Cronin v. Peterson

• Decision Date: 18 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-1054,19-1054
• Citation: 982 F.3d 1187
• Parties: Timothy CRONIN, Plaintiff - Appellant v. Chris PETERSON, in his individual capacity; Tonya Peters, in her individual capacity; William Koepke, in his individual capacity; Daren Reynolds, in his individual capacity, Defendants - Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

982 F.3d 1187

Timothy CRONIN, Plaintiff - Appellant

v.Chris PETERSON, in his individual capacity; Tonya Peters, in her individual capacity; William Koepke, in his individual capacity; Daren Reynolds, in his individual capacity, Defendants - Appellees

No. 19-1054

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: September 24, 2020

Filed: December 18, 2020

Anthony Philip Lamb, Douglas L. Phillips, KLASS LAW FIRM, Sioux City, IA, for Plaintiff - Appellant.

Jocelyn Walsh Golden, CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Lincoln, NE, Jeffery R. Kirkpatrick, GOVERNMENTAL LAW, LLC, Lincoln, NE, for Defendants - Appellees.

Before KELLY, WOLLMAN, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

The Lincoln, Nebraska, Police Department received allegations that Lincoln police officer Timothy Cronin had purchased illegal steroids and interfered with another police department's investigation of a nutritional supplement

purveyor in Ohio. Cronin was thereafter interviewed; his home, police locker, police cruiser, and wife's vehicle were searched; and his blood and urine were taken and analyzed. Cronin later filed suit, alleging several claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. As relevant to this appeal, the district court¹ dismissed Cronin's claim that Sergeant William Koepke had unlawfully detained Cronin in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Cronin's Fourth Amendment claims that Koepke had unlawfully arrested Cronin; that Captain Chris Peterson and Legal Advisor Tonya Peters had omitted material facts from their warrant application; and that Sergeant Daren Reynolds had searched Cronin's wife's vehicle, which was not the vehicle identified in the search warrant. We affirm.

I. Background

In September 2015, the Lincoln Police Department received a complaint from the Nebraska Crime Commission alleging that a detective in Ohio believed that Cronin was interfering with the detective's investigation into alleged illegal steroid sales by a nutritional supplement

store owner in Powell, Ohio. The Ohio detective had seized the store owner's cellphone and discovered extensive text messages between the owner and a phone number associated with Cronin. Based on these text messages, the detective believed that Cronin had purchased illegal steroids for himself and a coworker and was impeding the detective's investigation by advising the store owner on how to frustrate interactions with the police. When Lincoln's assistant police chief contacted Cronin to advise him of the complaint, Cronin confirmed that he had a friend in Ohio whom Cronin had instructed to contact an attorney about issues with a search warrant related to the friend's business.

Meanwhile, Lincoln's police chief received the same complaint. He referred the matter to the internal affairs department, which contacted the Ohio detective. The detective described his investigation and provided copies of the text messages at issue. The text messages used terms that the detective believed showed the exchange of both legal and illegal steroids between Cronin and the store owner. The police chief then directed internal affairs to obtain an opinion on the text messages from Peterson, the Lincoln narcotics unit captain. Although Peterson's only steroid-specific training occurred prior to 1997 and totaled fewer than 5 hours, he had 25 years of police experience, which included 13 years of general narcotics experience. Peterson agreed with the Ohio detective, believing that the text messages’ terms, "ana," "anavar," "var," "pct," "clomid

," "nolvadex," "juice," and "light steroid," were associated with anabolic steroids, which are controlled substances under Nebraska law. Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 28-405, 28-416(3). Peterson also believed that Cronin's text messages about avoiding "gyno risk" by using "clomid" and "novadex" referred to steroids’ effect on testicle size.

Peterson, Legal Advisor Peters, the police chief, and the assistant police chief met to discuss Peterson's assessments. The police chief then directed the Lincoln narcotics unit to conduct a criminal investigation. Peterson met with two narcotics investigators, Sergeants Reynolds and Koepke, to begin the investigation. Reynolds went to Cronin's home to await consent to search it or the issuance of a warrant. Koepke headed to Cronin's substation to interview him. With Peters's assistance, Peterson began to draft search warrant affidavits for use if Cronin denied consent to various searches.

Koepke met with Cronin in a conference room at the substation. Although the exact timeline is disputed, the following events occurred during the next few hours: Koepke interviewed Cronin; the police obtained warrants to search Cronin's home, personal and police vehicles, police locker, and person based on affidavits prepared by Peterson and Peters; the police obtained Cronin's blood and urine samples; and Reynolds and another officer searched Cronin's home and Cronin's wife's Ford Escape. Although Cronin drove the Ford Escape to work every day and parked it in the police department lot, it was not the car identified in the search warrant. The police also later obtained a warrant and warrant extensions to search Cronin's cellphone. The investigation continued over the next few months, but no charges were ever brought against Cronin and he remained employed by the Lincoln Police Department.

II. Analysis

Qualified immunity shields a government official from liability in a § 1983 action unless the official's conduct violates "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Blazek v. City of Iowa City, 761 F.3d 920, 922 (8th Cir. 2014) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) ). Qualified immunity involves the following inquiries: (1) whether the facts, when "viewed in the light most favorable to [the plaintiff], establish[ ] a violation of a constitutional or statutory right," and (2) whether "the right was clearly established at the time of the violation, such that a reasonable official would have known that his actions were unlawful." Id. at 922-23 (citing Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) ) (qualified immunity standard on summary judgment); see also Lane v. Nading, 927 F.3d 1018, 1022 (8th Cir. 2019) (qualified immunity standard on dismissal). For Cronin "to establish a § 1983 claim for a Fourth Amendment violation, he must demonstrate [that] a search or seizure occurred[ ] and [that] the search or seizure was unreasonable." Clark v. Clark, 926 F.3d 972, 977 (8th Cir. 2019) (citing McCoy v. City of Monticello, 342 F.3d 842, 846 (8th Cir. 2003) ).

A. Unlawful Detention Claim Against Koepke

Cronin first argues that the district court erred in dismissing his claim that Koepke violated Cronin's Fourth Amendment rights when Koepke initially detained him in the substation conference room.

We review de novo the district court's order granting a motion to dismiss. Alexander v. Hedback, 718 F.3d 762, 765 (8th Cir. 2013). We accept the complaint's factual allegations as true and construe all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Id. Dismissal is appropriate if the complaint fails to plead sufficient facts to "state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). A police officer can "briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity ‘may be afoot,’ even if the officer lacks probable cause." United States v. Winters, 491 F.3d 918, 921 (8th Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989) ). In forming reasonable suspicion, an officer "may rely on information provided by other officers and all the information known to a team of officers involved in the investigation." United States v. Ortiz-Monroy, 332 F.3d 525, 529 (8th Cir. 2003) (citing United States v. Robinson, 119 F.3d 663, 666-67 (8th Cir. 1997) ).

Cronin's complaint alleged that his police work involved participating in narcotics investigations. It stated that the Lincoln Police Department had purportedly received a complaint alleging that Cronin had interfered with an Ohio investigation into a supplement store owner's alleged distribution of illegal steroids. See Kramer v. City of Jersey City, 455 F. App'x 204, 205–06 (3d Cir. 2011) (granting qualified immunity to members of the Jersey City Police Department who had taken JCPD officers into custody and required a urine sample after the New York City Police Department informed JCPD that some of its officers might be purchasing illegal steroids); see also Nat'l Treasury Emps. Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 670, 109 S.Ct. 1384, 103 L.Ed.2d 685 (1989) ("[T]he Government has a compelling interest in ensuring that front-line [drug] interdiction personnel ... have unimpeachable integrity and judgment."). The complaint further alleged that Peterson had received and reviewed copies of text messages between Cronin and his friend, the supplement store owner. It stated that Koepke was assisting Peterson in his investigation of Cronin. See United States v. O'Connell, 841 F.2d 1408, 1419 (8th Cir. 1988) ("[When officers] worked closely together during the investigation for the warrant[,]... we presume that the officers have shared relevant knowledge which informs the decision to seize evidence or to detain a particular person, even if the acting officer is unable to completely and correctly articulate the grounds for his suspicion at the time of the search." (internal citations omitted)). Although the complaint characterized the texts as "vague and ambiguous," it acknowledged that Cronin had purchased supplements.

Taken together, these facts do not establish that Koepke lacked sufficient reasonable and articulable suspicion that...