Gonzalez v. Reno, 01-14475.

• Decision Date: 25 March 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-14475.,01-14475.
• Parties: Lazaro GONZALEZ, Angela Gonzalez, Marisleysis Gonzalez, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Janet RENO, Doris Meissner, Eric Holder, Defendants-Appellants, Betty A. Mills, INS Agent, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

325 F.3d 1228

Lazaro GONZALEZ, Angela Gonzalez, Marisleysis Gonzalez, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Janet RENO, Doris Meissner, Eric Holder, Defendants-Appellants, Betty A. Mills, INS Agent, et al., Defendants.

No. 01-14475.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 25, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

H. Thomas Byron, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Div., Barbara L. Herwig, Michael S. Raab, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Div./Appellate, Washington, DC, for Defendants-Appellants.

Ronald S. Guralnick, Anne R. Schultz, Miami, FL, Larry Elliot Klayman, Klayman & Associates, P.C., Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before TJOFLAT, COX and BRIGHT^*, Circuit Judges.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

In this case, we must decide whether former Attorney General Janet Reno, former Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") Doris Meissner, and former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder are entitled to qualified immunity for their alleged involvement in the seizure of Elian Gonzalez ("Elian") from the home of Lazaro, Angela, and Marisleysis Gonzalez ("the Gonzalezes") — Elian's great-uncle, great-aunt, and cousin — on April 22, 2000. The defendants asserted their qualified immunity defense in a motion to dismiss, which the district court denied. We now reverse.

I.

A.

On September 28, 2000, the Gonzalezes commenced this action under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), by filing a complaint for damages against Attorney General Janet Reno, in her individual capacity; INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, in her individual capacity; Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, in his individual capacity; INS agent Betty Mills; an unknown number of INS agents whose names are not known; an unknown number of U.S. Border Patrol agents whose names are not known; and an unknown number of U.S. Marshals whose names are not known.¹ In their complaint, the Gonzalezes allege the following facts. On November 25, 1999, six-year-old Elian Gonzalez, a Cuban boy, was found floating on an innertube off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Coast Guard brought Elian into the United States, and the INS paroled him into the country without inspection, then released him into the custody of his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez ("Lazaro"). Lazaro filed a petition with the INS on behalf of Elian seeking political asylum for the child. Elian also filed a petition for asylum on his own behalf.

On January 5, 2000, INS Commissioner Meissner decided that the INS would not consider the requests for asylum because Elian's father, a Cuban citizen, had requested that Elian be returned to Cuba. On January 7, 2000, Lazaro filed a petition for temporary custody of Elian in the Family Division of the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, which was granted pending a full hearing on the matter.

On January 12, 2000, Attorney General Reno affirmed Meissner's decision not to consider the petitions for political asylum. Lazaro challenged Reno's ruling in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and the court upheld Reno's decision. Lazaro appealed to this court. See Gonzalez v. Reno, No. 00-11424-D (11th Cir. Apr. 19, 2000) (unpublished opinion).

On April 6, 2000, while that appeal was pending, Elian's father arrived in the United States. On April 12, 2000, the INS instructed Lazaro to bring Elian to Opa Locka Airport, and advised Lazaro that the parole of Elian into his care was being transferred to Elian's father. On April 13, 2000, the circuit court dismissed Lazaro's petition for temporary custody and vacated its prior order granting temporary custody to Lazaro.

On April 19, 2000, a panel of this court entered an order enjoining Elian from departing, or attempting to depart, the United States; enjoining all persons acting on his behalf from aiding, or assisting or attempting to aid or assist, Elian's removal from the United States; and enjoining all officers, agents, and employees of the United States to take such reasonable and lawful measures as necessary to prevent the removal of Elian from the United States. Gonzalez, supra. On April 20, 2000, the Gonzalezes began negotiations with Reno, Meissner, and Holder toward the goal of transferring temporary custody of Elian.

Even though it was purporting to negotiate a peaceful transfer of the child, the INS issued an administrative warrant for Elian's arrest on April 21, 2000. The arrest warrant asserted that Elian was within the United States in violation of the immigration laws and could therefore be taken into custody. The INS then obtained a search warrant to enter the Gonzalezes' home and search for Elian.

At approximately 5:15 a.m. on April 22, 2000, armed federal agents arrived at the Gonzalezes' residence to execute the search and arrest warrants. In the course of executing the warrants, the agents allegedly sprayed gas into the residence; broke down the front door with a battering ram and entered the residence without first announcing their presence; sprayed more gas; pointed guns at the occupants of the residence, threatening to shoot; shouted obscenities; and broke doors, furniture, and religious artifacts. As one federal agent pointed a weapon at one of the occupants and Elian, INS agent Betty Mills entered the room with a blanket and seized the child.

B.

Based on the foregoing factual allegations, the Gonzalezes claim in their complaint that the defendants violated their First Amendment rights of freedom of expression and assembly (Count I), their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures (Count II), and their Fifth Amendment rights to a liberty interest in personal security and to be free from unnecessary and unreasonable force (Count III). The complaint also claims that the defendants conspired to violate each of these constitutional rights (Counts IV-VI).

Defendants Reno, Meissner, Holder, and Mills moved to dismiss the claims against them arguing that plaintiffs' complaint failed to state a claim against them and that they were entitled to qualified immunity from damages claims in their individual capacity. The district court addressed the defendants' motion to dismiss in an order dated June 5, 2001.

The court dismissed Count I of the complaint without prejudice after concluding that the Gonzalezes failed to allege any facts supporting their theory that the federal agents' entry into their home was undertaken for the purpose of abridging their First Amendment rights. The court dismissed Count III with prejudice after the Gonzalezes conceded in their response that their excessive force claims should be analyzed under Fourth Amendment search and seizure analysis rather than Fifth Amendment substantive due process analysis. The court also dismissed the conspiracy claims in Counts IV-VI.

With respect to the Gonzalezes' Fourth Amendment claims in Count II, the court held that the Gonzalezes lacked standing to challenge the validity of the administrative arrest warrant. The court dismissed the Gonzalezes' Fourth Amendment claims challenging the validity of the search warrant after concluding that the warrant was valid because the magistrate who issued it was presented with a facially valid arrest warrant and an affidavit establishing probable cause to believe that Elian was in the Gonzalezes' home. The court dismissed Betty Mills as a defendant without prejudice because the complaint contained no allegations of excessive force by her. The court denied the motion to dismiss with respect to the excessive force claims against the other federal agents because it found that the Gonzalezes had alleged sufficient facts to support their claim that the federal agents (other than Mills) who executed the warrant at their home used excessive force, in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights.

The court also denied the motion to dismiss with respect to the defense of qualified immunity. The court concluded that the complaint alleged the requisite "causal connection" between the supervisory actions of Reno, Meissner, and Holder and the alleged constitutional violation by the agents on the scene to hold them liable based on their supervisory status, notwithstanding their absence from the scene. The court based this finding on paragraphs 70 and 75 of the complaint, which alleged that Reno, Meissner, and Holder "personally directed and caused a paramilitary raid upon Plaintiffs' residence" and that the agents on the scene "acted under the personal direction of Defendants JANET RENO, DORIS MEISSNER AND ERIC HOLDER."

Reno, Meissner, and Holder now appeal, challenging the district court's rejection of their qualified immunity defense. We reverse.

II.

We have jurisdiction to review the denial of the defense of qualified immunity on interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2817, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). A district court's decision to grant or deny the defense of qualified immunity is a question of law which we review de novo, accepting the factual allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. Chesser v. Sparks, 248 F.3d 1117, 1121 (11th Cir.2001).

The defense of qualified immunity completely protects government officials performing discretionary functions from suit in their individual capacities unless their conduct violates "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 2515, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). "The purpose of this immunity is to allow government officials to carry out their discretionary duties without the fear of personal liability or...