Barts v. Joyner

• Decision Date: 27 January 1989
• Docket Number: Nos. 87-3773,87-3868,s. 87-3773
• Citation: 865 F.2d 1187
• Parties: Scarlett McDaniel BARTS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mike JOYNER and Nelson Blount, individually and in their official capacities as Deputy Sheriffs of Jefferson County, Florida, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1187

865 F.2d 1187

57 USLW 2471

Scarlett McDaniel BARTS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mike JOYNER and Nelson Blount, individually and in their

official capacities as Deputy Sheriffs of

Jefferson County, Florida, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 87-3773, 87-3868.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Jan. 27, 1989.

Rehearing and Rehearing In Banc Denied March 1, 1989.

Julius F. Parker, Parker, Skelding, McVoy & Labasky, Tallahassee, Fla., for defendants-appellants.

Edward S. Stafman, Tallahassee, Fla., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

Before KRAVITCH and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges, and HOFFMAN ^*, Senior District Judge.

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

Because the record demonstrates no violation of a clearly established constitutional right, we reverse, in part, the judgment of the district court in this action based on 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983; and because the damages were not correctly limited, we vacate the remainder of the judgment and remand for a new trial on damages.

Background

Plaintiff Scarlett Barts lived with Billy and Virginia Floyd. Though not related to them, Barts referred to the Floyds as her parents. Billy Floyd and Barts were alone in the Floyd home one afternoon when he was shot and killed. Barts drove to a nearby highway patrol station and reported that her "father" had been shot by an unknown intruder, a black man. Barts then went to the hospital where Billy Floyd had been taken. Floyd's wife, daughter and two family friends were also at the hospital. Deputy Mike Joyner, wearing his deputy sheriff's uniform, spoke with Floyd's wife and daughter, who had apparently found Billy Floyd prostrate on the front lawn of the Floyd home shortly after the shooting. He then read Barts the Miranda warnings and questioned her regarding the shooting. Barts told Joyner the same story of an intruder entering the Floyd home and shooting her "father."

Later, while still at the hospital, Joyner again spoke to Barts and asked her if she owned a gun. Barts answered that she did and that she kept it in the glove compartment of her car. Barts agreed to let Joyner look at it. Joyner obtained the keys to the car and looked in the car for the gun, but the gun was not there. Barts told him that someone must have stolen it. Joyner called his superior, Captain Blount, who was investigating the scene of the shooting. Joyner repeated Barts' story and told Blount that "something didn't sound right." Blount told Joyner, "Y'all get back as quick as possible." Joyner took this statement to mean that Blount wanted Barts, apparently the only eyewitness to the shooting, and the other family members to go with Joyner for more questioning at the sheriff's station in the Jefferson County jail. Barts, Floyd's wife, Floyd's daughter and a family friend accompanied Joyner to the station.

Barts then was again read her Miranda rights, and Joyner and Blount questioned her for about three hours. Barts finally told Joyner that Floyd had come in while she was in the bathroom and started kissing her all over. She said that when she struggled with him he left. Barts admitted that she had shot Floyd when he came at her again. Defendants arrested Barts for the murder of Billy Floyd.

Barts was tried and convicted of second degree murder. Her attorney stated that she was unable to give him any details of the killing because she always became too upset. Barts served eight months of a twenty-five year sentence before her release on appellate bond. She finally was able to tell a psychologist and then her attorneys that she shot Floyd because he had raped her and she thought he was attempting to do so again. Barts was granted a new trial because of her inability to communicate with her attorneys due to Rape Trauma Syndrome and because of her corresponding incompetence to stand trial. Barts was acquitted at her second trial.

Barts brought an action under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 against Joyner and Blount individually and in their capacities as deputy sheriffs of Jefferson County, Florida alleging that Barts' detention and transportation to the sheriff's station was an unlawful seizure within the meaning of the fourth amendment. A jury awarded Barts damages of $175,000 from each defendant.

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Qualified Immunity

Appellants contend that they are entitled to qualified immunity because their conduct in March 1983 did not violate clearly established law. To the extent that defendants were sued in their individual capacities, we agree.

We begin our analysis of the qualified immunity defense with Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). The Harlow Court held that "government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Id. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d at 818. In so holding, the Court established an objective standard to make summary judgment and similar judicial decisions appropriate devices to "avoid excessive disruption of government and permit the resolution of many insubstantial claims...." Id.; see also Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528, 105 S.Ct. 2806 2816, 86 L.Ed.2d 411, 426 (1985) (issue of qualified immunity is question of law for courts to decide).

The Harlow decision sets up a bright-line test that is a powerful constraint on causes of action under section 1983. To defeat a qualified immunity defense, plaintiff bears the burden of showing that "the legal norms allegedly violated by the defendant were clearly established at the time of the challenged actions or, ... the law clearly proscribed the actions the defendant ... took." Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 528, 105 S.Ct. at 2816, 86 L.Ed.2d at 426. Plaintiff cannot discharge her burden simply by making general, conclusory allegations of some constitutional violation or by stating broad legal truisms. Rather, as the courts have plainly stated, plaintiffs must prove the existence of a clear, factually-defined, well-recognized right of which a reasonable police officer should have known. See Clark v. Evans, 840 F.2d 876, 880, 881 (11th Cir.1988). "The words 'clearly established ... constitutional rights' may not be used to read the defense of immunity out of federal tort law by the facile expedient of stating constitutional rights in the most general possible terms.... The right must be sufficiently particularized to put potential defendants on notice that their conduct probably is unlawful." Azeez v. Fairman, 795 F.2d 1296, 1301 (7th Cir.1986) (emphasis added). "[O]ur cases establish that 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." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (emphasis added). "[T]he qualified immunity defense ... provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L.Ed.2d 271, 278 (1986).

"General propositions have little to do with the concept of qualified immunity." Muhammad v. Wainwright, 839 F.2d 1422, 1424 (11th Cir.1987). The question in this case is not whether it is clearly established that unreasonable seizures are prohibited; they are. Nor is the question whether probable cause is necessary for a lawful warrantless arrest; it is. Nor is the question whether an involuntary trip to the police station can violate the fourth amendment; it can. The question in this case is far more sharply focused: in March 1983, was it clearly established in this circuit that it was an unconstitutional seizure for a single police officer--shortly after a murder--to have a person in a public place accompany him (along with other family members who were potential witnesses) to police headquarters for further questions, where the person had initiated contact with law enforcement officials by going to a police station to report the murder, had claimed to have seen the shooting and the assailant who was still at large, had remained in the officer's presence while willingly assisting with the investigation, and never objected to traveling to headquarters? The answer is "No."

Appellee relies chiefly on Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), as the case that makes clear that Joyner and Blount's conduct violated Barts' fourth amendment rights. In Dunaway, three police officers--acting on an informant's lead implicating Dunaway in a robbery/murder that had occurred five months earlier--picked up Dunaway at a neighbor's house, drove him to police headquarters and questioned him. Dunaway gave the police incriminating statements, and he was arrested. The Supreme Court determined that the police violated the fourth amendment when, without probable cause to arrest, they took Dunaway into custody, transported him to the police station, and detained him there for interrogation. Id. at 216, 99 S.Ct. at 2258, 60 L.Ed.2d at 838. The Court decided that Dunaway was "seized" when he was taken involuntarily to the police station. Id. at 207, 99 S.Ct. 2253, 60 L.Ed.2d at 832. In the circumstances of that case, the Court further observed that Dunaway's detention was almost indistinguishable from an arrest because he was not questioned briefly where he was found, was taken from a neighbor's home to a police station interrogation room, was never informed that he was free to go and would have been physically restrained if he had refused to accompany the officers. Id. at 212, 99 S.Ct. at 2256, ...