Court Opinion

ID: 9481605
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:25:28.180149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:27.156911
License: Public Domain

BOGGS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I disagree with Judge Guy’s opinion in only one respect. The opinion holds that, as a matter of law, Officer Heavrin did not have probable cause to make the arrest. However, the opinion indicates that the officer did no wrong in searching the containers Jeffers was carrying into the Churchill Downs infield, in finding the small pill bottle, or in opening the bottle and examining the contents.
Given that Heavrin’s conduct was permissible to that point, when she arrested Jeffers, she knew the following facts.
(1) Some type of pill was being carried in a bottle with no label attached to the outside, and an otherwise unidentified label, but not for valium, was lying loose on the inside of the bottle. J.A. at 325. (How*1165ever, we might infer that the label indicated the pills were allergy medication, since that is what they turned out to be).
(2) Kentucky has a state law forbidding the possession of controlled drugs in a container other than the original prescription container. Ky.Rev.Stat. § 218A.210. Other statutes forbid mislabeling any drug. Id. §§ 217.175(2) & 217.065(1).
(3) According to her story, Heavrin asked a fellow officer to have the pills identified, and that officer reported back to her that the pills were valium. J.A. at 117-118; 123; 314.
On these facts, Heavrin had probable cause to believe that, indeed, prescription drugs were being carried in an improper container. The record of her examination by counsel for the plaintiff makes it quite clear that this was the reason she arrested Jeffers. In pertinent part, the transcript reads as follows:
Q. At the time that you arrested Mr. Jeffers, did you feel as though you had probable cause to make an arrest?
A. Yes, sir, I did.
Q. Will you tell us what facts you based that opinion on at that time?
A. The fact that the pills were identified by one of our narcotics detectives as being Valium.
J.A. at 314.
Q. Okay. Will you tell the Court any facts that you have which cause you to believe that even if this was Valium[,] Mr. Jeffers was committing a criminal offense, do you have any facts?
A. The label in the container identified it as something else.
Id. at 325.
Under the circumstances of Derby morning, Officer Heavrin can hardly be faulted for not having left the post to which she had been assigned to attempt to consult personally the Physician’s Desk Reference that the court indicates was available.
The difficulty with the argument I have just made is that the district court’s opinion does not agree with Heavrin’s story. According to the district court, as correctly quoted in our court’s opinion, Sgt. Jones, to whom she had given the bottle for identification,1 returned and said:
He thinks they’re valium. You can either charge him or throw them away.
Jeffers v. Heavrin, 701 F.Supp. 1316, 1320 (W.D.Ky.1988).
Our court is not impressed with the efficacy of this remark as providing probable cause. I agree that it is a bit thin. However, that is not the remark that appears in the record. Instead, the only rendition of this event that is in the record is Heavrin’s unequivocal statement.
He told me that the pills were valium and I could charge Mr. Jeffers if I wanted to.
J.A. at 123.
On this view of the facts, the general rule that an officer may rely on facts known to other officers and relayed to the arresting officer comes into play. United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 110-11, 85 S.Ct. 741, 746-47, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965); W. LaFaVE, 2 SEARCH AND SEIZURE: A TREATISE on the Fourth Amendment § 3.5 (2d ed. 1987). This rule holds even if the facts as related turn out to be erroneous in good faith. See United States v. Cummins, 912 F.2d 98, 102-03 (6th Cir.1990).
To the extent the district court found as a fact that Sgt. Jones made the statement quoted in the district court’s opinion, the court is clearly in error. It simply is not in the record.
If the district court disbelieves Heavrin’s testimony as to what she was told, then I have no problem with a finding of no probable cause. However, the district court has not done so. On the state of this record, Officer Heavrin should not be faced with a flat holding that no probable cause could have existed. See Dominque v. Telb, 831 F.2d 673, 676 (6th Cir.1987) (plaintiff required to show that rights were so clearly established that any reasonable officer would have clearly understood conduct vio*1166lated those rights). I appreciate the court's distinction (p. -) that Heavrin may still have a qualified immunity defense if some reasonable officer could have thought that probable cause exists on these facts. This may be cold comfort, however, in light of our court’s holding on the law, and our acceptance of the district court’s clearly erroneous rendition of the testimony. I would, therefore, remand for further fact-finding on this issue, and I respectfully dissent from that portion of the court’s opinion that instead decides that there was no probable cause as a matter of law.

. This is according to Heavrin. Jones does not remember the specific incident, although he did, on several occasions that morning, take items to narcotics officers for identification and report the result to an investigating officer. J.A. at 84.