Taylor v. Waters

Decision Date10 April 1996
Docket NumberNo. 95-1980,95-1980
Citation81 F.3d 429
PartiesClarence I. TAYLOR, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. David K. WATERS, Individually, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Newport News. James E. Bradberry, Magistrate Judge. (CA-94-63-4).

ARGUED: John Adrian Gibney, Jr., Shuford, Rubin & Gibney, P.C., Richmond, Virginia, for Appellant. Sa'ad El-Amin, El-Amin & Crawford, P.C., Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before HALL, WILKINS, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Reversed and remanded with instructions by published opinion. Judge WILKINS wrote the opinion, in which Judge HALL and Judge WILLIAMS joined.

OPINION

WILKINS, Circuit Judge:

Clarence I. Taylor, Jr. brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West 1994), alleging that Investigator David K. Waters deprived him of rights guaranteed under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments by arresting him without probable cause and by failing to disclose exculpatory evidence to the prosecutor in a more timely manner. 1 Investigator Waters appeals the refusal of the magistrate judge 2 to grant his motion for summary judgment. Because we conclude that the officer is entitled to qualified immunity on Taylor's § 1983 claims, we vacate the decision of the magistrate judge and remand with directions to enter judgment in favor of Investigator Waters. Further, since all of the federal claims have been rejected, we direct the magistrate judge to dismiss without prejudice the remaining state-law claims.

I.

Viewed in the light most favorable to Taylor, the record demonstrates the following. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). In 1989 or 1990, Investigator Waters learned that a Jamaican individual named "Harold," later identified as Harold Duncan, was converting cocaine into cocaine base at a specified address in Williamsburg, Virginia and, using this location as a base of operation, was distributing the illegal drugs from his automobile. In April 1992, an informant provided Investigator Waters with details concerning Duncan's distribution from his automobile of drugs processed at his residence. An investigation of the automobile tag number provided by the informant disclosed that Duncan resided at the same location that had earlier been identified to the officer. Relying on this information, police officers stopped Duncan's automobile, arrested him, and seized a quantity of cocaine. Soon afterward, Duncan admitted that he was a cocaine dealer.

Officers subsequently obtained a search warrant for Duncan's apartment because information indicated that additional quantities of drugs remained there. Upon arrival to execute the warrant, Investigator Waters encountered Taylor and learned for the first time that he was Duncan's roommate. In the kitchen, officers observed a pot on the counter with white residue on it and discovered a strainer that also appeared to have white residue on it. When questioned about the pot, Taylor explained that he had used it to make tea. The officers also found plastic bags with the corners removed--typical packaging material employed by cocaine distributors--and a brown envelope with a white powdery substance in it located in a trash can in a common area of the apartment. Additionally, a box of plastic bags was found in the refrigerator. In Taylor's room, police discovered more than $5,500 in currency, four uncashed paychecks totalling approximately $1,907 from Taylor's employment as a waiter, bank statements indicating balances in two accounts totalling in excess of $23,000, and $15 in Jamaican currency. Taylor informed police that he had lived with Duncan for 12 years, but stated that he did not know Duncan's occupation. In response to questions concerning whether he possessed any weapons, Taylor informed the officers that there was a hunting rifle in his closet; officers immediately seized this weapon. Armed with this information, Investigator Waters arrested Taylor on charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, see Va.Code Ann. § 18.2-256 (Michie 1988), possession of cocaine, see Va.Code Ann. § 18.2-250(A) (Michie Supp.1995), and possession of a firearm while illegally possessing cocaine, see Va.Code Ann. § 18.2-308.4(A) (Michie Supp.1995). Investigator Waters obtained arrest warrants and served them on Taylor later that evening, April 29, 1992.

Further investigation, however, failed to provide additional evidence of Taylor's guilt. Soon after the arrest, Duncan informed Investigator Waters that Taylor was not involved in the offenses, and the informant who had identified Duncan reported that she had no knowledge of Taylor. On May 27, 1992, police officers executed a search warrant for the apartment and Taylor's automobile; although officers seized over 70 items in the search, no inculpatory evidence was obtained. And, a report completed June 12, 1992 disclosed that laboratory analysis of the residue on the kitchen utensils failed to reveal the existence of narcotics. Only the brown envelope located in the kitchen trash contained cocaine residue. Prior to the preliminary hearing, Investigator Waters reviewed this evidence with the prosecutor assigned to the case. The charges against Taylor subsequently were declared nolle prosequi on July 3, 1992--approximately two months after his arrest--immediately before the preliminary hearing.

Thereafter, Taylor brought the present § 1983 action against Investigator Waters, claiming that he had violated Taylor's constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. He also alleged state-law causes of action for malicious prosecution and negligence. Investigator Waters moved for summary judgment, asserting that viewed in the light most favorable to Taylor, probable cause had existed for the arrest and prosecution. Further, the officer maintained that even if probable cause did not exist, he was protected by qualified immunity because the information supporting the arrest was not so lacking that a reasonable officer could not have believed that probable cause existed for Taylor's arrest.

The magistrate judge denied the motion. The lower court reasoned that the circumstances known to Investigator Waters did not provide probable cause to believe that Taylor had committed any offense and that consequently Investigator Waters knew or should have known that he was violating Taylor's rights. The magistrate judge also ruled that Investigator Waters possessed an affirmative duty to notify prosecutors immediately of information that was exculpatory of Taylor and that the officer had failed to satisfy this obligation, instead simply allowing the prosecution to remain pending until the scheduled preliminary hearing when the charges were declared nolle prosequi. Finally, the magistrate judge denied summary judgment to the officer on Taylor's state-law claims. From this ruling, Investigator Waters appeals. 3

II.

A government official is entitled to qualified immunity from civil damages for performing discretionary functions when his "conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). This court has explained:

In analyzing the appeal of a denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, it is necessary first to identify the specific constitutional right allegedly violate[d], then to inquire whether at the time of the alleged violation it was clearly established, then further to inquire whether a reasonable person in the official's position would have known that his conduct would violate that right.

Gordon v. Kidd, 971 F.2d 1087, 1093 (4th Cir.1992) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Taylor's complaint is far from a model of clarity, rendering enigmatic an identification of "the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed by the challenged [conduct]." Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 394, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1871, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). His complaint simply claims that the facts alleged implicate rights protected by the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Accordingly, we address separately the two principal factual assertions alleged by Taylor.

A.

The parties agree that Taylor's claim that his arrest was not supported by probable cause alleges a deprivation of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. Although the right to be free from seizures not founded upon probable cause was well established prior to Taylor's 1992 arrest, see, e.g., Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 111-12, 95 S.Ct. 854, 861-62, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), defining the applicable right at that level of generality is not proper, see Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639-40, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038-39, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). Rather,

the right the official is alleged to have violated must have been "clearly established" in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.

Id. at 640, 107 S.Ct. at 3039 (citation omitted); see Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986) (Qualified immunity protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law."). Thus, we must consider whether the established contours of probable cause were sufficiently clear at the time of the arrest to make it plain to a reasonable officer that under these particular circumstances...

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