Suarez v. Town of Ogden Dunes, Ind.
| Decision Date | 11 September 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 08-2544.,08-2544. |
| Citation | 581 F.3d 591 |
| Parties | Barbara J. SUAREZ and William G. Suarez, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. TOWN OF OGDEN DUNES, INDIANA; Officers Robert Trowbridge, Harold McCorkel, Kevin Hughes, Ken Tomasko, William Smith, and Joseph Radic, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
v.
TOWN OF OGDEN DUNES, INDIANA; Officers Robert Trowbridge, Harold McCorkel, Kevin Hughes, Ken Tomasko, William Smith, and Joseph Radic, Defendants-Appellees.
[581 F.3d 593]
April L. Board (argued), Attorney, Merrillville, IN, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Thom W. Kramer (argued), Attorney, Buoscio, Pera, Kramer & Nowak, Merrillville, IN, Matthew S. Clark (argued), Attorney, Knight, Hoppe, Kurnik & Knight, Des Plaines, IL, Ronald J. Semler (argued), Attorney, Stephenson, Morow & Semler, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before FLAUM, WILLIAMS, and TINDER, Circuit Judges.
TINDER, Circuit Judge.
A nasty confrontation between various law enforcement officials and Barbara Suarez and her son William resulted in the Suarezes' arrest. The officers entered the Suarez home late at night with a search warrant they had obtained based on evidence that an underage drinking party was taking place at the house. Barbara was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile and William was charged with consumption by a minor, resisting arrest, and battery of a law enforcement officer. William pleaded guilty to the consumption and battery charges; the charges against Barbara were dropped.
After the termination of their criminal proceedings, the Suarezes filed a § 1983 action against a multitude of defendants. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Suarezes' claims fell into two basic types. First, they alleged that the search of their house and their arrests violated the Fourth Amendment. Second, William alleged that the police used unnecessary force when they arrested him. All of the defendants were awarded summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment claims. Most defendants were similarly granted summary judgment on the excessive force claim, except for officers Tomasko, Smith, and Radic, who prevailed at a jury trial. The Suarezes appeal the denial of summary judgment on the illegal search and arrest claims and raise an evidentiary issue arising from the excessive force trial. They limit their appeal to their claims against the town of Ogden Dunes and six individual officers from the variety of law enforcement entities responsible for the Indiana Dunes environs.
On the night of his high school graduation in June 2003, William Suarez had a
party at his parents' house in Ogden Dunes, Indiana. The party was apparently typical for the area: a group of teenagers gathered around a bonfire, drinking beer on the beach behind the Suarez home. At 11:00 p.m. Robert Trowbridge of the Ogden Dunes Police Department pulled up in front of the Suarez home to ticket one of the kids, Gerald Bardeson, for parking on the road with an invalid permit. After speaking with Bardeson, Trowbridge let him off without a ticket (despite noticing alcohol on Bardeson's breath) and noted that there appeared to be underage drinking taking place at the home. While he talked with Bardeson, he was verbally abused by the partygoers.
Trowbridge pulled to the end of the road and as he stopped there, several youths jumped on the trunk of his car. He believed that these youths were from the Suarez party, but there was at least one other party involving teenagers taking place on the beach that night. He drove by the house once more and was subjected to more verbal abuse. After leaving the house, Trowbridge believed he needed assistance dealing with the party and went to round up police reinforcements.
Bardeson, meanwhile, left for home after he spoke with Trowbridge. He felt the party was getting out of control and that everyone was going to end up in jail. Bardeson wasn't able to avoid the long arm of the Ogden Dunes law, however; Officer Trowbridge and his reinforcements descended on him after he parked at a tennis court across the street from his house. There, after Bardeson allegedly resisted arrest, he was pepper-sprayed, handcuffed, and possibly set upon by a K-9. Bardeson was trundled off to jail but his part in our story ends there. He pleaded guilty to a charge of being a minor consuming alcohol in order to put the whole incident behind him.
As Trowbridge and his reinforcements were rounding up Bardeson, William Suarez was wrapping up the party. He went outside, told everyone who was leaving to take off, put out the bonfire, and invited nine of his friends to stay the night. The town had a beach curfew of midnight, so this was when parties usually ended. But, Barbara Suarez also had a bad feeling that Trowbridge would be back to cause trouble, so she had the kids come upstairs to sleep in her room (she was also concerned about their continued access to alcohol, which she alleges she discovered they were drinking after the party broke up).
After arresting Bardeson, Trowbridge returned to the Suarez house with at least eight to ten squad cars. (It must have been a slow night for law enforcement in the Ogden Dunes area.) When the police arrived at 11:53 p.m., there were no kids in the street or the yard but there were still multiple cars parked around the residence. Some of these cars were in the driveway, which held up to six cars. Others had valid temporary parking passes and were parked on the road in front of the house. Believing that the party was continuing in the house, Trowbridge called a local judge for a search warrant.
The judge heard the following facts in Trowbridge's application for the warrant: Trowbridge reported that he "came across a whole bunch of kids" standing in the driveway of the Suarez home when he was issuing a ticket for an illegally parked car. After deciding not to issue the ticket, he was turning around to leave when "a few of the kids approached the squad car and jumped on the roof and got up on the trunk of the car." The kids "come [sic] back three more times and jumped on the car and the hood again." He testified that when he went to chastise the kids, there was a group "screaming and yelling and laughing in the driveway" and he decided
to go get backup. After backup arrived, "we found three bottles, containers of (unintelligible)1 around the house. All the kids retreated into the home." Responding to the judge's question, Trowbridge testified that the bottles "were laying in the backyard," that the children "looked anywhere from sixteen to twenty," and he believed they had been consuming alcohol. He finally testified that he sought a warrant to go into the home and "determine the facts" and that "we shown [sic] the light through the window and could see kids hiding behind the couches." The judge issued a warrant authorizing entry into the Suarez home to search the premises.
At approximately 12:30 a.m., after the police knocked on the door (and possibly called the house) a disputed number of times, they broke down the door with a ramrod and arrested Barbara and William (after wrestling him out of the attic and pepper-spraying him). They breathalyzed the other boys at the house, arresting those who tested positive for alcohol.
After the disposition of their criminal cases, the Suarezes sued pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the search and subsequent arrests, because neither was supported by probable cause. William Suarez also alleged that the police had used excessive force in his arrest. The case was assigned by the parties' consent to a magistrate judge, who granted summary judgment for the defendants on the issue of probable cause and summary judgment to certain other officers on the excessive force claim. William Suarez's case against three officers proceeded to trial on the issue of police brutality, where the defendants prevailed. We now take up the Suarezes' appeal.
A. Was there probable cause for the search of the Suarez home?2
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, drawing all inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Steen v. Myers, 486 F.3d 1017, 1021 (7th Cir.2007). Summary judgment is only appropriate when "the evidence in the record shows no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Id. (citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)).
The Suarezes' illegal search claim depends on whether the police had probable cause to support a search of the Suarez home. Probable cause exists when "the known facts and circumstances are sufficient to warrant a man of...
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