Cameron v. Dist. of Columbia

• Decision Date: 29 August 2022
• Docket Number: 21-cv-2908 (APM)
• Parties: ALEXANDER CAMERON et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

ALEXANDER CAMERON et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.

No. 21-cv-2908 (APM)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

August 29, 2022

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Amit P. Mehta United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

In August 2020, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) arrested Plaintiffs Alexander Cameron, Benjamin Tan, Destiny Robinson, Jonah Angeles, and Jake Oster, along with dozens of others, for alleged felony rioting in connection with the protests for racial justice following the murder of George Floyd. Upon their arrests, MPD seized Plaintiffs' cell phones. No Plaintiff was charged, however. Notwithstanding their non-prosecution, MPD took months to return the devices to some Plaintiffs. Others still have not received their property.

Plaintiffs filed this suit against Defendant District of Columbia (“the District”) as a putative class action, challenging what they contend is a customary practice by MPD to retain for an unreasonable period of time the cell phones of arrestees not charged with an offense. Plaintiffs assert claims under 40 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and a common law claim for conversion.

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The District moves to dismiss. Finding that Plaintiffs have failed to state claims under Section 1983 and declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs' conversion claim, the court grants the District's motion.

II. BACKGROUND

The court begins by summarizing the facts alleged. The court accepts these allegations as true for purposes of evaluating the motion to dismiss. Sickle v. Torres Advanced Enter. Sols., LLC, 884 F.3d 338, 345 (D.C. Cir. 2018).

On August 13, 2020, Plaintiffs joined dozens of people marching “for police reform and racial justice.” Compl., ECF No. 1 [hereinafter Compl.], ¶ 2. When demonstrators reached the Adams Morgan neighborhood, MPD officers approached and surrounded them in “a confined area, using a tactic known as ‘kettling.'” Id. ¶ 3. MPD arrested all 40-plus demonstrators for alleged felony rioting. Id.; Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 19 [hereinafter Def.'s Mot], Def.'s Mem. of P. & A. in Supp. of Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 19-1 [hereinafter Def.'s Mem.], at 1. Plaintiffs and other arrestees were held for up to 36 hours until the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia (“USAO”) “no-papered” their cases, that is, declined to file formal charges. Compl. ¶ 3. Plaintiffs and others then tried to retrieve the personal effects MPD had seized from them at the time of their arrests. Id. ¶ 4. But MPD refused to release nearly all of the arrestees' cell phones. Id.

Four days later, an attorney for Plaintiffs reached out to the USAO seeking return of the mobile devices and other seized property. Id. ¶ 25. The USAO directed him to contact MPD instead. Id. ¶ 26. Counsel then made multiple contacts with MPD officials. Id. ¶ 27. It took nearly two weeks for him to get a response. Id. On August 27, 2020, Detective Nicole Copeland informed him in an email that the incident was being “actively investigat[ed]” and that MPD may still seek search warrants for the phones. Id. Putative class members continued to make calls to

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MPD's Evidence Control Division and property clerks at various precincts over the course of many months, but they were unsuccessful in recovering their phones. Id. ¶ 31.

Eventually, some Plaintiffs turned to the courts. Plaintiffs Cameron, Robinson, and Tan filed motions in D.C. Superior Court for return of their property under D.C Superior Court Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g). Id. ¶ 32. That rule provides that “[a] person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property or by the deprivation of property may move for the property's return.” D.C. SUPER. CT. R. CRIM. P. 41(g). The no-papering of Plaintiffs' cases meant that they were not assigned criminal docket numbers of their own, so they filed their motions in the only active criminal matters relating to the August 13, 2020 demonstrations. Id. ¶ 33. Court staff informed them that this was error and directed Plaintiffs to re-submit motions under their own captions for each to be evaluated as a “sealed, standalone noncriminal case for administrative purposes.” Id. ¶ 34. Plaintiffs did so on March 18, 2021. Id. ¶ 36. Soon after, an Assistant U.S. Attorney filed the forms required for the phones' release, but Plaintiffs' counsel did not learn of the filing until May 4, 2021. Id. Even then, MPD did not return Plaintiff Cameron's phone to him until May 26, 2021, and Plaintiff Tan's phone to him until June 21, 2021. Id. ¶¶ 37-38. Plaintiff Robinson still had not received her phone at the time of this suit's filing in November 2021. Id. ¶ 40. Plaintiffs Angeles and Oster did not file return-of-property motions in D.C. Superior Court; despite multiple contacts with MPD, they still have not had their phones returned to them. Id. ¶ 41. MPD held on to an additional thirty-odd phones of other arrestees for the next fourteen months with no articulated timeline or prospect of eventually returning them. Id. ¶¶ 5-6.

Plaintiffs claim to have suffered financial and emotional harms resulting from MPD's failure to act promptly to return their property. Id. ¶ 85. Plaintiffs “were forced to replace their phones, and some class members incurred contract and data charges” despite not possessing the

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devices. Id. ¶ 43. Plaintiff Cameron feared that police were using his messages and photos to “attempt[] to monitor protest activity.” Id. ¶ 44. Other Plaintiffs worried MPD would use their devices to “collect information about Black Lives Matter activists.” Id. ¶¶ 45, 47-49. Plaintiffs also lost their ability to access photos, documents, work material, and various electronic accounts secured by two-factor authentication. Id. ¶¶ 43, 46, 47.

Plaintiffs' suit followed on November 4, 2021. Compl.^[1] They allege the “prolonged retention” of their devices is part of Defendant's “custom of retaining cell phones seized from arrestees, where officers have no basis to believe the” phones either are themselves contraband or can further law enforcement investigatory leads “for longer than is reasonably necessary.” Id. ¶ 51. In their Complaint, Plaintiffs offer other examples of the alleged custom, including the arrests and subsequent seizures of the phones of more than 200 individuals arrested protesting the inauguration of President Donald Trump on January 20, 2017. Id. ¶ 53(a).

III. LEGAL STANDARD

To withstand a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court must find that the complaint contains “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)) (internal quotation marks omitted). A claim is facially plausible when “the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). And “naked assertion[s] devoid of further factual enhancement” are not sufficient to support a complaint. Id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557). Factual allegations are not required to be “detailed,” but pursuant to

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the Federal Rules, they must be more than “an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). “Where the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged-but it has not shown-that the pleader is entitled to relief,” and the case can be dismissed. Id. at 679 (cleaned up) (citing FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a)(2)).

IV. DISCUSSION

A. Fourth Amendment Claim (Count I)

1. Legal Standard

Plaintiffs' primary claim under Section 1983 is that the District violated their Fourth Amendment rights through its custom of “unreasonably retain[ing] the[ir] phones for longer than necessary to serve a legitimate governmental purpose.” Compl. ¶ 80. Courts conduct a two-part test to determine whether a municipality like the District is liable to a plaintiff for a constitutional violation. Baker v. District of Columbia, 326 F.3d 1302, 1306 (D.C. Cir. 2003). First, the court considers “whether the complaint states a claim for a predicate constitutional violation.” Id. Next, the court evaluates “whether the complaint states a claim that a custom . . . of the municipality caused the violation.” Id. (citing Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978)). Plaintiffs must plausibly plead both elements to survive the District's motion to dismiss.

2. Plaintiffs' Challenge to the District's Failure to Return Cell Phones

The court begins with whether Plaintiffs have stated a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The District says that they have not. Lacking on-point D.C. Circuit precedent, the District relies on a host of cases from other Circuits that stand for the proposition that the prolonged retention of property whose initial seizure is lawful “does not sound in the Fourth Amendment.” Def.'s Mem. at 9. Plaintiffs do not quarrel with the District's description of these cases. Plaintiffs instead call

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them “outliers.” Pls.' Opp'n at 11. According to them, these cases “are not only incompatible with Supreme Court decisions, but also conflict with other opinions within their respective circuits.” Id.

Plaintiffs' characterization of the state of the law is wrong. Every single Circuit that has either squarely ruled on or briefly considered this issue has found that the prolonged retention of lawfully seized property does not implicate the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable seizures. The cases cited by the District-from the First, Second, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits-are all on point. Def.'s Mem. at 9 & n.4. In Denault v....