Crosby v. Monroe County, No. 03-13716.

• Decision Date: 28 December 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-14310.,No. 03-13716.
• Citation: 394 F.3d 1328
• Parties: William J. CROSBY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MONROE COUNTY, Jason Terry, Defendants-Appellees. William J. Crosby, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jason Terry, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1328

394 F.3d 1328

William J. CROSBY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MONROE COUNTY, Jason Terry, Defendants-Appellees.

William J. Crosby, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jason Terry, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 03-13716.

No. 03-14310.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

December 28, 2004.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

William Maurice Pompey, Pompey & Pompey, P.C., Camden, AL, for Crosby.

Ashley Hawkins Freeman, Kendrick Emerson Webb, Bart Gregory Harmon, Webb & Eley, P.C., Montgomery, AL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.

Before ANDERSON, CARNES and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

CARNES, Circuit Judge:

Willie J. Crosby appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of former Monroe County Sheriff's Deputy Jason Terry based upon the court's decision that Terry was entitled to qualified immunity.

I.

On November 11, 1999 at 8:48 p.m., Willie Scott called 911 to report that someone was trying to kill him.¹ Gunshots could be heard in the background. Jason Terry, then a Monroe County Sheriff's Deputy, listened to a recording of Scott's call and then responded immediately with other officers. When the officers arrived at Scott's home in Beatrice, Alabama, he told them that the shooter was in the woods near his home. The officers saw a person but were unable to apprehend him.

As the officers walked back to Scott's house after failing to apprehend the shooter, they heard another gunshot. The sound came from the direction of Willie J. Crosby's house, which is located across a wooded area from Scott's house. Upon investigating, the officers spotted Crosby carrying a shotgun. At the time the officers approached Crosby, he was returning the shotgun to his garage. (Crosby admits that earlier he had fired a "warning shot" at an individual he had spotted in his backyard.)

On his way to the garage, Crosby "racked" the shotgun, ejecting a spent shell. The officers heard this distinctive and threatening sound as they approached Crosby's home. The officers drew their weapons and ordered Crosby to "drop" the shotgun and lie face down on the ground. Crosby did not immediately comply but instead continued placing the shotgun inside the garage door. Crosby then lay on the ground as the officers had ordered him to do.

Two of the officers got on top of Crosby, putting their knees in his back, and began to handcuff him. Crosby raised his head and asked why he was being arrested. Deputy Terry then placed his foot on the side of Crosby's face and neck and applied pressure. In response, Crosby jerked one hand away from the officers who were attempting to handcuff him, shoved Terry's foot off his face, cursed at Terry, and asked Terry if he were crazy.

Crosby was then handcuffed and arrested. When the officers searched him, he was found to be carrying a .38 handgun. He was initially charged with reckless endangerment, and days later with resisting arrest. He was confined to jail on the reckless endangerment charge for approximately ten hours before being released.

At the time of his arrest, Crosby complained to Deputy Terry that he was handcuffed too tightly. At no time while he was in jail did Crosby display any symptoms indicating that he needed medical treatment, nor did he request medical attention. After being released on the morning of November 12, Crosby waited several days before visiting a doctor. The doctor he eventually saw merely refilled a prescription that Crosby had previously received for back pain and gave him some other pain medication for arthritis. On or about January 5, 2000, Crosby was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

Crosby was tried in the state district court for reckless endangerment and resisting arrest. He was found not guilty of reckless endangerment but guilty of resisting arrest. He appealed the conviction for resisting arrest to the Circuit Court of Monroe County where he received a jury trial, and he was again found guilty. The court then granted Crosby's motion for a new trial on the resisting arrest charge. (The grounds on which the motion was granted are not clear in the record.) As of the time of oral argument in this case, Crosby had not been retried.

II.

Crosby filed a lawsuit in Alabama state court against Monroe County, various other Monroe County entities, and Deputy Terry. Terry was named both in his individual capacity and in his official capacity as a Monroe County sheriff's deputy. In addition to various state law claims, Crosby's complaint alleged unlawful arrest, use of excessive force, and denial of medical care while in custody, all asserted as 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims.

The case was removed to federal court by the defendants. The district court dismissed: all claims against Monroe County and its various entities; all the state law claims against Deputy Terry; and all the federal law claims against Terry in his official capacity. That action left standing only the federal law claims against Terry in his individual capacity. When the district court dealt with those claims, it decided Terry was entitled to qualified immunity, and accordingly granted summary judgment in his favor on all of them. This is Crosby's appeal from the grant of summary judgment in favor of Terry on the three federal law claims against him in his individual capacity.²

III.

This Court reviews de novo the district court's grant of summary judgment, applying the same legal standards as did the district court. Skrtich v. Thornton, 280 F.3d 1295, 1299 (11th Cir.2002). Summary judgment is proper only when the evidence before the court establishes "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); see also Skrtich, 280 F.3d at 1299. All evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Skrtich, 280 F.3d at 1299.

IV.

A government official who is sued under § 1983 may seek summary judgment on the ground that he is entitled to qualified immunity. Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 1263 (11th Cir.2004). To be eligible for qualified immunity, the official must first establish that he was performing a "discretionary function" at the time the alleged violation of federal law occurred. Id. at 1263-64. Once the official has established that he was engaged in a discretionary function, the plaintiff bears the burden of demonstrating that the official is not entitled to qualified immunity. Id. at 1264. In order to demonstrate that the official is not entitled to qualified immunity, the plaintiff must show two things: (1) that the defendant has committed a constitutional violation and (2) that the constitutional right the defendant violated was "clearly established" at the time he did it. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 2156, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001); Holloman, 370 F.3d at 1264.

A.

To determine whether an official was engaged in a discretionary function, we consider whether the acts the official undertook "are of a type that fell within the employee's job responsibilities." Holloman, 370 F.3d at 1265. That is easy here. Because making an arrest is within the official responsibilities of a sheriff's deputy, Terry was performing a discretionary function when he arrested Crosby.

B.

We turn now to the question of whether the doctrine of qualified immunity entitled Deputy Terry to summary judgment insofar as the three constitutional claims Crosby brought against him are concerned. Those three claims assert unlawful arrest, use of excessive force, and denial of medical care while in custody, and that is the order in which we will take up the claims.

As to the unlawful arrest claim, Crosby asserts that there was no probable cause for his arrest. The Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures encompasses the right to be free from arrest without probable cause. See, e.g., Von Stein v. Brescher, 904 F.2d 572, 579 (11th Cir.1990). Probable cause is "defined in terms of facts and circumstances sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that the suspect had committed or was committing an offense." Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 111, 95 S.Ct. 854, 862, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975) (internal marks and citations omitted).

The issue here, however, is not whether probable cause existed but instead whether there was arguable probable cause. Qualified immunity applies when there was arguable probable cause for an arrest even if actual probable cause did not exist. Jones v. Cannon, 174 F.3d 1271, 1283 n. 3 (11th Cir.1999) ("Arguable probable cause, not the higher standard of actual probable cause, governs the qualified immunity inquiry."). Arguable probable cause exists if, under all of the facts and circumstances, an officer reasonably could — not necessarily would — have believed that probable cause was present. Durruthy v. Pastor, 351 F.3d 1080, 1089 (11th Cir.2003) ("Arguable probable cause exists when an officer reasonably could have believed that probable cause existed, in light of the information the officer possessed." (internal marks and citation omitted)); Montoute v. Carr, 114 F.3d 181, 184 (11th Cir.1997) ("In order to be entitled to qualified immunity from a Fourth Amendment claim, an officer need not have actual probable cause but only `arguable probable cause,' i.e., the facts and circumstances must be such that the officer reasonably could have believed that probable cause existed.").

Whether a particular set of facts gives rise to probable cause or arguable probable cause to justify an arrest for a particular crime depends, of course, on the elements of the crime. Under Alabama law, "A person commits the crime of reckless endangerment if he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person." Ala.Code § 13A-6-24. That is one of the crimes for which Crosby was arrested.

It is undisputed...