Evett v. Detntff
| Decision Date | 12 May 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-40686.,02-40686. |
| Citation | 330 F.3d 681 |
| Parties | Bobby EVETT; Christina Gee; Angela Gee, Individually and in behalf of Brandon Gee, a Minor, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. DETNTFF, Etc., et al., Defendants, Kent Graham, Nacogdoches County Sheriff; Ram Mendiola, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Curtis B. Stuckey (argued), Stuckey, Garrigan & Castetter, Nacogdoches, TX, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Robert Scott Davis (argued), Christi Johnson Kennedy, Flowers Davis, Tyler, TX, for Defendants-Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Before DeMOSS and STEWART, Circuit Judges, and LITTLE, District Judge.1
Plaintiff-Appellee Bobby Evett ("Evett") filed a civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against law enforcement officers Kent Graham ("Graham") and Ramiro Mendiola ("Mendiola") for unlawful arrest. Graham and Mendiola filed motions for summary judgment based upon qualified immunity, which the district court denied as a matter of law. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
In August 2000, members of the Deep East Texas Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force ("Task Force"), a state and local funded task force comprised of officers of several law enforcement agencies, obtained and executed a search and arrest warrant at the home of Angela and Richard Gee, Sr. ("Gee premises"). As a result of the search, a large number of weapons and methamphetamine materials were found. Richard Gee, Sr. ("Gee, Sr."), and his son Richard Gee, Jr. ("Gee, Jr."), were arrested for possession of a controlled substance.
On January 25, 2001, more than 20 members of the Task Force executed a second search and arrest warrant for the Gee premises based on probable cause to believe that the Gees were continuing to manufacture and sell methamphetamine. Among the officers executing the warrant were Sergeant Graham and Lieutenant Mendiola, both from the Nacogdoches County Sheriff's Department. Graham and Mendiola were Task Force supervisors. Mendiola was the senior supervisor during the execution of this warrant. At the time of the raid, there were 14 non-law enforcement persons present at the Gee premises. Among those present were Gee, Sr. and his wife Angela Gee; his son, Gee, Jr. and his girlfriend Tonya Jones, and their daughter Chelsea Gee; his son Brandon Gee; his daughter Christina Gee and her common law husband, Evett, and child Calley Evett; and a family friend, Angela Griffin ("Griffin").
Upon arriving at the Gee premises, members of the Task Force busted down the door with a battering ram, yelled at the occupants of the house to get down and kept their weapons aimed at the occupants until the premises was secured. Outside of the house, officers detained Evett and Brandon Gee at gun point as other officers secured the garage area. The raid lasted more than one hour and resulted in the arrest of Gee, Sr., Gee, Jr., Evett, and Griffin. There was no warrant for Evett's arrest, and ultimately no charges were filed against him.
Evett filed a civil rights complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Graham and Mendiola, among others, for unlawful arrest. In his complaint, Evett alleged that he and others were "terrorized" by law enforcement officers, among whom were Graham and Mendiola, who were conducting a raid on the premises. According to Evett, Mendiola was "the officer in charge" and was responsible for the supervision of all of the officers who participated in the raid. Evett asserted that Graham made the decision to arrest him for possession of a controlled substance with Mendiola's approval. Evett alleged that there were no outstanding warrants for his arrest and that Graham and Mendiola did not have probable cause to arrest him.
Graham and Mendiola pleaded qualified immunity as an affirmative defense in their answer to Evett's complaint. The district court ordered limited discovery on the facts relevant to the affirmative defense of qualified immunity. Subsequently, Graham and Mendiola filed a motion for summary judgment based upon qualified immunity.
In reviewing the evidence submitted by both parties on the issue of whether Graham had probable cause to arrest Evett, the district court noted that Graham submitted an affidavit and deposition testimony that drug residue and paraphernalia were located on the seat of Griffin's truck and that Graham received information that Evett had ridden in the truck with Griffin. The district court further noted that based on this information and the fact that both Griffin and Evett were at a "high-traffic clandestine methamphetamine lab," Graham testified that he believed that Evett was aware of the contraband in the truck and made the decision to arrest him.
According to the district court, however, Evett adduced evidence that he was told he would not be arrested unless there existed an outstanding warrant for his arrest. In addition, the court noted that Evett pointed to the testimony of Christina Gee to suggest that his arrest was not based on probable cause, but rather to "provide the proverbial slap in his father-in-law's face." According to the district court, " Further, the district court noted that the evidence showed that Graham arrested Evett after acting upon information he received "from an unsubstantiated source" who said Evett had ridden with Griffin in her truck where the contraband was found. However, according to the district court, the evidence indicated Evett told officers at the scene that he had never ridden in Griffin's truck.
The district court found that Evett's version of events was supported by the deposition testimony of officer Barry Vance ("Vance"), another law enforcement officer who participated in the raid. Vance, who is a member of the Lufkin Police Department, testified that he had searched Griffin's truck and questioned her, and that she told him she had come to the Gee premises by herself. Vance testified that he believed Griffin was being truthful with him. Vance also testified that he found methamphetamine and a hypodermic needle on the seat of Griffin's truck, but the hypodermic needle was in a closed opaque plastic makeup bag belonging to Griffin. The district court found that Vance had "conveyed this information to Sergeant Graham." The district court further noted that Graham stated in his deposition that Evett was released from jail the day after his arrest "for lack of probable cause because of the makeup bag," but that he could not remember whether Vance even talked to him about Griffin, or whether he knew about the makeup bag, before Evett's arrest.
Based on the evidence, the district court concluded:
Viewing the facts in a light most favorable to Plaintiff and assuming arguendo that Sergeant Graham lacked probable cause to arrest Plaintiff Evett, the Court finds, for purposes of this motion, that Sergeant Graham indeed violated Evett's constitutional right. The law could not be more clear that an individual has a clearly established right to be free from unlawful arrest. Therefore, the question remaining in this analysis is whether Defendant's conduct was objectively reasonable for qualified immunity purposes. The Court presumes that defendants' acts are objectively reasonable unless all reasonable officials in the defendants' circumstances would have then known that the defendants' conduct violated [Plaintiff Evett's] constitutional right.
The district court found that Graham's actions were not objectively reasonable. The court noted that "other reasonable officials in Sergeant Graham's circumstances believed, at the time of the arrest, that he lacked probable cause to make an arrest." The court examined the parameters of probable cause, defining it as having "reasonably trustworthy information that would cause a prudent person to believe that the suspect had committed or was committing a crime." The court pointed out that Graham had based his belief that Evett knew about the drug paraphernalia in Griffin's truck on information received from an officer whose identity he could not remember, and that Graham admitted that he did not know "[w]hether I could prove it in a court of law," but had a "feeling" that Evett knew about the contraband. The district court determined that Graham should have investigated further Evett's connection with the items in Griffin's truck, finding that if Graham had done so, he would have learned from Vance, who had questioned Griffin and searched her truck, that: (1) Griffin denied that Evett had been in her truck; (2) Vance believed that Griffin was telling the truth; and (3) the hypodermic needle was inside a closed makeup bag in Griffin's truck.
Furthermore, the district court found that Graham was not forced to make a "split-second decision" to arrest Evett. The court noted that the raid "lasted over an hour," giving Graham "plenty of time" to investigate further before making the arrest. The district court concluded that Graham lacked probable cause to arrest Evett and deemed Graham's failure to further investigate the facts related to Evett's connection with the controlled substance in Griffin's car to be objectively unreasonable. Consequently, the district court held that Graham was not entitled to the defense of qualified immunity as a matter of law on Evett's claim of unlawful arrest.
The district court then examined Evett's claims against Mendiola in his capacity as Graham's supervisor. The district court concluded that Evett had "little difficulty in establishing the existence of the causal connection between Defendant Mendiola, Sergeant Graham and the alleged unlawful arrest of Plaintiff Evett." The district court found that Evett had...
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