Bellotte v. Edwards
| Decision Date | 11 January 2011 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 10-1115,Nos. 10-1123,s. 10-1115,s. 10-1123 |
| Citation | 629 F.3d 415 |
| Parties | Tametta BELLOTTE, Individually; E.B.; C.B., by and through their next friend and mother, Tametta Bellotte, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Tracy L. EDWARDS, Detective; P.G. Smith, Deputy; Keith Sigulinsky, Corporal, Ranson Police Department, formerly Unknown Defendant One; Adam Letts, Corporal, Charles Town Police Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Two; Robert Sell, Corporal, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Three; Kevin Boyce, Corporal, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Four; James Tennant, Deputy, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Five; Brandon Haynes, Deputy, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Six; Sam Smith, Patrolman, Charles Town Police Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Seven; Anthony Mancine, Patrolman, Charles Town Police Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Eight; Patrick Norris, Patrolman, Ranson Police Department, Defendants-Appellants, and Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P., Defendant, v. Samuel Joseph Bellotte, Third Party Defendant. Tametta Bellotte, Individually; E.B.; C.B., by and through their next friend and mother, Tametta Bellotte, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Tracy L. Edwards, Detective; P.G. Smith, deputy; Keith Sigulinsky, Corporal, Ranson Police Department, formerly Unknown Defendant One; Adam Letts, Corporal, Charles Town Police Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Two; Robert Sell, Corporal, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Three; Kevin Boyce, Corporal, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Four; James Tennant, Deputy, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Five; Brandon Haynes, Deputy, Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Six; Sam Smith, Patrolman, Charles Town Police Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Seven; Anthony Mancine, Patrolman, Charles Town Police Department, formerly Unknown Defendant Eight; Patrick Norris, Patrolman, Ranson Police Department, Defendants-Appellees, and Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P., Defendant, v. Samuel Joseph Bellotte, Third Party Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Jason Patrick Foster, Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, Martinsburg, West Virginia, for Appellants/Cross-Appellees. Thomas E. Carroll, Carroll & Turner, PSC, Monticello, Kentucky, for Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
Before WILKINSON, GREGORY, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, dismissed in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge GREGORY joined. Judge WYNN wrote a separate opinion dissenting in part.
In this case, police officers executed a late-night, no-knock entry into a family's home. Though the officers claim that exigent circumstances justified their conduct, we agree with the district court that the remarkably scanty rationale offered for the no-knock invasion makes an award of qualified immunity inappropriate. With respect to the denial of qualified immunity on plaintiffs' other claims, we affirm in part and reverse in part, and dismiss the cross-appeal for want of jurisdiction.
On May 31, 2007, Sam Bellotte printed some photographs from a memory card at a self-service station in a Winchester, Virginia Wal-Mart. When he went to pay for the prints, a clerk insisted on inspecting the photos. Mr. Bellotte admitted that some contained nudity and surrendered them, then made other purchases and left the store.
The Wal-Mart employees charged with discarding the photos noticed one depicting male genitalia seemingly next to a child's face. Concerned that the photograph was child pornography, the employees notified the Frederick County police. An investigation of the surveillance camera footage and credit card receipts showed that Mr. Bellotte, a resident of Jefferson County, West Virginia, had printed the photo in question. A Frederick County police officer placed the photo in a file container and notified the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, which then took responsibility for the investigation. After reviewing the file, verifying Mr. Bellotte's address, and learning that both Mr. and Mrs. Bellotte held concealed carry permits, Detective Tracy Edwards sought a search warrant for the Bellotte residence. Around 9:00 that evening, the magistrate reviewed the application and signed the warrant.
In order to execute the warrant, Detective Edwards sought and received approval from the ranking Jefferson County law enforcement officer for the assistance of the Jefferson County Special Operations Team ("SORT Team"). The SORT Team leaders decided that their involvement was justified due to the possibility of a violent reaction from Mr. Bellotte and the concealed carry permits held by both Mr. and Mrs. Bellotte. After the three SORT squads were assembled and briefed, they arrived at the Bellotte residence around 10:15 p.m.
The three squads took positions around the house, wearing tactical vests and helmets and armed with flashlight-equipped .45 caliber Sig Sauer pistols and "hooligan" pry bars for a possible forced entry. Then, the Bellottes claim, the SORT squads opened the unlocked front and rear doors without knocking or announcing their presence. They immediately executed a dynamic entry—a technique that the SORT Team had recently been trained in—by which all squads simultaneously rushed into the home from multiple entry points. After the SORT squads were inside the house, they repeatedly identified themselves as law enforcement officers executing a search warrant.
The first member of the family to encounter the SORT Team was E.B., the Bellottes' teenage son. When the officers found him upstairs walking out of his bedroom and talking on a cell phone, they subdued and handcuffed him. E.B. asserts that the officers also poked a gun at the back of his head. In another bedroom, the team found C.B., the Bellottes' young daughter, and led her downstairs unhandcuffed.
When the SORT Team came to the parents' bedroom, Tametta Bellotte raced outof bed and ran screaming toward the closet. When she reached for a gun bag, the officers forced her to the ground and handcuffed her. Later, when the house was secured, the SORT Team allowed Mrs. Bellotte to get fully dressed under the supervision of a female officer. The search of the Bellotte residence concluded shortly before midnight.
Mr. Bellotte, it turns out, had spent that night in his hunting cabin in Hampshire County, West Virginia. The next morning, when his wife told him what happened, he went to see Detective Edwards at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. He gave a recorded statement and later produced a passport and birth certificate showing that the female in the photo was not a child, but in fact a 35-year-old woman who lived in the Philippines. Thus Mr. Bellotte did not in fact possess any child pornography, and no charges were ever filed against him.
Mrs. Bellotte and her children brought several causes of action against Detective Edwards and the officers involved in the search under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law. On December 28, 2009, the district court granted in part and denied in part defendants' motion for summary judgment. The court dismissed plaintiffs' claims inasmuch as they alleged that the search warrant was invalid and that certain aspects of the execution of the warrant were unreasonable. The court did find, however, that the defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity from the plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims regarding the no-knock entry and excessive use of weapons. Finally, the court allowed the plaintiffs' state-law claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress to proceed as well. The officers appealed the partial denial of qualified immunity, and the Bellottes cross-appealed the partial grant of summary judgment on their search warrant and warrant execution claims.
The district court granted summary judgment to the officers on the Bellottes' claims that the hour of the evening chosen for the search and the decision to have the SORT Team present during the search were unreasonable, and those claims are not before us on this appeal. Instead, we address here the narrow question whether the officers are entitled to qualified immunity with respect to the Bellottes' no-knock entry claim. The officers offer two reasons. They first argue that the no-knock entry did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it was justified under the circumstances. The officers also assert that the entry did "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, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). But the thin justification offered here renders this particular entry a violation of clearly established Fourth Amendment law governing the obligation to knock and announce.
The knock-and-announce requirement has long been a fixture in law. Gould v. Davis, 165 F.3d 265, 270 (4th Cir.1998). Before forcibly entering a residence, police officers "must knock on the door and announce their identity and purpose." Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 387, 117 S.Ct. 1416, 137 L.Ed.2d 615 (1997). This requirement serves the valuable ends of "(1) protecting the safety of occupants of a dwelling and the police by reducing violence; (2) preventing the destruction of property; and (3) protecting the privacy of occupants." Bonner v. Anderson, 81 F.3d 472, 475 (4th Cir.1996).
Though the "knock and announce principle forms a part of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry,"Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 930, 115 S.Ct. 1914, 131 L.Ed.2d 976 (1995), no-knock entries may still be reasonable by virtue of exigent circumstances, see United States v. Kennedy, 32 F.3d 876, 882 (4th Cir.1994). "In order to justify a 'no-knock'...
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... ... Even if the Defendants had raised one of these exceptions, however, it would not have been well-taken. See, e.g., Bellotte v. Edwards, 629 F.3d 415, 422 (4th Cir.W.Va.2011) (Wilkinson, J.) ([T]he constitutional standard of reasonableness demands a particularized basis ... ...
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