Court Opinion

ID: 9742745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:19:32.248718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:36.253291
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(concurring specialty)-
Although I am troubled by the manner in which the personnel at the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Department reacted to appellant’s request for an opportunity to secure the cash needed to satisfy the bond set forth on the bench warrant, I am compelled by the record to agree with the majority that appellant failed to establish a jury question on his claim that he had been deprived of any of his civil rights. Had appellant been able to establish that in one or more instances the Department had accepted personal checks in satisfaction of the bond requirement from individuals who had presented themselves at the Department, then appellant may very well have made out a prima facie case of denial of equal protection of the law. As it is, I agree with the majority opinion that the Department acted only as a conduit for the clerk of courts when it transmitted to the clerk’s office those personal checks that the Department had received through the mail. The record, even when read in the light most favorable to appellant’s claims and even after drawing every possible reasonable inference from the testimony, sim*204ply does not raise a jury question on the equal protection claim. I agree fully with the majority opinion that appellant made out no claim with respect to his allegations that the Department abused its authority in arresting him and that it violated his rights in monitoring his phone call.
That said, however, I am still left with the nagging feeling that had Department personnel exercised even a modicum of discretion in this matter this law suit would never have come to pass. In a word, had appellant been permitted to make a phone call to his friend without first having to go through the booking procedure, which included his being required to remove his shoes and sit in a holding area, this whole dispute would never have arisen.
I suppose that it ill-behooves those of us in the judicial branch to offer gratuitous advice to those charged with the responsibility of administering law enforcement procedures. On the other hand, it seems to me that this case is a classic example of overly rigid adherence to what all would concede to be necessarily established, routinized procedures. The Department’s actions exemplify what Professor Fiss has termed “bureaucratic pathology.”
There is a strong tradition in sociology, associated with the work of Max Weber, that identifies bureaucracy with rule-governed behavior: A Weberian bureaucrat is an official governed by a rule that prohibits him from taking into account individual circumstances. According to this tradition, the bureaucratic pathology is excessively rigid behavior, which in turn stems from the obligation of the bureaucrat to adhere to the general rules that define the powers and duties of his office.
Fiss, “The Bureaucratization of the Judiciary,” 92 Yale L.J. 1442, 1450 (1983) (footnote omitted).
One wonders what would have happened had Sheriff Hawkey been present at the front desk when appellant arrived with his letter. I would like to think that in the exercise of his managerial discretion Sheriff Hawkey would have concluded that no great threat would be presented by letting this 75-year-old man make a phone call to his friend without first having to go through the formal booking procedures that are admirably suited for, and no doubt required by, the exigencies of dealing with felons and other assorted aggravated scofflaws.
What follows from these musings? Perhaps nothing. One would hope, however, that not all law enforcement departments have become so depersonalized that they cannot at times exercise circumstantial civility.