Court Opinion

ID: 9464305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:30:33.577831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:34.235034
License: Public Domain

Reasons for Voting to Deny Rehearing En Banc
LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge:
This is another instance in which it is well to remind all concerned that a vote to deny rehearing en banc does not necessarily connote agreement with the decision as rendered.
There are various respects in which the panel decision may be questioned, yet in which its impact for the future is difficult to discern. Take, for example, the ruling that there may be mass arrests for failure to disperse or clear the streets in the wake of a police order issued to cope with violent or obstructive demonstrations. The panel decision acknowledged difficulty with such a proposition when a large number of persons involved did not hear the dispersal order. Our ruling in Dellums v. Powell, 184 U.S.App.D.C. -, 566 F.2d 167 (# 75-1974) issued August 4, 1977, makes it clear that there cannot be valid arrests in the absence of reasonable belief that the order was heard, and that even a supervising official may render himself liable in damages for ordering arrests under conditions supporting a jury verdict negativing good faith belief that the order was widely heard. The problem is bypassed in the panel’s opinion with the comment that it may have been eliminated by the police department’s subsequent purchase of effective sound equipment.
Again, the panel opinion applied the Riz-zo doctrine1 to reverse the decree requiring the police to formulate a comprehensive manual specifying policies to be followed in dealing with future mass demonstrations. A serious question as to applicability of Rizzo arises when the police misconduct involves not merely, as in Rizzo, 20 instances of police misconduct, of a sort found to be “fairly typical of [the problems] afflicting police departments in major urban areas,”2 but a district court finding of numerous instances of excessive police force during 1969-1971, with the instances it detailed being merely “representative” of the evidence of misconduct.3 And the pending case presented evidence of either participation by the police chief and supervising officials or knowing toleration of misconduct.
On the other hand, the events of May 1971 — when matters were carried to extremes — may have put a retrospectively adverse cast on prior developments. Prior to “May Day” 1971 there were both new problems of mass demonstration, and responsible efforts by the police and the community to grapple with them — including the evolution of the field arrest form procedure. When matters became egregious, however, the police were confronted not with the relatively predictable problem of a sprawling demonstration going out of hand but with what seemed to be a new problem of a threat to shut down the government. A manual can be of enormous help in avoiding the spread of conflagrations, but coping with a massive shutdown effort, if perceived, must in the last analysis rest on perception, judgment and good faith. This is not a reason to forego a manual or directives, but an awareness that one may be approaching the limit of utility of such a technique.
*130Overall, the question persists whether the problems identified by the district court’s findings of excessive police force in the 1969-1971 period are of a recurring nature. Almost six years have passed since the last mass arrest and three years since the trial. A new police chief has had the benefit of reflection concerning what was done in the past and what the courts have said about those incidents. The police department has manifested an attitude of low-key avoidance of confrontation.4 This is not said as a matter of proof at trial, but a perception affecting discretion and judgment.
If the police had issued a formal directive of reconsideration, we would have no hesitation in dispensing with affirmative judicial relief without prejudice to future complaints — in the court if other agencies of government are unresponsive — in the event grievances recur. So much is established by Washington Free Community, Inc. v. Wilson, 157 U.S.App.D.C. 360, 484 F.2d 1078 (1973), which did not turn on jurisdictional mootness, but on prudential considerations, put by Judge McGowan as reasons for “self-denying discretion” (at 364, 484 F.2d at 1082).
Whether to exercise en banc discretion is particularly likely to turn on whether recurrent problems are visualized. With indications that the police department has been advancing in its low-key approach, and with the reasonable expectation that it will reflect on the various decisions involving mass arrests, it makes sense on prudential grounds to let the smoke clear so far as the court en banc is concerned.

. Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976).

. 423 U.S. at 375, 96 S.Ct. at 606.

. Washington Mobilization Committee v. Cullinane, 400 F.Supp. 186, 192 n. 8 (D.D.C.1975).

. We are aware that since 1971 there have been no mass demonstrations of the kind that developed during 1969-1971. But there have been some demonstrations of substantial size. Our perception is that a relatively low-key police approach has not been immaterial to the result, avoidance of ugly confrontation.