Bourgeois v. Strawn
| Decision Date | 31 August 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-10020-BC.,05-10020-BC. |
| Citation | 452 F.Supp.2d 696 |
| Parties | Roland J. BOURGEOIS, Plaintiff, v. Larn STRAWN, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan |
Fred L. Gibson, Clinton Township, MI, for Plaintiff.
James T. Farrell, Michigan Department of Attorney General, Lansing, MI, for Defendant.
This matter is before the Court on the defendant's motion for summary judgment. On January 24, 2005, the plaintiff filed a complaint alleging that he had been arrested in violation of the Fourth Amendment and applicable state law when defendant Larn Strawn, along with the other state law enforcement officials, executed an arrest warrant on another individual wanted for various livestock crimes. The plaintiff claims he is entitled to damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law. The defendant argues that the plaintiff is precluded from litigating the issue of probable cause because a preliminary hearing was held at which the plaintiff was bound over for trial on a finding that there was probable cause to believe the plaintiff resisted and obstructed officers. Alternatively, the defendant argues there was probable cause to believe that the plaintiff resisted and obstructed police officers and he was an accessory after the fact. The defendant asserts that even if there was no probable cause, he is shielded by qualified immunity. The Court heard the parties' arguments in open court on January 5, 2006. The Court now finds that the plaintiff is not estopped from litigating the issue of probable cause, questions of fact preclude a finding that the plaintiffs arrest was supported by probable cause as a matter of law, and the defendant is not protected by qualified immunity. Therefore, the motion for summary judgment will be denied.
The complaint filed in this case arises out of the search for and eventual arrest of Daniel Eichhorn, who is not a party to this case. Eichhorn apparently was under suspicion by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources ("DNR") for crimes against livestock. Eventually, a warrant was issued for his arrest. In searching for Eichhorn, defendant Lam Strawn, a conservation officer with the department, received a tip from individuals who stated that Eichhorn was residing, perhaps even hiding out, with the plaintiff, Roland J. Bourgeois. The defendant with other state officers went to the plaintiffs residence and ended up arresting both the plaintiff and Eichhorn. After a state magistrate conducted a preliminary examination, the plaintiff spent some seventy-one days in the Clare County, Michigan jail before a state circuit court judge, finding that the lower court erred in determining that there was probable cause to believe that the defendant committed a crime, quashed the criminal information for lack of evidence that the plaintiff had obstructed or resisted officers. The plaintiff claims in this case that the defendant lacked probable cause to arrest him and his arrest was in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The defendant asserts that there was probable cause and alternatively, his actions were protected by the doctrine of qualified immunity. The parties have discovered the following facts.
On November 26, 2003, the Isabella County, Michigan prosecutor's office issued a felony complaint and authorized a warrant for the arrest of Eichhorn. The six-count complaint charged Eichhorn with stealing livestock, maliciously destroying or injuring a white tail deer, being a felon in possession of a firearm, possessing a gun while committing the first two crimes, and two counts of taking deer, bears; and turkeys in violation of the Wildlife Conservation Act. The search for Eichhorn began two days later.
On November 28, 2003 at approximately 11:45 a.m., defendant Strawn was contacted by.a conservation officer named Strong, who advised the defendant that he had stopped Scott McKenzie and his brother for traffic violations. Officer Strong told Strawn that "he had information where the suspect, DANIEL EICHHORN, was at [sic]." Pl.'s Resp. Br. Ex. 5, Incident Report (Nov. 28, 2003). Thereafter, the defendant met with Strong at the scene of the traffic stop, and he asked Scott McKenzie if he had heard from Eichhorn recently, to which McKenizie replied that Eichhorn had contacted their mother several days ago, but she was very upset and did not want to talk to Eichhorn. Apparently the McKenzie brothers were also upset with Eichhorn and refused to speak with him.
McKenzie did tell Strawn that he knew where Eichhorn was staying, and he gave the officers directions to a house in Clare County on Gray Lake. Strawn then contacted his partner, DNR officer Jeremy Payne, and Isabella County sheriff deputy Douglas Fall, for help in apprehending Eichhorn. Fall stated he needed additional assistance, and Isabella County sheriff's deputy Scott Collett volunteered to go along.
The four officers proceeded to the location identified by McKenzie. They did not know who owned the residence and they did not have a search warrant. The house, of course, belonged to the plaintiff. Apparently, the defendant and Payne could identify Eichhorn, but the others could not.
Payne testified at his deposition that the house was small but otherwise unremarkable. He recalled that he positioned himself so "if you were looking straight at the house I was at the rear left of the house up on a hill" behind a tree. Pl.'s Resp. Br. Ex. 2, Payne dep. at 24. He was armed with his division-issued rifle. Payne related that from his location, he could hear "exactly" what the other officers were saying. Id. at 27.
Payne held his position for nearly thirty minutes. Then, he observed the other officers go around to the rear of the house. He could not see the back door from his vantage point.
According to deputy Fall, during this time, defendant Strawn and officer Collett moved to the side of the house, while Fall proceeded to the, front door. Fall testified that the door "was covered in plastic [and] had no door knob on it." Pl.'s Resp. Br. Ex. 7, Fall dep. at 32. He said that most of the windows were covered in plastic as well. Fall knocked on the front door and announced his presence. At first, Fall did not see any evidence of an occupant, but after five or ten minutes one of the other officers "shouted to me that they saw the blinds moving, or a curtain moving or something." Id. at 34.
Despite the curtain movement, Fall stated that it "was 20 to 30 minutes before somebody made contact with me, a person." Ibid. During that entire time, Fall testified that he continued knocking on the front door. Eventually, Fall spoke to a young girl who came to the door, although he was not able to see her entirely because he was looking through the door handle hole. Fall testified:
Q. What did this voice on the other side of the this opaque sheeting say to you?
A. "What do you want", or something along those lines.
Q. You of course told her?
A. Who I was and why I was there.
Q. You had warrants for Daniel Eichhorn.
A. Yes.
. . . . .
Q. You ha[d] communication with this younger female voice inside the house. What's the next thing you see, do, or hear?
A. I told her to call her folks; she said they weren't home. Then minutes later an adult comes to talk to me, a male.
The plaintiff testified at his deposition that the child was his daughter, and the child initially thought the plaintiff was not at home, but at her Aunt's home watching the Aunt's children. The child then found her father sleeping. According to the plaintiff, she informed him that the police were there and they were pointing guns at the house.
The plaintiff went to the front door and signaled the police to walk around to the back of the house. He then went to the back door. Fall confirmed that the plaintiff identified himself as Roland Bourgeois, the owner of the home, and asked Fall to meet him at the backdoor. Fall passed that information on to defendant Strawn.
Strawn testified that at that point he went to the front door:
Q. Who [sic] did you communicate with, if you can recall?
A. Mr. Bourgeois, I believe. At the time, I did not know who it was. He was peeking through a small corner of a window so I could really only see the lower portion of his face.
. . . . .
Q. Right.
A. And he did not open the door. He was leaning over to the corner of this window. Possibly, if I remember right, he had poked his head kind of in the corner and was talking to me.
Q. And even if he had opened the door, he would have to have pulled the sheeting off to get in the doorway anyways, right?
A. I don't remember sheeting, but yes, if there was sheeting there.
Q. The individual that was now talking to you, did he identify himself?
A. Not at that time, no.
. . . . .
Q. Did you believe that to be Mr. Eichhorn?
A. At the moment I did, because this gentlemen had facial hair that resembled Mr. Eichhorn's.
The defendant testified that he next asked the individual if Eichhorn was in the house, and Bourgeois replied, "yes." According to defendant Strawn, the plaintiff then
started talking to me about Mr. Eichhorn's involvement in the case or the indictment for the arrest warrants. He said we had the wrong person, we needed to talk to this other individual that was with him, and I basically told him to send Mr. Eichhorn out. And he said, no, Daniel will talk to one conservation officer, send a conservation officer in. And, again, I said, no, send Daniel Eichhorn out. We're not going to send an officer in. He said, meet me at the back door, or meet us at the back door.
Id. at 35. The defendant then went to the back of the house along with deputy Fall. As he began moving toward the back of the house, he "yelled out to Deputy Collett...
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