Frasier v. Evans

• Decision Date: 29 March 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-1015,19-1015
• Citation: 992 F.3d 1003
• Parties: Levi FRASIER, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Denver Police Officers Christopher L. EVANS, #05151; Charles C. Jones, #04120; John H. Bauer, #970321; Russell Bothwell, #94015; John Robledo, Defendants - Appellants, The Rutherford Institute; First Amendment Legal Scholars; Cato Institute; American Civil Liberties Union; American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado; Institute for Justice; Electronic Frontier Foundation; National Police Accountability Project; The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; American Society of News Editors; The Associated Press Media Editors ; Association of Alternative Newsmedia; Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC; California News Publishers Association; Californians Aware ; the Colorado Broadcasters Association; the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition; The Colorado Independent; the Colorado Press Association; the Colorado Sun; Digital First Media, LLC ; The E.W. Scripps Company; First Amendment Coalition; First Look Media Works, Inc. ; Freedom of the Press Foundation ; Gannett Co., Inc.; The International Documentary Association; the Investigative Reporting Program; The Investigative Reporting Workshop; The McClatchy Company; The Media Institute; MPA – The Association of Magazine Media; The National Freedom of Information Coalition; The National Press Club ; The National Press Club Journalism Institute; National Press Photographers Association ; The New York Times Company; News Media Alliance; Online News Association; Radio Television Digital News Association ; Reporters Without Borders; Reuters; The Society of Environmental Journalists; Society of Professional Journalists; Tegna Inc.; The Tully Center for Free Speech; Vice Media LLC, Amici Curiae.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

992 F.3d 1003

Levi FRASIER, Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.Denver Police Officers Christopher L. EVANS, #05151; Charles C. Jones, #04120; John H. Bauer, #970321; Russell Bothwell, #94015; John Robledo, Defendants - Appellants,The Rutherford Institute; First Amendment Legal Scholars; Cato Institute; American Civil Liberties Union; American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado; Institute for Justice; Electronic Frontier Foundation; National Police Accountability Project; The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; American Society of News Editors; The Associated Press Media Editors ; Association of Alternative Newsmedia; Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC; California News Publishers Association; Californians Aware ; the Colorado Broadcasters Association; the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition; The Colorado Independent; the Colorado Press Association; the Colorado Sun; Digital First Media, LLC ; The E.W. Scripps Company; First Amendment Coalition; First Look Media Works, Inc. ; Freedom of the Press Foundation ; Gannett Co., Inc.; The International Documentary Association; the Investigative Reporting Program; The Investigative Reporting Workshop; The McClatchy Company; The Media Institute; MPA – The Association of Magazine Media; The National Freedom of Information Coalition; The National Press Club ; The National Press Club Journalism Institute; National Press Photographers Association ; The New York Times Company; News Media Alliance; Online News Association; Radio Television Digital News Association ; Reporters Without Borders; Reuters; The Society of Environmental Journalists; Society of Professional Journalists; Tegna Inc.; The Tully Center for Free Speech; Vice Media LLC, Amici Curiae.

No. 19-1015

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

FILED March 29, 2021

David C. Cooperstein, Assistant City Attorney, (Jamesy C. Trautman, Assistant City Attorney, with him on the briefs), Denver City Attorney's Office, Denver, Colorado, for Defendants-Appellants.

Elizabeth Wang, of Loevy & Loevy, Boulder, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Matthew R. Cushing, Adjunct Faculty, University of Colorado Law School, Boulder, Colorado, filed an amicus curiae brief for First Amendment Legal Scholars in support of Plaintiff-Appellee.

Mark Silverstein and Sara R. Neel, of American Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado, Denver, Colorado; and Anya Bidwell, of Institute for Justice, Austin, Texas; and Jay R. Schweikert and Clark M. Neily, III, of CATO Institute, Washington, D.C., filed an amici curiae brief for American Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, Institute for Justice, CATO Institute, in support of Plaintiff-Appellee.

Sophia Cope and Adam Schwartz, of Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, California, filed an amicus curiae brief for Electronic Frontier Foundation in support of Plaintiff-Appellee.

David Milton, Boston, Massachusetts; Eugene Iredale, Julia Yoo, and Grace Jun, of Iredale and Yoo, APC, San Diego, California, filed an amicus curiae brief for National Police Accountability Project in support of Plaintiff-Appellee.

Christopher F. Moriarty, John W. Whitehead, and Douglas R. McKusick, of The Rutherford Institute, Charlottesville, Virginia, filed an amicus curiae brief for The Rutherford Institute in support of the Plaintiff-Appellee.

Steven D. Zansberg, of Ballard Spahr, LLP., Denver, Colorado, filed an amicus curiae brief of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 38 media organizations in support of Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before HOLMES, KELLY, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges.

HOLMES, Circuit Judge.

After Plaintiff-Appellee Levi Frasier video-recorded Denver police officers using force while arresting an uncooperative suspect in public, one of the officers followed Mr. Frasier to his car and asked him to provide a statement on what he had seen and to turn over his video of the arrest. Mr. Frasier at first denied having filmed the arrest but ultimately showed the officer the tablet computer on which he had video-recorded it. He did so after an officer, Defendant-Appellant Christopher L. Evans, and four other members of the Denver Police Department, Officer Charles C. Jones, Detective John H. Bauer, Sergeant Russell Bothwell, and Officer John Robledo—the other Defendants-Appellants—surrounded him and allegedly pressured him to comply with their demand to turn over the video. Mr. Frasier contends that when he showed Officer Evans the tablet computer, the officer grabbed it from his hands and searched it for the video without his consent. Mr. Frasier has sued the five officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming they violated and conspired to violate his constitutional rights under both the First and Fourth Amendments. The officers moved the district court for summary judgment on qualified-immunity grounds, and the court granted them qualified immunity on some of Mr. Frasier's claims but denied it to them on others.

The district court, as relevant here, held that Officer Evans had reasonable suspicion to detain Mr. Frasier throughout their twenty-three-minute encounter because Mr. Frasier lied to him about filming the arrest, thereby potentially violating Colorado Revised Statutes § 18-8-111, which proscribes knowingly making certain false statements to the police. The court, therefore, granted Officer Evans qualified immunity on Mr. Frasier's claim that the officer illegally detained him in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and Mr. Frasier did not oppose granting summary judgment to the other officers on this claim. Officer Evans did not move for summary judgment on Mr. Frasier's claim that he illegally searched Mr. Frasier's tablet computer in violation of the Fourth Amendment, but the other officers did. The court granted them summary judgment because the record did not support a finding that they personally participated in the alleged search.

The district court, however, denied the officers qualified immunity on Mr. Frasier's First Amendment retaliation claim even though it had concluded that Mr. Frasier did not have a clearly established right to film a public arrest. The court held that the record nonetheless supported a finding that the officers actually knew from their training that people have a First Amendment right to record them in public. And the court ruled that officers are not entitled to qualified immunity when they knowingly violate a plaintiff's rights. The court also denied the officers qualified immunity on Mr. Frasier's civil-conspiracy claims on the ground that the record supported a finding that the officers, in surrounding him and allegedly demanding the video from him, had agreed to force him to submit his tablet computer to a search in violation of his First and Fourth Amendment rights. The officers now timely appeal from the district court's partial denial of qualified immunity. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we reverse .

I

A

We begin by setting forth the district court's findings of the facts that are supported by the summary-judgment record, when viewed in the light most favorable to Mr. Frasier, the non-movant. See Halley v. Huckaby , 902 F.3d 1136, 1143 (10th Cir. 2018) (observing that when "[w]e review the district court's denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity," we "apply[ ] the same standard as the district court" and, thus, "view[ ] the evidence ... in the light most favorable to the non-moving party"); accord Est. of Smart by Smart v. City of Wichita , 951 F.3d 1161, 1169 (10th Cir. 2020). We do so because "[t]he district court's factual findings and reasonable assumptions comprise the universe of facts upon which we base our legal review of whether defendants are entitled to qualified immunity." Sawyers v. Norton , 962 F.3d 1270, 1281 (10th Cir. 2020) (quoting Cox v. Glanz , 800 F.3d 1231, 1242 (10th Cir. 2015) ).

When the district court "concludes that a reasonable jury could find certain specified facts in favor of the plaintiff, the Supreme Court has indicated we usually must take them as true—and do so even if our own de novo review of the record might suggest otherwise as a matter of law." Sawyers , 962 F.3d at 1281 (quoting Est. of Booker v. Gomez , 745 F.3d 405, 409–10 (10th Cir. 2014) ); see Johnson v. Jones , 515 U.S. 304, 313, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995) (stating that we generally lack jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory challenge to "a district court's summary judgment order that, though entered in a ‘qualified immunity’ case, determines only a question of ‘evidence sufficiency,’ i.e. , which facts a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial"). With those limitations on the scope of our factual review in mind, we now turn to the facts that the district court found apply to the officers’ motions for qualified immunity at summary judgment.¹

On August 14, 2014, Detective Bauer of the Denver Police Department saw a silver car participate in a drug deal in a public parking lot in Denver, Colorado. He radioed for backup and followed the car to another public parking lot, where he approached the car, announced he was the police, and ordered the car's driver to show his hands. When the suspect did not obey the detective's order, the detective pulled him from his car and pinned him against it. At that point, Sergeant Bothwell arrived on scene to assist the detective.

The suspect removed a sock from his waistband and stuffed it in his mouth. The officers thought the sock contained contraband and ordered the suspect to "spit it out," but he refused to do so. The officers fell to the ground with the suspect as they tried to remove the sock from his mouth. Mr. Frasier stood nearby in the parking lot, and Detective Bauer asked him for help. After confirming that Detective Bauer was a police officer, Mr. Frasier agreed to help and briefly grabbed the sock. Before Mr. Frasier could assist the officers to a significant degree, however, other...