at 849, 118 S.Ct. 1708; see also Remer v. Burlington Area Sch. Dist., 286 F.3d 1007, 1013 (7th Cir.2002); Neal v. Fulton County Bd. of Educ., 229 F.3d 1069, 1075 (11th Cir.2000).
The case before us clearly falls within this last category. According to the allegations of the complaint, Deputy Krieger embarked upon a scheme of retaliation against the plaintiffs in which he used the power and authority of his office to injure their relationship. This systematic vendetta had no conceivable legitimate governmental purpose. It amounted to the raw use of the power — power that comes with a badge, a service revolver, and the power to arrest — in order to make it difficult for this couple to maintain a romantic relationship that our constitution protects as a fundamental right.2 The panel majority fails to recognize that, under the prevailing case law, such a perverse use of police authority surely shocks the judicial conscience just as it shocks our national conscience.
Today’s decision also will have a very practical and harmful effect on municipal governance throughout this circuit. The panel majority’s failure to recognize the situation here as a willful abuse of governmental power and its failure to characterize the conduct as conscience shocking will have a direct and immediate effect on efforts to maintain discipline and professionalism in the countless number of small municipal police forces that dot our landscape. This is no easy task for those who have the responsibility of county and municipal leadership today. The ravages of undue political influence and the lack of financial resources for both recruitment and training make the burden of those in leadership positions a heavy one indeed. Today, the highest federal court in this region of the United States sends a surely unintended, but nevertheless unwelcome, message that minimizes the significance of *470a raw use of municipal police power. The task of the dedicated officers who command those departments just became more difficult.
I respectfully dissent.

. Notably, the panel majority gives a more accurate summary of the complaint in its prefatory description of the case. See Op. at 457-58.

. My colleagues liken the present situation to the one present in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998). In doing so, they fail to recognize a fundamental difference that was very apparent to the Supreme Court. County of Sacramento involved the dangerous chase of a suspect who had ignored the lawful command of police authorities to stop. The actions of the police officers in that case, while professionally substandard and worthy of severe criticism, were not intentional and were committed in the course of official activity undertaken in exigent circumstances. Nor did the officers' actions find opprobrium in the historic traditions of this country: "Neither our legal traditions nor the present needs of law enforcement justify finding a due process violation when unintended injuries occur after the police pursue a suspect who disobeys their lawful order to stop.” Id. at 858, 118 S.Ct. 1708 (Kennedy, J. concurring). Although substantive due process analysis must steer a wide berth around traditional principles of tort law, see id. at 848, 118 S.Ct. 1708, "conduct intended to injure in some way unjustifiable by any government interest is the sort of official action most likely to rise to the conscience-shocking level,” id. at 849, 118 S.Ct. 1708; see also Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 331, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986).