Buenrostro v. Collazo

Citation973 F.2d 39
Decision Date29 July 1992
Docket NumberNo. 91-2337,91-2337
PartiesLeonel BUENROSTRO, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Pablo COLLAZO, a/k/a Pablo Collazo Marrero, et al., Defendants, Appellants. . Heard
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

John F. Nevares, with whom Annabel Rodriguez, Sol. Gen., Reina Colon, Asst. Sol. Gen., Silvio Cancio, and Saldana, Rey & Alvarado Hato Rey, P.R., were on brief, for defendants, appellants.

Francisco A. Besosa, with whom Goldman Antonetti Ferraiuoli & Axtmayer, Santurce, P.R., was on brief, for plaintiffs, appellees.

Before SELYA and STAHL, Circuit Judges and SKINNER, * District Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellee Leonel Buenrostro, portraying himself as a victim of mistaken identity and misplaced zeal, sued a number of police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988). 1 The defendants unsuccessfully attempted to pretermit the suit on qualified immunity grounds. The district court denied their motion for summary judgment. We affirm.

I

Consistent with the method of Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), we take the record in the light most hospitable to the party opposing summary judgment and indulge all reasonable inferences favorable to him. See Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc., 895 F.2d 46, 48 (1st Cir.1990).

On March 29, 1988, the extradition squad raided Buenrostro's home, hauled him out, and arrested him pursuant to a "wanted person" request (WPR) from the State of New York. The police admittedly acted in the absence of an arrest warrant, a search warrant, or any exigent circumstances sufficient to justify the intrusion.

As a result of this arrest, appellee was handcuffed, taken to police headquarters, and locked in a cell. Subsequently, a local magistrate determined that there was probable cause to detain him while extradition proceedings ran their course. Despite a number of red flags--e.g., Buenrostro's claims that the probable-cause determination was based on false accusations mouthed by members of the extradition squad, his continuing protests of innocence, significant discrepancies between the description of the suspect mentioned in the WPR and Buenrostro's physical characteristics, and available (but unused) fingerprint evidence--Buenrostro remained immured in what the district court termed "horrific conditions" for thirty-one days. Finally, a more thorough examination of New York's extradition request was undertaken, and the Puerto Rican authorities admitted that they had arrested the wrong man. Buenrostro was released.

Not long thereafter, Buenrostro sued for damages. He alleged in his complaint that his constitutional rights had been infracted in various ways. He also asserted pendent claims. In due course, the appellants sought brevis disposition based on qualified immunity. When the district court denied their Rule 56 motion, Buenrostro v. Collazo, 777 F.Supp. 128 (D.P.R.1991), they filed this appeal.

II.
A.

Ordinarily, we would not entertain an immediate appeal from a denial of summary judgment. See, e.g., Fisichelli v. City Known as the Town of Methuen, 884 F.2d 17, 18 (1st Cir.1989); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (1988) ("[t]he courts of appeals ... shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts") (emphasis supplied). Nevertheless, the denial of a government actor's dispositive pretrial motion premised on qualified immunity falls within a narrow exception to the finality principle and is, therefore, immediately appealable. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 524-30, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2814-18, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); Roque-Rodriguez v. Lema Moya, 926 F.2d 103, 105 (1st Cir.1991); Fisichelli, 884 F.2d at 18. The window of opportunity, however, is tiny. "Notwithstanding that we have jurisdiction to review the denial of qualified immunity midstream, any additional claim presented to and rejected by the district court must independently satisfy the collateral-order exception to the final judgment rule in order for us to address it on an interlocutory appeal." Roque-Rodriguez, 926 F.2d at 105 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Domegan v. Fair, 859 F.2d 1059, 1061-62 (1st Cir.1988).

In this case, there is no other basis for earlier-than-usual review. It follows inexorably that, for present purposes, we must focus exclusively upon the question of whether the defense of qualified immunity, as invoked by the appellants, shielded them from liability for money damages, and from the concomitant burden of a trial, arising out of the alleged constitutional deprivation. See Roque-Rodriguez, 926 F.2d at 105-06.

B.

Appealability aside, appellate review of district court orders granting or denying summary judgment works the same way in qualified immunity cases as in other cases. See Morales v. Ramirez, 906 F.2d 784, 785 (1st Cir.1990); Amsden v. Moran, 904 F.2d 748, 752 (1st Cir.1990), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 713, 112 L.Ed.2d 702 (1991). Summary judgment is proper if "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show 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). District court orders granting or denying brevis disposition are subject to plenary review. 2 Griggs-Ryan v. Smith, 904 F.2d 112, 115 (1st Cir.1990); Garside, 895 F.2d at 48.

III
A.

Through the medium of qualified immunity, the law strives to balance its desire to compensate those whose rights are infringed by state actors with an equally compelling desire to shield public servants from undue interference with the performance of their duties and from threats of liability which, though unfounded, may nevertheless be unbearably disruptive. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 806, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2732, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Hence, state officials exercising discretionary authority are entitled to qualified immunity insofar as their conduct does not transgress clearly established constitutional or federal statutory rights of which a reasonably prudent official should have been aware. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738; Roque-Rodriguez, 926 F.2d at 107. In this context, the phrase "clearly established" has a precise definition: "The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987); accord Amsden, 904 F.2d at 752.

In analyzing a qualified immunity defense, a court must ascertain whether the plaintiff has alleged, with the requisite particularity, that a state actor violated some right emanating from federal law. 3 See Siegert v. Gilley, --- U.S. ----, ----, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 1793, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991); Amsden, 904 F.2d at 752. The next step is to ascertain whether the right at issue was "clearly established" at the time of infringement. See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. at 3039. If it was, an inquiring court can then presume that the defendant knew, or should have known, that his conduct was beyond the pale. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818-19, 102 S.Ct. at 2738-39; Amsden, 904 F.2d at 752.

B.

The protections of the Fourth Amendment are fundamental to the rights of all American citizens and apply unreservedly in Puerto Rico. See Torres v. Puerto Rico, 442 U.S. 465, 471, 99 S.Ct. 2425, 2429, 61 L.Ed.2d 1 (1979). That prophylaxis guarantees, inter alia, every person's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. See Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1379, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). Warrantless searches or seizures occurring within a person's home are "presumptively unreasonable," id. at 586, 100 S.Ct. at 1380--a postulate which was indelibly etched in jurisprudential granite at the time of Buenrostro's arrest. See id.; see also Santiago v. Fenton, 891 F.2d 373, 386 (1st Cir.1989) (discussing state of the law in 1983); Wagenmann v. Adams, 829 F.2d 196, 209 (1st Cir.1987) (similar).

Payton sends the clearest signal for our purposes. There, the Supreme Court held that a non-consensual, non-exigent, warrantless entry into a home to effectuate an arrest transgressed the Fourth Amendment, notwithstanding that probable cause sufficient to justify the same arrest in a more public arena may have existed. Payton, 445 U.S. at 590, 100 S.Ct. at 1382; see also Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 95, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 1687, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990) (describing Payton as holding "that a suspect should not be arrested in his house without an arrest warrant"); New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14, 17-18, 110 S.Ct. 1640, 1642-43, 109 L.Ed.2d 13 (1990) (Payton "drew a line" prohibiting police from entering a person's home without a warrant); United States v. Beltran, 917 F.2d 641, 642 (1st Cir.1990) (apart from exigent circumstances or a consensual entrance, the Constitution requires the police to obtain a warrant "before entering a person's home to make an arrest"). Absent some legally cognizable justification, then, appellants violated a clearly established constitutional right when they unceremoniously hauled the plaintiff from hearth and home.

C.

Appellants attempt to salvage their qualified immunity defense by asserting various justifications for their actions. They claim, first and foremost, that they had probable cause to believe that Buenrostro was a fugitive from justice and, hence, to arrest and detain him. That is not, however, the dispositive criterion. Probable cause, without more, cannot legitimate a warrantless entry into a suspect's home. See Olson, 495 U.S. at 95, 110 S.Ct. at 1687; Payton, 445 U.S. at 587-90, 100 S.Ct. at 1380-82.

Appellants' remaining contentions can be grouped. They contend that the wanted person request was the functional equivalent of an arrest warrant. 4 But it seems obvious to us that, in the context of seizing an individual within...

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