Presley v. City of Benbrook

• Decision Date: 14 October 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-1202,92-1202
• Citation: 4 F.3d 405
• Parties: Louis Earl PRESLEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF BENBROOK, et al., Defendants, City of Benbrook, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 405

4 F.3d 405

Louis Earl PRESLEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF BENBROOK, et al., Defendants City of Benbrook, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-1202.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Oct. 14, 1993.

Donald C. Gladden, Fort Worth, TX, for plaintiff-appellant.

Bridget Robinson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, TX, for State of Texas.

James T. Jeffrey, Jr., Remington & Jeffrey, Arlington, TX, for City of Benbrook.

Diane K. Shaw, Kevin J. Keith, Fowler, Wiles, Norton & Keith, Dallas, TX, for Horan and Wallace.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, GOLDBERG, and JONES, Circuit Judges.

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:

Louis Earl Presley was arrested because he chose not to speak to police and was mistaken for a violent suspect whom they were trying to arrest in a sexual assault case. Naturally, he sued the arresting officers and the City of Benbrook, Texas, contending, inter alia, that the officers' entry into his house and arrest violated the Fourth Amendment and that Texas Penal Code Sec. 38.02(a), the failure to identify statute, is unconstitutional on its face and as applied. The district court granted summary judgment on his challenge to section 38.02(a), while a jury determined that although the officers' conduct was objectively unreasonable under the totality of the circumstances, they were entitled to qualified immunity. From these decisions, Presley appeals. We find no error and affirm.

BACKGROUND

In the late afternoon of July 11, 1988, Lieutenant Sam Horan and Officer David Wallace, along with other law enforcement officers, gathered near the 300 block of Loch Ness Lane in the City of Benbrook to attempt to serve a felony arrest warrant for sexual assault on Douglas Beckley, a man known to be violent. They believed he might be hiding at his parents' house at 313 Loch Ness. By prearrangement, Officers Wallace and Horan positioned themselves at locations from which they could detect any escape attempt. Five to ten minutes later, Presley drove down Loch Ness in his blue pickup truck past Number 313 to the cul-de-sac at its deadend, turned around, drove slowly back by Number 313 and continued down to his residence at 113 Loch Ness Lane, where he pulled into the driveway. Because of his slow and suspicious movements, the detective who was then speaking with Douglas Beckley's mother believed Presley might be a friend of Beckley who was going to pick him up for a getaway, and he (the detective) radioed Officer Wallace, whose car was stationed down the street, to stop the blue pickup.

What happened next is disputed. Officer Wallace testified that he approached Presley in front of Presley's house. Presley did not respond to Wallace's motion to walk over and talk to him, and he adamantly refused to produce a driver's license, stating that he had none there and did not have to show it to Officer Wallace in any case. He refused to identify himself or show any type of identification to Officer Wallace. Lieutenant Horan, arriving on the scene, heard this conversation; based on Presley's belligerence and the general description of Douglas Beckley he had received, the lieutenant became convinced that this was Beckley.

Presley, for his part, acknowledges only that after he was informed that he was not under arrest, he turned and walked into his house without providing identification to the policeman and closed the door behind him.

As Presley walked toward his door, Officer Wallace delivered an ultimatum: "If you go into the house I'm going to have to follow you", but Presley ignored it. Officer Wallace then followed Presley into the house with Lieutenant Horan behind. The police had observed Presley commit the misdemeanor offense of failing to furnish a driver's license on demand of an officer, and they believed they were authorized to effect an arrest for that misdemeanor. Once inside the house, the officers continued to ask Presley for identification, and he continued to refuse. They arrested him for failing to display a drivers license, placed him in a squad car, drove him to the Benbrook City Jail and booked him there. Throughout this time, the officers repeatedly asked Presley for identification. He refused to cooperate. The officers learned his correct name when the young lady who had been in his house brought his driver's license to the station.

Presley was charged with violating two Texas "failure to identify" statutes: the driver's license statute, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6687b, Sec. 13; and the law requiring him to identify himself after a lawful arrest, Texas Penal Code Sec. 38.02(a). Those charges were later dismissed.

Presley then filed his Sec. 1983 suit in federal court. On appeal from the district court's adverse judgment, Presley raises two issues. He asserts that Section 38.02(a) is unconstitutionally vague and mandates unconstitutional self-incrimination. He also contests, on legal and factual grounds, the jury finding that the arresting officers were entitled to qualified immunity for their entry into his house. We address each of the issues in turn.

Constitutionality of Texas "Failure to Identify" Law

Texas Penal Code Sec. 38.02(a) (Vernon 1989) provides in relevant part:

Section 38.02. Failure to Identify.

(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally refuses to report or give his name, residence address, or date of birth to a peace officer who has lawfully arrested the person and requested the information.

The statute requires an arrestee to provide his name, address or date of birth to a peace officer who has requested the information. Presley's challenge faces the initial hurdle that Sec. 38.02 has been upheld sub silentio several times. See Apodaca v. Texas, 444 U.S. 987, 100 S.Ct. 516, 62 L.Ed.2d 417 (1979) (summarily dismissing an appeal of Sec. 38.02 on facts similar to the instant case); Spring v. Caldwell, 92 F.R.D. 7, 11-13 (S.D.Tex.1981) (discussing Apodaca); Ledesma v. State, 677 S.W.2d 529, 530-31 (Tex.Crim.App.1984) (affirming Sec. 38.02 sub silentio in finding that the elements of the crime were fulfilled). ¹

An even more daunting obstacle, which Presley's brief largely ignores, exists in Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U.S. 582, 110 S.Ct. 2638, 110 L.Ed.2d 528 (1990). In Muniz, the Court, although divided in its reasoning, held that routine questions may be asked a suspect for the purpose of expediting the booking process without violating his Fifth Amendment rights. 496 U.S. at 600-601, 110 S.Ct. at 2650-51. The permissible booking questions include data such as a suspect's name, address, height, weight, eye color, date of birth and current age. ² Section 38.02(a) requires only some of this information and, as such, was upheld by this court against a Fifth Amendment challenge even before Muniz. Gladden v. Roach, 864 F.2d 1196, (5th Cir.1989). Since Presley was asked nothing outside of this well-established exception to the Fifth Amendment, he has no constitutional claim.

Presley's vagueness challenge is similarly meritless. The test for vagueness was summarized by the Supreme Court in Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983):

The void for vagueness doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that no ordinary people can understand what comment is prohibited in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.

461 U.S. at 357, 103 S.Ct. at 1858. Presley relies on Kolender for the proposition that the word lawful is inherently vague and fails to give notice because a citizen will rarely know for sure whether the arrest was "lawful". Kolender states no such proposition. 461 U.S. at 358, 103 S.Ct. at 1858. In that case, the vague words were "credible and reliable identification", and vagueness arose not only because a citizen did not know how to comply, but also from the unconstrained latitude the vague law afforded the police to determine what was illegal conduct.

Neither of those characteristics of an unconstitutionally vague law pertains here. Whether the arrest is "lawful" is not a precondition for the citizen's compliance with Sec. 38.02(a). Moreover, "lawful" describes the source of the officer's authority, not the scope of his enforcement authority under the statute. The law does not broaden an officer's authority to effect a "lawful" arrest; it does not permit discretion in determining what is a violation of Sec. 38.02(a). To illustrate these points, one might disagree with a police officer's decision to arrest him for speeding, because the arrestee believed that he was not going above the limit. The disagreement over the speeding ticket would, however, not relieve the arrestee from compliance with Sec. 38.02(a) because the police officer was acting under color of his "lawful" post. We hold, as have other courts, that "lawful" is not an unconstitutionally vague term. ³

Propriety of Jury Finding of Qualified Immunity

Presley also argues that the trial court erred by submitting to the jury an interrogatory asking whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity for entering his home. He does not disagree that the question whether the entry violated the Fourth Amendment was properly submitted to the jury. The jury answered this question in his favor. What he dislikes is the jury's additional finding that "a reasonable officer possessing knowledge of clearly established law and the information they knew at the time, could have believed that entry of his residence was lawful." ⁴

The difference between these findings reflects remarkable discernment by a jury in an area in which even judges get confused. The answers, notwithstanding Presley's argument, are not inconsistent. See Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 644, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3041, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). Indeed, they reflect the essence of qualified immunity: that an officer may make mistakes...