Graham v. Gagnon

• Decision Date: 27 July 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15–1521,15–1521
• Citation: 831 F.3d 176
• Parties: Lauren Graham, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. C. Gagnon; Jannie Clipp, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

831 F.3d 176

Lauren Graham, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.C. Gagnon; Jannie Clipp, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 15–1521

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: May 11, 2016

Decided: July 27, 2016

Victor M. Glasberg, Victor M. Glasberg & Associates, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Julia Bougie Judkins, Bancroft, McGavin, Horvath & Judkins, P.C., Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellees.

Before MOTZ and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Floyd

wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Senior Judge Davis concurred.

FLOYD

, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Lauren Graham was arrested for obstruction of justice. The obstruction charge was ultimately dismissed and her record expunged. Graham subsequently filed a civil lawsuit against the police officers responsible for her arrest, alleging that the officers violated her Fourth Amendment rights by arresting her without probable cause. Following discovery, the officers moved for summary judgment, arguing that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court granted the officers' motion, and Graham appealed. Because we conclude that it would have been clear to reasonable officers in Appellees' position that they lacked probable cause to arrest Graham, we reverse the grant of summary judgment and remand.

I.

The facts underlying this appeal are drawn from the summary judgment record made after discovery in the district court and are presented here in the light most favorable to Graham, the non-moving party. See, e.g., Merchant v. Bauer, 677 F.3d 656, 658 n. 1 (4th Cir. 2012)

.

A.

At about 10:30 p.m. on September 16, 2012, Mitchell Lee Cannon called the Falls Church, Virginia, Police Department (FCPD) to report an assault. Cannon was leaving a convenience store when he encountered Colby Twinam, a male in his early twenties, in the parking lot. Apparently still harboring a grudge from high school, Twinam punched Cannon in the back of the head. Cannon pushed Twinam away and retreated behind his car. Twinam taunted Cannon, broke Cannon's car antenna, and then ran off.

FCPD officer Clark Gagnon responded to Cannon's assault report. After interviewing Cannon, Gagnon obtained an arrest warrant for Twinam for assault and destruction of property. Based on a records check, Gagnon learned that Twinam had prior arrests in 2007 and 2008 for destruction of property and possession of marijuana. FCPD records indicated that Twinam's address was 205 Grove Avenue in Falls Church. Gagnon radioed other on-duty FCPD officers to request assistance in arresting Twinam; FCPD officers Jannie Clipp and Alan Freed each responded that they would assist.

Both Clipp and Freed arrived at the house at 205 Grove Avenue before Gagnon, a few minutes after midnight. Clipp proceeded to the front door; Freed went to the side of the house where steps led up to a covered porch and a side door. Freed encountered Twinam, who was sitting on the side porch steps. After ascertaining Twinam's identity, Freed told him that they had a warrant for his arrest. Twinam responded by running into the house and shutting and locking the side door. Twinam shouted “Mom, the cops are here”! J.A. 460. Clipp (at the front door) and Freed (at the side door) began knocking loudly and ringing the doorbell.

B.

Graham, Twinam's 56-year-old mother, had been asleep upstairs and was awakened by the commotion. She “grabbed a robe,” J.A. 52, and came downstairs to find “a lot of pounding and yelling” at the front door as well as “pounding” at the side door. J.A. 53. The family dog was “at this point barking crazily.” J.A. 54. She did not open the side door, but proceeded to the front door in the living room. Graham opened the front door, which consisted of both a main wooden door and a storm door on an air pump.

Clipp told Graham that they had a warrant and were there to arrest Twinam. Graham asked to see the warrant and Clipp told her that the officers did not have the warrant with them. At some point Freed joined Clipp at the front door; both officers told Graham that she needed to produce Twinam to be taken into custody. Graham said, “[L]et me speak with my son,” J.A. 77, and left the doorway to go find him. Clipp, following standard practice, placed her foot in the doorway; the storm door, closing automatically on the air pump, “then came in contact with [her] foot.” J.A. 28, 82.

Graham found her son, Twinam, in the kitchen, talking to his girlfriend on his cellphone. The kitchen was not visible from the front door. Twinam was apparently asking his girlfriend whether he ought to try and run for it. Graham said: “[W]hy would you do that? That's just dumb.” J.A. 69. She told Twinam, “[Y]ou need to come now, you need to cooperate. I don't know what the issue is but you've got to go.” J.A. 71.

At some point while Graham was in the kitchen, Gagnon arrived at the house and joined Clipp and Freed at the front door. Graham returned to the front door and told the officers that “[she] was talking to [her son] and trying to get him to come out.” J.A. 73. At some point Graham's fiancé, Richard Lilitch, who had also been asleep upstairs, came downstairs to the living room.

Graham and Lilitch returned to the kitchen and convinced Twinam to go out to the police officers. The most direct route from the kitchen to the living room passed through a pantry area. The pantry had doggie gates at either end to pen in the family dog. Twinam stepped over the first gate, followed by Graham and then Lilitch. As Twinam stepped over the second gate, he came into view of the officers at the front door. Gagnon and Freed entered the house and grabbed Twinam; in the process, Twinam and Freed tripped on the doggie gate and wound

up on the floor. The officers handcuffed Twinam and took him into custody. About six or seven minutes had elapsed since Graham had been awakened from her sleep.

C.

Gagnon took Twinam to the city detention center for booking and turned him over to the sheriff. Gagnon then went to the duty magistrate and applied for an arrest warrant for Graham. Gagnon sought to arrest Graham for obstruction of justice under Virginia Code § 18.2-460(A)

. The Virginia statute provides: “If any person without just cause knowingly obstructs ... any law-enforcement officer ... in the performance of his duties as such ... he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.” Id. The magistrate denied the warrant application.

D.

The three FCPD officers' next shift together was a couple days later. At roll call, Gagnon told Clipp and Freed that the magistrate had denied his request for an arrest warrant for Graham. Clipp expressed surprise, telling Gagnon that Graham “pretty much tried to shut the door on [me] and actually hit [me] with the door.” J.A. 164. Gagnon had not previously been aware of this information: he had not arrived at Graham's house by that point and neither Clipp nor Freed had reported it over the radio.

Gagnon went before the duty magistrate, a different individual than the magistrate who had denied his first warrant request. Gagnon told the second magistrate that he had previously been denied an arrest warrant, but informed the magistrate that he had learned new information. Gagnon told the second magistrate “something like” “Ms. Graham had shut the door on Officer Clipp's foot.” J.A. 170-71. The second magistrate authorized an arrest warrant for Graham.

Gagnon arrested Graham outside her home on September 20, 2012. She was brought before a magistrate and released on personal recognizance. The charge was later dismissed with prejudice and the record of her arrest expunged.

E.

About a year later, Graham filed an administrative complaint with the FCPD. The complaint was investigated by an internal affairs officer, who interviewed the officers involved and issued a recommendation against further action. The FCPD Chief, Mary Gavin, conveyed this conclusion to Graham in a letter dated November 8, 2013. Gavin told Graham that “[t]he incident involved an arrest situation of an individual that was evading arrest in your residence. The officers were reacting to a situation that was becoming increasingly difficult because of your actions.” J.A. 27.

Graham subsequently filed suit against Gagnon and Clipp pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983

. She alleged that the officers violated her Fourth Amendment rights by arresting her without probable cause to suspect she had violated Virginia's obstruction statute. The district court oversaw discovery, after which the parties cross-moved for summary judgment. Graham argued that on any view of the facts it was objectively unreasonable for an officer to conclude there was probable cause to arrest her. The officers contended the opposite and asserted that they were protected by qualified immunity.

The district court found that nothing in the record rebutted “the presumption of reasonableness that attends the issuance of a warrant by a neutral magistrate.” J.A. 465. The district court further found that:

[I]t cannot be said on this record that the magistrate was so obviously in error that any reasonable officer would have recognized the error.... There is a continuum of behavior from mere passive lack of cooperation to active attempts to prevent an arrest and it is the magistrate's responsibility to determine whether or not the facts and circumstances reported to her fall on the probable cause side of this continuum....

The events at the Twinam/Graham residence were not so clearly passive noncooperation that no reasonably competent officer would have concluded that a warrant should issue.... Defendants, it appears, believed that when plaintiff left the front door to speak with her son in the kitchen she was openly encouraging her son not to cooperate with [them] and come out of the house. Given the officers' inability to see or hear plaintiff's conversation, the magistrate's decision was not so obviously in error that defendants should be liable for failing to question her judgment.

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