Court Opinion

ID: 9387202
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-16 15:00:18.030588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:12.157897
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-20342         Document: 00516713338             Page: 1      Date Filed: 04/14/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                                              United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                               Fifth Circuit

                                      ____________                                           FILED
                                                                                         April 14, 2023
                                       No. 22-20342                                     Lyle W. Cayce
                                      ____________                                           Clerk

   Floyd Wallace,

                                                                       Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Heather Taylor, in her individual and official capacities; James
   Hartley, in his individual and official capacities; Tyson Hamilton, in
   his individual and official capacities,

                                              Defendants—Appellants.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Southern District of Texas
                                USDC No. 4:22-CV-292
                      ______________________________

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Haynes and Graves, Circuit
   Judges.
   James E. Graves, Jr., Circuit Judge:*
          Defendants Heather Taylor, James Hartley, and Tyson Hamilton
   appeal the district court’s denial of their motion to dismiss seeking qualified
   immunity from Plaintiff’s claims. They are each entitled to qualified
   immunity, so we REVERSE and RENDER.

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
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                                      No. 22-20342

                                  I. Background
                               a. Factual Background
          Plaintiff Floyd Wallace alleges the following facts in his first amended
   complaint. On February 21, 2021, Wallace was walking around the parking
   lot of the Tomball Police Department (“TPD”) while recording on his body
   camera1 and cell phone. As he was walking away, TPD officer Taylor pulled
   up in her police SUV with the emergency lights activated. She told Wallace,
   “Hey man, get over here. Come here” and asked, “What are you doing over
   here? What are you doing behind the police tower?” Taylor continues to ask
   Wallace what he was doing behind the police tower in the parking lot when
   TPD officer Hamilton approaches. A moment later, Wallace heard a police
   siren and saw another police SUV approaching him. He said “I don’t have
   time for this sh--. I’m out,” and he walked away from Taylor and Hamilton.
   The vehicle pulled over in front of him, and TPD officer Lopez got out and
   approached Wallace. Wallace asked why he was being detained, and Lopez
   responded that he heard he had run from one of the other officers. Taylor
   told Lopez that Wallace was “creeping around behind the police tower
   crouching down right by it and as soon as he saw me, he f---ing bolted.” Lopez
   asked Wallace what he was doing in the parking lot and if he was damaging
   their property. He then handcuffed Wallace and told him he was being
   detained for an investigation of potential criminal mischief.
          Lopez, Taylor, and Hamilton repeatedly demanded that Wallace
   provide them with his ID card. Wallace refused, claiming he did not have to
   provide any identifying information unless he was under arrest. The officers
   patted Wallace down and placed him on the ground where they directed him

          _____________________
          1
             Wallace recorded most of the encounter on his own body camera and included
   the footage as Exhibit 1 to his first amended complaint.

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   to sit. Two other TPD officers then arrived at the scene, including Hartley.
   After speaking with someone on the phone, Taylor directed Hartley and
   Hamilton to stand Wallace up and search him for his wallet so they could
   identify him. Wallace repeatedly protested that he did not consent to
   searches. Hartley and Hamilton searched Wallace, but they did not find a
   wallet on him. Lopez returned and told Wallace that Taylor checked out the
   police tower and observed that one of its tires looked as if it was not properly
   inflated. Lopez also told Wallace that Taylor was speaking with the District
   Attorney so they could bring criminal charges against him. In hopes of
   avoiding arrest, Wallace verbally provided his name, birthday, and address.
   The officers picked Wallace up from the ground, and Taylor told him he was
   under arrest for evading a police officer and failing to identify himself.
   Wallace was held temporarily at the police station and later transferred to the
   Harris County jail.
          The District Attorney brought only one charge against Wallace:
   evading arrest from Lopez. At a probable cause hearing, the magistrate
   determined there was not sufficient probable cause to support the charge, and
   Wallace was immediately released.
                            b. Procedural Background
          On January 28, 2022, Wallace filed his original pro se complaint against
   the City of Tomball and officers Taylor, Hartley, Hamilton, and Lopez. After
   the City, Taylor, Hartley, and Hamilton moved to dismiss the claims against
   them, Wallace filed his first amended complaint. Wallace attached four
   exhibits: his body camera footage, an affidavit from another citizen who
   filmed the incident, the criminal complaint against him, and a recording of
   his probable cause hearing. He alleged five counts: 1) A Fourth Amendment
   unreasonable seizure claim against Taylor and Lopez; 2) A Fourth
   Amendment unreasonable search claim against Hamilton and Hartley; 3) A

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   First Amendment claim against Lopez; 4) A Fourteenth Amendment
   malicious prosecution claim against Taylor and Lopez; and 5) A Monell claim
   against the City of Tomball for failure to train.
          The City, Taylor, Hartley, and Hamilton again moved to dismiss
   Wallace’s claims against them. The individual Defendants asserted qualified
   immunity. Lopez did not join the motion to dismiss filed by the other
   individual Defendants, so he is not a party to this appeal. The district court
   granted the City’s motion to dismiss. But it denied qualified immunity to the
   individual Defendants in a terse order, stating in relevant part:
          The Court is of the opinion that the defendants’ defense of
          qualified immunity is premature. Moreover, the facts
          presented, in their totality, do not support dismissal of this suit.
                                          ...
          In the case at bar, the plaintiff’s pleadings proffer the claim that
          he was wrongfully arrested and detained based on suspicions
          that the officers determined were unfounded and, yet, they
          engaged in a malicious prosecution when the basis for the
          plaintiff’s arrest/detention did not ‘pan-out’. Moreover, the
          plaintiff asserts, the judge dismissed the charges that the
          officers’ asserted.
          In the Court’s opinion, it may be argued that the officers had a
          proper basis to question and/or temporarily detain the plaintiff
          until their suspicions were determined to be unfounded.
          However, qualified immunity does not shield officers from
          insisting on being ‘right’ and placing charges against a citizen
          when their suspicions are proved unfounded.
   Taylor, Hartley, and Hamilton (hereinafter “Defendants”) timely filed a
   notice of appeal.

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               II. Jurisdiction & Standard of Review
          We have jurisdiction to review a denial of a motion to dismiss seeking
   qualified immunity “only to the extent that the appeal concerns the purely
   legal question [of] whether the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity
   on the facts[.]” Armstrong v. Ashley, 918 F.3d 419, 422 (5th Cir. 2019)
   (citation omitted).
          We review the district court’s denial of the qualified immunity
   defense de novo, accepting all well-pleaded facts as true and viewing them in
   the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d 359, 370
   (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc). Where video recordings are included in the
   pleadings, the video depictions of events, viewed in the light most favorable
   to the plaintiff, should be adopted over the factual allegations in the
   complaint only if the video “blatantly contradict[s]” those allegations.2
   Harmon v. City of Arlington, Texas, 16 F.4th 1159, 1163 (5th Cir. 2021) (citing
   Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007)).
                                  III. Discussion
          Defendants have asserted the defense of qualified immunity. Qualified
   immunity provides government officials with immunity from suit “insofar as
   their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional
   rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Pearson v. Callahan,
   555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009). We apply a two-part test: (1) whether the plaintiff
   has alleged a violation of a constitutional right; and (2) if so, whether the right
   was clearly established at the time of the violation. Cooper v. Brown, 844 F.3d

          _____________________
          2
            We confine our analysis to Defendants’ conduct as alleged in Wallace’s first
   amended complaint since his allegations are not blatantly contradicted by the video
   recordings.

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   517, 522 (5th Cir. 2016) (citation omitted). Both questions are matters of law.
   Id.
          A preliminary point before we begin our discussion. Ordinarily, each
   individual defendant’s entitlement to qualified immunity should be analyzed
   separately. Carroll v. Ellington, 800 F.3d 154, 174 (5th Cir. 2015). When the
   district court has not engaged in the proper individualized analysis, we can
   either remand or conduct the analysis ourselves. Compare Kitchen v. Dallas
   Cnty., Tex., 759 F.3d 468, 478–79 (5th Cir. 2014) (“the district court must
   also ‘examine[ ] the actions of defendants individually in the qualified
   immunity context’ . . . The district court has not yet addressed this issue[]
   and must do so on remand”) (citation omitted), with Ramirez v. Guadarrama,
   3 F.4th 129, 137 n.4 (5th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 2571 (2022) (“We
   agree with Jefferson that the district court failed to engage in an
   individualized analysis, and that its collective treatment of the defendant
   officers’ actions was error. This point is, however, inconsequential, as we
   find that both officers are entitled to qualified immunity.”). Here, we
   exercise our discretion to conduct the QI analysis ourselves.
                             a. Unreasonable Seizure
          Wallace alleges that Taylor violated his Fourth Amendment rights by
   seizing him without probable cause. Wallace makes this claim with respect to
   his investigative detention and ultimate arrest.
          For his investigative detention, “police officers may stop and briefly
   detain an individual for investigative purposes if they have reasonable
   suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Carroll, 800 F.3d at 171 (internal
   quotation marks and citation omitted). Reasonable suspicion requires “the
   police officer . . . to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken
   together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that
   intrusion.” United States v. Rodriguez, 564 F.3d 735, 741 (5th Cir. 2009)

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   (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 (1968)). According to Wallace’s
   complaint, Taylor saw Wallace crouched down by the police tower in the
   parking lot. In his response to Defendants’ motion to dismiss, Wallace
   explained that “after looking at the police tower, a portable surveillance
   tower, in the parking lot[, he] ran a short distance across the parking lot and
   then began to walk to other areas of the Police Station.” Taylor and Lopez
   repeatedly asked Wallace what he was doing behind the police tower in the
   parking lot and if he had damaged TPD property. They placed Wallace
   under investigative detention for criminal mischief, and Taylor checked to
   see if the tower had been tampered with.
          Wallace admits that he was standing near the police tower in the TPD
   parking lot and then ran a short distance away. This activity alone was
   sufficient for Taylor to have a reasonable suspicion that Wallace was
   tampering with the police tower, so she had authority to detain Wallace, ask
   him what he was doing, and investigate whether the police tower had been
   tampered with. Since this is what Wallace alleges she did, at a minimum, it
   was not clearly established that Taylor was committing a constitutional
   violation during Wallace’s initial detention.
          For Wallace’s arrest, Taylor is entitled to qualified immunity unless
   there was no actual probable cause for the arrest and Taylor’s decision to
   arrest was objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established law. Crostley
   v. Lamar Cty., 717 F.3d 410, 422–23 (5th Cir. 2013). “The Supreme Court
   has defined probable cause as the ‘facts and circumstances within the
   officer’s knowledge that are sufficient to warrant a prudent person, or one of
   reasonable caution, in believing, in the circumstances shown, that the suspect
   has committed, is committing, or is about to commit an offense.’” Piazza v.
   Mayne, 217 F.3d 239, 245–46 (5th Cir. 2000) (quoting Michigan v. DeFillippo,
   443 U.S. 31, 37 (1979)). “If an officer reasonably but mistakenly believes that

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   probable cause exists, [she] is entitled to qualified immunity.” Carroll, 800
   F.3d at 172 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
          Wallace argued before the district court that there was no probable
   cause to arrest him for evading arrest because the officers did not attempt to
   lawfully arrest or detain him. Tex. Penal Code § 38.04 (“A person
   commits an offense if he intentionally flees from a person he knows is a peace
   officer or federal special investigator attempting lawfully to arrest or detain
   him.”). Wallace was only charged with evading arrest from Lopez. However,
   when considering wrongful arrest claims, we “apply an objective standard,
   which means that we will find that probable cause existed if the officer was
   aware of facts justifying a reasonable belief that an offense was being
   committed, whether or not the officer charged the arrestee with that specific
   offense.” Club Retro, L.L.C. v. Hilton, 568 F.3d 181, 204 (5th Cir. 2009).
   Even if there was no probable cause to arrest Wallace for evading arrest from
   Lopez, Wallace must also show there was no probable cause to arrest him for
   evading arrest from Taylor.
          As discussed above, Taylor had reasonable suspicion to lawfully
   detain Wallace for an investigation. Cf. Goodson v. City of Corpus Christi, 202
   F.3d 730, 740 (5th Cir. 2000) (“if the detention was not lawful, then even if
   [plaintiff] fled, [the officers] would not have had probable cause to believe
   that [plaintiff] was violating § 38.04(a).”). The next question is whether
   Taylor was attempting to arrest or detain Wallace. Wallace argues that Taylor
   was not attempting to arrest or detain him because she did not tell him he was
   being arrested or to stop when he started walking away. Defendants argue
   that Taylor had probable cause to arrest Wallace for evading arrest because a
   reasonable officer in Taylor’s situation would have understood that Wallace
   committed the “offense by ignoring her command to ‘come here’ and
   walking away.” In support, Defendants cite to Texas courts affirming
   convictions for evading arrest where defendants fled after being directed to

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   “come here.” Cash v. State, No. 07-17-00173-CR, 2017 WL 6614270, at *1
   (Tex. App.—Amarillo Dec. 19, 2017, no pet.) (“Such was enough for a
   rational fact-finder to conclude, beyond reasonable doubt, that it was
   appellant who departed after the trooper directed him to ‘come here.’”);
   Graves v. State, No. 01-19-00868-CR, 2020 WL 7349101, at *6 (Tex. App.—
   Houston [1st Dist.] Dec. 15, 2020, pet. ref’d) (“Officer Luna ordered
   appellant to ‘come here’ or ‘stop.’ However, rather than comply, appellant
   ignored the officers’ repeated commands to stop and began sprinting across
   the street away from the officers.”); see also Hervey v. State, No. 10-17-00140-
   CR, 2017 WL 6614656, at *2 (Tex. App.—Waco Dec. 27, 2017, no pet.)
   (“The attempted detention occurred immediately upon the command of
   Detective Dunagan for Hervey to ‘Come here, man!’ upon exiting the
   unmarked vehicle.”).
          Again, Wallace alleged that Taylor pulled up in a police SUV with the
   emergency lights activated. Taylor directed Wallace repeatedly to “come
   here.” Even without telling Wallace to stop or that he was under arrest, a
   reasonable officer could believe that activating emergency lights and
   commanding Wallace to “come here” are a sufficient show of authority to
   put him on notice that he or she intends to detain him. Cf. United States v.
   Wright, 57 F.4th 524, 532 (5th Cir. 2023) (When an officer quickly pulled up
   behind the defendant’s parked vehicle “with emergency lights engaged, she
   was showing a sign of authority clearly communicating to [defendant] he was
   not free to leave.”); see also Redwine v. State, 305 S.W.3d 360, 362 (Tex.
   App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2010, pet. ref’d) (“A person commits a crime
   under Section 38.04 only if he knows a police officer is attempting to arrest
   him but nevertheless refuses to yield to a police show of authority.”). While
   Wallace was stopped by Lopez soon after he walked away from Taylor,
   “[e]ven a dispirited, brief attempt to walk away from an officer’s command
   to stop has been held to be sufficient flight to constitute evading arrest or

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   detention.” Henderson v. State, No. 12–09–00399–CR, 2011 WL 2162820, at
   *5 (Tex. App.—Tyler May 31, 2011, no pet.) (collecting cases). Based on the
   facts alleged in Wallace’s first amended complaint, Taylor’s decision to
   arrest Wallace was not objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established
   law. Accordingly, Taylor is entitled to qualified immunity from Wallace’s
   unlawful detention and unlawful arrest claims against her.
                                 b. Unreasonable Search
           Wallace also alleges that Hartley and Hamilton violated his Fourth
   Amendment rights by searching his person without his consent. The officers
   searched Wallace for his wallet after he refused to identify himself. When
   Hartley and Hamilton stood him up to search him, he repeatedly asked the
   officers to stop searching and proclaimed that he did not consent to searches.
   Defendants argue that Hartley and Hamilton’s search was a valid search
   incident for a weapon, but Wallace alleges that the stated purpose of the
   search was to find his wallet so the officers could identify him. This court
   recently confronted a similar claim in McCullough v. Wright, 824 Fed. App’x.
   281 (5th Cir. 2020).3 There, the officers arrested the plaintiff for interference
   of public duties, and they searched her wallet for identification after she
   refused to identify herself. Id. at 287. In an unpublished opinion, we
   concluded that plaintiff had “failed to show that it is clearly established that
   a limited search for the sole purpose of procuring identification, after an
   uncooperative arrestee refuses numerous requests to identify herself, violates
   the Fourth Amendment.” Id. However, the plaintiff in that case was already
   under arrest, so the officers performed a search incident to a lawful arrest.
   Here, Wallace alleges the officers searched him while he was under
           _____________________
           3
            Although an unpublished opinion issued on or after January 1, 1996 is generally
   not precedential, it may be considered as persuasive authority. Ballard v. Burton, 444 F.3d
   391, 401 & n.7 (5th Cir. 2006).

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   investigative detention and before he was arrested. The Texas Court of
   Criminal Appeals has explained the materiality of this distinction:
          Though an officer may ask a defendant to identify himself
          during a valid investigative detention, that does not
          automatically mean that the officer can search a defendant’s
          person to obtain or confirm his identity. Consequently, the
          officer’s conduct of reaching into appellant’s pocket—even
          under a valid investigative detention—was an illegal search
          unless there existed some exception to the usual probable cause
          requirement.
   Baldwin v. State, 278 S.W.3d 367, 372 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (citation
   omitted). Nevertheless, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has also held
   that “[i]t is irrelevant that the arrest occurs immediately before or after the
   search [incident], as long as sufficient probable cause exists for the officer to
   arrest before the search.” State v. Ballard, 987 S.W.2d 889, 892 (Tex. Crim.
   App. 1999) (citation omitted); see also Thornton v. Beto, 470 F.2d 657, 659 (5th
   Cir. 1972) (“The fact that the search was commenced shortly before the
   arrest was made does not vitiate the search as incident to the arrest since
   there was probable cause to arrest without regard to the fruits of the
   search.”). Even if the officers had not formally arrested Wallace yet, Wallace
   had already walked away from Taylor. Assuming that Wallace’s detention
   had not already amounted to a formal arrest,4 Wallace has failed to show it is
   clearly established that, in a situation where officers reasonably believe they
   have probable cause to arrest someone, a search to procure identification
   after the detainee refuses to identify himself violates the Fourth Amendment.
   Cf. McCullough, 824 Fed. App’x. at 287. Hartley and Hamilton are entitled

          _____________________
          4
            See Turner v. Lieutenant Driver, 848 F.3d 678, 693 (5th Cir. 2017) (explaining
   when an investigative stop amounts to an arrest).

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   to qualified immunity from Wallace’s Fourth Amendment claim against
   them.
                              c. Malicious Prosecution
           Lastly, Wallace alleges a malicious prosecution claim against Taylor
   for initiating the evading arrest charge against him. When Wallace filed his
   first amended complaint on March 16, 2022, this court did not recognize a
   freestanding federal claim for malicious prosecution. Castellano v. Fragozo,
   352 F.3d 939, 942 (5th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (holding that “‘malicious
   prosecution’ standing alone is no violation of the United States
   Constitution.”). However, the Supreme Court later held that litigants may
   bring Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claims under § 1983.
   Thompson v. Clark, 142 S. Ct. 1332, 1337 (2022). Accordingly, we recently
   recognized that Thompson overruled Castellano and reinstated our prior six-
   element malicious prosecution claim from Gordy:
           (1) the commencement or continuance of an original criminal
           proceeding; (2) its legal causation by the present defendant
           against plaintiff who was defendant in the original proceeding;
           (3) its bona fide termination in favor of the present plaintiff; (4)
           the absence of probable cause for such proceeding; (5) malice;
           and (6) damages.
   Armstrong v. Ashley, 60 F.4th 262, 279 (5th Cir. 2023) (citing Gordy v. Burns,
   294 F.3d 722, 727 (5th Cir. 2002)). In addition to proving each of these
   elements, plaintiffs must also prove “the threshold element of an unlawful
   Fourth Amendment seizure.” Id. “[I]f the prosecution is supported by
   probable cause on at least one charge, then a malicious prosecution claim
   cannot move forward.” Id. at n.15. Therefore, Wallace must sufficiently
   allege each of these elements in order to bring a claim for malicious
   prosecution.

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          When there is a change in law during the pendency of an appeal, this
   court will generally remand to give the parties and the district court an
   opportunity to address the new standard. See, e.g., Luke v. CPlace Forest Park
   SNF, L.L.C., 608 F. App’x 246 (5th Cir. 2015) (remanding grant of summary
   judgment after the Supreme Court issued a decision abrogating relevant Fifth
   Circuit precedent). However, in order to overcome Taylor’s assertion of
   qualified immunity, Wallace must ultimately show that his Fourth
   Amendment right to be free from malicious prosecution “was clearly
   established at the time of the alleged violation.” Cooper, 844 F.3d at 522. This
   court did not recognize a federal malicious prosecution claim at the time
   Wallace was charged with evading arrest, and “[a] claim that we ha[d]
   expressly not recognized is the antithesis of a clearly established one.” Watts
   v. Northside Indep. Sch. Dist., 37 F.4th 1094, 1096 (5th Cir. 2022); Morgan v.
   Chapman, 969 F.3d 238, 251 (5th Cir. 2020) (“Under this circuit’s
   precedents, there is no constitutional right to be free from abuse of process
   or malicious prosecution.”). While the Fourth Amendment right to be free
   from arrest absent probable cause has been clearly established for some time,
   there was no clearly established Fourth Amendment right to be free from
   malicious prosecution at the time of Wallace’s arrest. Therefore, Taylor is
   entitled to qualified immunity from Wallace’s malicious prosecution claim.
                               IV. Conclusion
          For the reasons stated above, we REVERSE the district court’s
   denial of qualified immunity as to Taylor, Hartley, and Hamilton and
   RENDER judgment in their favor.

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