Gant v. Cnty. of L. A.
| Decision Date | 24 November 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. 12–56080.,12–56080. |
| Parties | Kelvin GANT, an individual; Reginald Lenard Smith; Jose Alexander Ventura, Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department; City of Los Angeles; City of Chino; Chino Police Department; County of San Bernardino; San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, Defendants–Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Donald W. Cook (argued) and Robert Mann, Mann & Cook Law Offices, Los Angeles, CA, for Plaintiffs–Appellants.
Michael Allen, Lawrence Beach Allen & Choi, P.C., Glendale, CA, for Defendants–Appellees County of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and City of Los Angeles.
Scott Eric Caron (argued), Lawrence Beach Allen & Choi, P.C., Glendale, CA, for Defendants–Appellees County of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and County of San Bernardino.
Lisa S. Berger, Deputy City Attorney, Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendant–Appellee City of Los Angeles.
Jules Solomon Zeman (argued), Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendants–Appellees City of Chino and the Chino Police Department.
James H. Thebeau (argued), Deputy County Counsel, County of San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA, for Defendants–Appellees County of San Bernardino and San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Gary A. Feess, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 2:08–cv–05756–GAF–PJW.
Before: SIDNEY R. THOMAS, MILAN D. SMITH, Jr., and MORGAN CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges.
This is a case of mistaken identity arising from the separate arrests and detentions of Kelvin Gant and Jose Alexander Ventura based on warrants intended for other people. Appellants filed over twenty federal and state law claims alleging that various defendants issued flawed warrants, improperly arrested them, or improperly detained them. The district court ruled against all of appellants' claims in orders granting defendants' motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We reverse the district court's judgment on Ventura's Fourteenth Amendment § 1983 claim against the L.A. County defendants and Ventura's Bane Act claim against the Chino defendants. We otherwise affirm the district court's rulings.1
The defendants in this case are the County of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (“the L.A. County defendants”), the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department (“the L.A. City defendants”), the City of Chino and the Chino Police Department (“the Chino defendants”), and the County of San Bernardino and the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department (“the San Bernardino defendants”).
Two arrest warrant systems are relevant to this appeal, and a brief explanation of both is necessary to understand the basis for appellants' claims. The first is the Wanted Persons System (“WPS”) operated and maintained by the California Department of Justice (“CDOJ”) to record and track warrants issued by California state courts. Any California law enforcement agency can query the WPS database, but only the agency that procured a warrant can update the entry for it. The second system is a separate County Warrant System (“CWS”) operated and maintained by L.A. County to track and record warrants issued by Los Angeles County courts. All Los Angeles County-based law enforcement agencies can query CWS, but, like WPS, only the agency that procures a warrant can update the entry for it in CWS.
Arrest warrants can contain a subject's name, date of birth, address, physical descriptors, and unique identifiers, including Social Security numbers and various fingerprint-based identification numbers. The CDOJ assigns a fingerprint-based Criminal Investigation and Identification (“CII”) number to its warrants. Los Angeles County agencies assign a fingerprint-based “L.A. Main” number to their warrants. CII and L.A. Main numbers can be used to generate an arrestee's criminal history, which can include the subject's full name, aliases, birth date, residential addresses, and Social Security and driver's license numbers. CII and L.A. Main numbers can also be used to generate a subject's arrest, prosecution, and conviction histories.
When a person is booked into a California jail, his or her through a process called “Live Scan.” The CDOJ typically responds after a few minutes in one of two ways. If the arrestee's fingerprints are already on file, the subject's CII number and criminal history are sent to the arresting agency. If the arrestee's fingerprints are not on file, the CDOJ assigns the arrestee a new CII number and informs the arresting agency.
I. Appellants' ClaimsA. Kelvin Gant
Kelvin Gant (“Gant”) has been arrested on warrants issued for his non-identical twin brother, Kevin Gant, between five and seven times.2 The claims Gant raised in this case stem from a mistaken arrest that occurred on April 29, 2008. Torrance police ran a warrant check in the course of questioning Gant about allegedly attempting to fraudulently obtain a refund for a movie ticket. The warrant had been obtained by the L.A. City defendants, who were responsible for inputting it into CWS. It named Gant's brother, “Kevin Thomas Gant” and included a CII number. Gant was arrested even though he showed the officer a “judicial clearance form” verifying that a warrant for “Kevin Gant” was not meant for him. Torrance police transferred Gant to the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.3 In the booking process, a Live Scan report was obtained. It showed that Gant had a different CII number than the warrant's subject, Kevin Gant. It also included “Kevin Thomas Gant” and “Kevin T. Gant” as aliases associated with Kelvin Gant's fingerprints. Gant was detained overnight and released the following day after a court appearance. Gant does not allege that he told the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department he had a judicial clearance form.
B. Jose Alexander Ventura
On December 13, 2007, a Chino police officer stopped Jose Alexander Ventura for a minor traffic violation. The first fifteen minutes of the stop were audio-recorded. An officer ran a warrant check and discovered an outstanding 1994 warrant obtained by the L.A. City defendants for “Jose Ventura.” 4 The police dispatcher described the warrant subject as a Hispanic male who was 6'1? tall, weighed 200 pounds, and had black hair and brown eyes. Ventura showed the officer a driver's license that indicated he was 5'6? tall and weighed 180 pounds.
On the audio tape, an officer can be heard asking Ventura to step out of his vehicle. After Ventura complied, another officer arrived and began questioning him. The audio of this questioning recorded Ventura agreeing with an officer's suggestion that he is 5 6? but coached him to “parrot back” that he was 5'11?. It is clear from the audio recording that English is Ventura's second language. One of the officers also incorrectly told Ventura that the warrant includes Ventura's Social Security number.
Ventura was arrested. The Chino Police Department does not book or hold felony arrestees, but Ventura was transported to the Chino police station while an officer obtained the warrant abstract.5 The warrant did not contain any unique identifiers such as a CII number or Social Security number. Ventura was then transported to San Bernardino's West Valley Detention Center (“WVDC”), where he was booked and remained for approximately four days.
During booking at WVDC, officials took Ventura's fingerprints using Live Scan and electronically transferred them to CDOJ. The parties dispute whether Live Scan could have been used to determine whether the warrant was meant for Ventura because the warrant for “Jose Ventura” did not include a CII number. But in any case, the San Bernardino defendants argue that the Live Scan report was not returned until January 24, 2008, approximately five weeks after Ventura was arrested. Ventura claims he told a WVDC officer that he was not the warrant's true subject, but the San Bernardino defendants deny Ventura complained that his arrest was a case of mistaken identity.
After spending four days at WVDC, Ventura was transferred to the L.A. County jail, where he was held for two more days. Ventura claims he protested his detention to L.A. County jail officials, but the L.A. County defendants dispute this. On December 19, 2007, six days after his arrest, Ventura appeared before a superior court judge who ordered his release because a manual comparison showed that his fingerprints did not match the warrant subject's prints.6 He was given a judicial clearance form when he was released. The form states that he was 5'7? and weighed 320 pounds.
II. Procedural History and Claims
Appellants filed suit in September 2008. They amended their complaint three times, claiming violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, California's Bane Act (Cal. Civ.Code § 52.1), and other claims not relevant here. The district court ruled against appellants in orders granting defendants' motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment. The motions to dismiss were decided after the Second Amended Complaint, and the summary judgment motions were decided after the Third Amended Complaint. Plaintiffs asked the district court to reconsider its rulings dismissing certain claims, which it did.
On appeal, Gant claims that if the L.A. City and L.A. County defendants had updated CWS to reflect his judicial clearance form, the Torrance police would not have mistaken him for his brother and arrested him. Gant argues that the failure to update CWS caused the warrant on which he was arrested to violate his Fourth Amendment right to be free...
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...rights; and (3) that these policies were the driving force behind the deprivation of the plaintiff's rights. Gant v. Cty. of Los Angeles, 772 F.3d 608, 617 (9th Cir. 2014); see also Monell, 436 U.S. 658, 691 (1978). Herein, plaintiff does not allege that any policy of these defendants was t......