Moore v. Andreno

• Decision Date: 22 October 2007
• Docket Number: Docket No. 06-3623-cv(L).,Docket No. 06-3748(XAP).
• Citation: 505 F.3d 203
• Parties: Richard B. MOORE, Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. Joseph A. ANDRENO, Delaware County Deputy Sheriff and Kurt R. Palmer, Delaware County Deputy Sheriff, Defendants-Cross-Claimants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees, County of Delaware and Thomas Mills, Delaware County Sheriff, Defendants-Cross-Claimants, Ruth M. Sines, Defendant-Cross-Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

505 F.3d 203

Richard B. MOORE, Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. Joseph A. ANDRENO, Delaware County Deputy Sheriff and Kurt R. Palmer, Delaware County Deputy Sheriff, Defendants-Cross-Claimants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees, County of Delaware and Thomas Mills, Delaware County Sheriff, Defendants-Cross-Claimants, Ruth M. Sines, Defendant-Cross-Defendant.

Docket No. 06-3623-cv(L).

Docket No. 06-3748(XAP).

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: February 7, 2007.

Decided: October 22, 2007.

Frank W. Miller, East Syracuse, N.Y., for Defendants-Cross-Claimants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees.

Terrence P. O'Leary, Walton, N.Y., for Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant.

Before: WALKER and SACK, Circuit

Judges, and DANIELS, District Judge.^*

JOHN M. WALKER, JR., Circuit Judge:

Courts have long acknowledged that a person has the right to establish a private sanctum in a shared home, a place to which he alone may admit or refuse to admit visitors. Yet, with the recurrence of domestic violence in our society, we are loath to assume that a man may readily threaten his girlfriend, take her belongings, lock her out of part of his house, and then invoke the Fourth Amendment to shield his actions. Deputies Joseph A. Andreno and Kurt R. Palmer, responding to an emergency call, were faced with reconciling these two competing interests. While they misapplied the relevant constitutional calculus, they are police officers, not lawyers or mathematicians. And thus, because the law governing the authority of a third party to consent to the search of an area under the predominant control of another is unsettled, and because Deputies Andreno and Palmer made a reasonable mistake in applying that law to the situation with which they were confronted, the district court erred in denying them summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds.

BACKGROUND

Richard B. Moore and Ruth M. Sines were on-again, off-again lovers.¹ They lived together in Moore's home for a period of time in 1996-1997 and again in 2001-2002. Sines had a key to Moore's home; her furniture was there and she paid some of the bills. However, Sines was subject to certain restrictions: her children lived with their fathers and Moore's study was "off limits" to her, and it was undisputed that Moore, as she put it, "always kept it locked."

On or about April 9, 2002, while traveling to New York from Tennessee, Moore and Sines had an argument, and Moore threatened to kill Sines. Shortly after their return two days later to Moore's home in Delaware County, New York, Sines decided to move out and had begun to pack her belongings when she discovered that her helmet and snorkeling equipment were missing. Sines "went upstairs to see what had been going on upstairs in the last two days," suspecting that Moore had moved her effects. Upstairs, she noticed two new locks on the door to Moore's study. Thinking that her missing equipment might be in Moore's study, Sines cut the locks with a bolt cutter.

Sometime thereafter, Sines received a telephone call from an unidentified caller. Fearing that it might be Moore and that he could be en route to his home and bent on violence, Sines called the Delaware County Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department dispatched Deputies Andreno and Palmer to the scene.

Upon their arrival, a "hysterical" Sines requested the Deputies' assistance in retrieving her belongings from Moore's study.² She explained that she feared that Moore might return at any moment. She also informed the Deputies that she "wasn't allowed in th[e] [study] unless [Moore] was there" and that she had cut the locks off the door. She may also have informed them that the Deputies were likely to find marijuana in the study.

In the company of the Deputies, Sines entered the study and searched it, including by opening a desk drawer and rummaging in a closet. In both places, Sines discovered drugs and drug paraphernalia.³ The Deputies then seized the drugs.

On May 8, 2003, a state grand jury indicted Moore on two counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree and one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth degree. On February 9, 2004, the county court, after suppressing the evidence taken from the scene, dismissed the indictment.

Moore then filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York against, principally,⁴ Deputies Andreno and Palmer, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985, and state law. The gravamen of his complaint is that the Deputies' entry into his study and seizure of his drugs violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Moore does not dispute the legality of the Deputies' entry into his home; he contests only the narrower, and more nettlesome, question of their entry into and search of his study. Cf. United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 726, 104 S.Ct. 3296, 82 L.Ed.2d 530 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring).

Defendants Andreno and Palmer moved for summary judgment, arguing in the alternative that their search of the study was not unconstitutional or, if it was, that they were nevertheless entitled to qualified immunity.

The district court (Thomas J. McAvoy, Judge) first considered whether Moore had properly alleged a constitutional violation. The district court inquired whether Sines had actual or apparent authority to consent to a search of the study, or whether other exigent circumstances justified the search. The district court noted that "[a] third party may validly grant the requisite consent if she has joint access or control of the property for most purposes," Moore v. Andreno, No. 3:05-cv-0175, 2006 WL 2008712, at *3 (N.D.N.Y. July 17, 2006), and acknowledged that generally when "co-occupants are residing together not as mere roommates, but as part of an intimate relationship, social expectations are that the co-occupants of the home enjoy full access to the entire home," id. at *6. The district court nevertheless concluded that "a fair-minded trier of fact could reasonably conclude that [Moore] maintained exclusive control over the study and that Sines did not have actual, apparent, or implied authority to consent to entry into that room." Id. at *7. The district court likewise held that exigent circumstances could not justify the Deputies' entry into the study. Although Sines had complained to the Sheriff's Department of possible domestic violence, her allegations, the district court explained, were stale: they "pertained to conduct that occurred several days earlier. . . . There was nothing urgent or imminent." Id. at *10. The district court therefore held that Moore had "established a colorable claim of a constitutional violation." Id. at *7.

The district court next considered whether the Deputies were entitled to qualified immunity, and denied it. The district court held that "[i]t was clearly established at all times relevant hereto that third-party consent is valid" only under certain, well-defined circumstances. Id. at *8. Without extended discussion, the district court also held that no reasonable officer could have believed that exigent circumstances justified the search. Id. at *11. The Deputies appealed.

DISCUSSION

The Deputies argue that the district court misapplied the law governing third-party consent searches and searches predicated upon exigent circumstances. First, the Deputies contend that the "lower court erred when it concluded that the Deputies could not reasonably have believed that Sines had the authority to enter into [Moore's] study." Appellants' Br. at 20. Second, they liken their behavior to that of the officers in United States v. Miller, 430 F.3d 93 (2d Cir.2005), who believed that the area they searched harbored an individual posing a danger to others on the scene; on the basis of this comparison, they urge us to reverse the district court's conclusion that exigent circumstances did not justify the search of Moore's study.

The Deputies also argue that the district court improperly denied them qualified immunity. Whether or not the search of Moore's study was unconstitutional, they say, it was not so egregious a constitutional violation that reasonable minds could not differ as to its putative legality, especially in light of the confusion in the law surrounding the scope of co-occupants' authority to consent to searches of shared premises.

As a general rule, the denial of summary judgment is not immediately appealable. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291. "Under the collateral order doctrine, however, [we will review] the denial of a qualified-immunity-based motion for summary judgment . . . to the extent that the district court has denied the motion as a matter of law." O'Bert ex rel. Estate of O'Bert v. Vargo, 331 F.3d 29, 38 (2d Cir.2003). Unlike in most such appeals, however, the plaintiff here has not filed a statement of material facts, and so, like the district court, we are unable to accept his facts for purposes of deciding whether the Deputies may properly invoke qualified immunity. Cf. Salim v. Proulx, 93 F.3d 86, 91 (2d Cir.1996) (permitting immediate appeal when defendants accepted plaintiff's version of the facts).

Nevertheless, our appellate jurisdiction over this case is not in doubt. The district court's holding that the law governing third-party consent searches was clearly established is a conclusion of law and is thus immediately appealable. See Proulx, 93 F.3d at 89(noting that the collateral order rule is "easy to apply" when a defendant challenges a denial of qualified immunity on the argument "that the district court erred in ruling that the law the defendant is alleged to have violated was clearly established"). Moreover, while we think it a closer question, the district court's conclusion that "it cannot be said that the Deputies acted reasonably under the circumstances" is also immediately appealable. Moore, 2006 WL 2008712, at *9. The district court's...