Court Opinion

ID: 9634488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:14:31.723902+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:03.815537
License: Public Domain

TARNOW, District Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the court’s decision on the Terry stop but respectfully dissent from its ruling on plaintiffs’ claims of excessive force and unlawful arrest.
I. Terry stop in reliance on dispatch
The majority concludes that defendant Begin did not violate the Fourth Amendment when he stopped Dorsey and Clark. I disagree. Nevertheless, because Begin executed the stop in good-faith reliance on the dispatch, he is entitled to qualified immunity as to the Terry stop.
It is a factually intensive question whether there was a constitutional violation. Such an inquiry would need to examine (1) whether Officer Barber’s report identifying Dorsey and Clark as the suspects was unwarranted, as Barber had picked them out — in response to the dispatch he had heard — based on the generic, overly broad characteristic that they were two black men wearing sports clothing. Next, the constitutional analysis under United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985), would require one to consider (2) whether Barber’s unwarranted report left the Portage County Sheriff Department dispatcher without enough of a basis in articulable facts to support reasonable suspicion, thus rendering Begin’s stop in reliance on the dispatch unconstitutional.
In concluding that Begin’s stop was indeed based on reasonable suspicion, the majority’s reliance on Smoak v. Hall, 460 F.3d 768 (6th Cir.2006), is misplaced. Majority opinion at 398-99. Smoak’s ruling on reasonable suspicion is distinguishable from the instant case, because the dispatcher in Smoak had warranted facts pointing to a possible crime. In Smoak, a witness had called the state highway patrol when she saw a green station wagon cruising down the highway with money flying out of it. Troopers met her at the scene and reported to the dispatcher that “they found a lot of loose currency.” Id. at 774. Without any basis in fact, subsequent BO-LOs indicated that the green station wagon may have been involved in an armed robbery. Id. at 780. The stopping officers relied on these BOLOs, and conducted a highly intrusive felony stop. With regard to reasonable suspicion, the Smoak panel merely determined that the dispatchers had reasonable suspicion “that some mishap had occurred.” Id. at 780. And of course the dispatchers did have this suspicion, because there was a witness report of lots of money flying out of a car, and this report was verified by state troopers. Smoak held that the dispatcher had enough articulable facts to support a reasonable suspicion that something was up. But Smoak did not say that there were enough facts to support reasonable suspi*404cion of anything more than a mishap. In contrast, the dispatch targeting Dorsey and Clark had a weak basis in objectively warranted facts for the reasons already suggested.
In the end, though, whether there actually was a constitutional violation is a question that the court does not need to resolve. Even assuming that the dispatch that Begin relied upon was issued unconstitutionally, Begin has a “good-faith defense” to Dorsey and Clark’s suit, because he “defensibly act[ed] in reliance” on the “be on the look out” dispatch (BOLO) issued by the Portage County Sheriff Department. See Hensley, 469 U.S. at 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 675.
In particular, the court is to examine “(1) what information was clear or should have been clear to the individual officer at the time of the incident; and (2) what information that officer was reasonably entitled to rely on in deciding how to act, based on an objective reading of the information.” Humphrey v. Mabry, 482 F.3d 840, 848 (6th Cir.2007). This is an easy issue, because the description of the clothes and physical attributes in the BOLO that Begin heard did in fact match what he observed about Clark and Dorsey, because Robinson’s description was incorporated into the dispatch issued by the Portage County Sheriff Department. See District court opinion at 7, JA 35 (one of the plaintiffs was wearing a light blue t-shirt, black pants, a white do-rag, and white tennis shoes, and had cornrows in his hair, while the other was wearing a white t-shirt, yellow or white shorts, a black baseball cap, and white tennis shoes). The information in the BOLO was clear and provided a reasonable basis for Begin to identify Clark and Dorsey as the men announced in the dispatch. Therefore, I ultimately concur in the majority’s decision that Begin is entitled to qualified immunity regarding the Terry stop.
II. Excessive force
The majority concludes that although Begin’s show of force was arguably excessive, he acted in an objectively reasonable manner, given the facts and circumstances he confronted. I respectfully dissent.
A. Two segments
For the excessive force analysis in this case, it is helpful to carve Officer Begin’s actions into two segments. The first segment consists of the two minutes from the moment Begin confronted plaintiffs to just before the time of Dawson’s handcuffing. The time following Dawson’s handcuffing through Trooper Woodward’s appearance on the scene comprises the second segment. As the district court noted, Dorsey and Clark contend that Begin “continued to point his weapon for an unspecified of time” even after they were handcuffed until Trooper Woodward arrived to take them to the police station. District court opinion at 8-9, JA 36-37. Begin, on the contrary, says he holstered his gun once Dawson finished handcuffing Clark and Dorsey. Begin aff. ¶ 7, JA 98. For this appeal, the court must credit plaintiffs’ version of the facts. Berryman v. Rieger, 150 F.3d 561, 563 (6th Cir.1998).
B. Second segment
With regard to the second segment, it would not have been reasonable for an officer to continue pointing his gun at the plaintiffs. Because the plaintiffs were already handcuffed, there was no reason to subject them to the threat embodied in keeping the gun drawn. Nor does qualified immunity shield Begin’s post-handcuffing show of force, because no reasonable officer would find it necessary to *405employ such an overly intrusive level of force.
C. First segment
As for the first segment, this presents a somewhat closer question, because, as the majority states, Begin was only in charge of the situation for a mere two minutes. Nonetheless, the majority decides that the facts-and-cireumstances analysis under Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989), compels the conclusion that Begin’s use of force was unreasonable and violated the Fourth Amendment. Majority opinion at 401-02, 399. Ultimately, though, the majority determines that Begin is entitled to qualified immunity.
Qualified immunity does not protect Officer Begin for this first segment. There is no evidence that Begin deliberately violated the law, but his actions are an instance of plain incompetence. See Humphrey, 482 F.3d at 847 (qualified immunity protects “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law”). True, courts must give deference to the split-second, tough calls that police men and women have to make. But this is not a close case. Officer Begin had no reason to believe that the suspects announced in the BOLO would be armed or a flight risk. This is why Smoak and Humphrey are distinguishable. Those cases involved situations where the stopping officers were confronting suspects they initially thought might be armed. Smoak, 460 F.3d at 780; Humphrey, 482 F.3d at 848-849. And although Begin did not know what crime the BOLO targets were suspected of, we should not let a stopping officer’s lack of knowledge of the crime give room for the officer to employ such an intrusive, threatening show of deadly force. Rather, the burden should be on the officers to indicate during dispatch that there may be reason to exercise caution or additional force, as was the case in Smoak and Humphrey.
The majority seems to argue that an officer has to do something worse than what Begin did in order to lose the protection of qualified immunity. Majority opinion at 401-02. For instance, the defendants in Pray v. City of Sandusky, 49 F.3d 1154, 1159 (6th Cir.1995), who were not protected by qualified immunity, behaved even worse than Begin. But that does not mean that this court should decide that Begin gets qualified immunity. Nor does Smoak purport to outline the lower threshold of constitutional violation required for the court to withdraw the shield of qualified immunity. For the majority’s point to be supported, it would need cases arising out of conduct much more egregious than Begin’s where the defendants nevertheless received qualified immunity.
It is understandable that plaintiffs’ noncompliance with Begin’s first two orders may have given him pause, especially since Begin was the lone officer at the scene. JA 525-26. But, as the district court observed, Officer Begin recognized the plaintiffs’ disbelief and surprise when he ordered them to stop while their behavior was manifestly innocuous. Id.; see also District court opinion at 7, JA 35. There is no indication in the record that the nature of plaintiffs’ protestations were defiant, aggressive, or showed the potential for physical confrontation.
Furthermore, it was not necessary to draw a weapon to demonstrate command of the situation. Begin had other means to avoid escalating the scene, means that did not require a show of force. The majority notes that Begin himself was not conducting the investigation, that Begin was merely under orders to stop and hold Dorsey and Clark until an officer who was familiar with the investigation of the car theft could *406arrive. Majority opinion at 9 n. 6. True, Begin may not have had the authority to release the plaintiffs. And Begin himself may not have needed to elicit answers to confirm or dispel suspicion, as is the norm for a Terry stop, because he was simply holding plaintiffs in reliance on the BOLO. But some simple questions or a cursory inspection of plaintiffs’ clipboards, voter registration materials, as well as their six other colleagues’ corresponding effects, would have put a reasonable officer on notice that Begin’s level of force was unnecessary. In other words, the majority rightly reasons that Begin didn’t need to assess the situation as to whether there was enough reasonable suspicion for the Teiry stop. But such an assessment would still be reasonable to discern the appropriate level of force to employ. Begin’s choice was unreasonable and unconstitutional.
Therefore, I would affirm the district court’s ruling that Begin is not shielded by qualified immunity as to Dorsey and Clark’s excessive force claim.
III. Unlawful arrest
To determine whether Begin’s Terry stop escalated into an arrest, we “must determine whether the use of force was reasonably related to the situation at hand, or, in other words, whether the degree of intrusion was necessary in order to effectuate the Terry stop.” Feathers v. Aey, 319 F.3d 843, 851 (6th Cir.2003). As discussed above, Begin’s use of force before Dawson’s handcuffing was not necessary to effectuate the stop. That is why the stop ripened into an arrest.
The BOLO was issued without facts supporting reasonable suspicion, and neither did Begin observe anything that would give him probable cause to arrest Dorsey and Clark. Therefore, Begin’s arrest was also unlawful, because it was executed without reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause.
However, Begin cannot be held liable for unlawful arrest once Dawson arrived, because Dawson’s handcuffing from that point onwards was the determinative restraint on the plaintiffs.
Again, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that Begin is entitled to qualified immunity for the same reasons I do not think qualified immunity should shield him from the excessive force claim.
I would affirm the district court’s denial of qualified immunity for Officer Begin as to the unlawful arrest claim before Dawson handcuffed the plaintiffs.