Gregory Murphy v. City of Reynoldsburg

• Decision Date: 08 August 1991
• Docket Number: 90AP-1296,91-LW-1822
• Parties: GREGORY MURPHY, Plaintiff-Appellant v. CITY OF REYNOLDSBURG ET AL., Defendants-Appellees
• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals

GREGORY MURPHY, Plaintiff-Appellant v. CITY OF REYNOLDSBURG ET AL Defendants-Appellees

No. 90AP-1296

91-LW-1822 (10th)

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Tenth District Franklin.

August 8, 1991

Civil appeal from the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.

ATTY SPATER, GITTES, SCHULTE & KOLMAN, and MR. ALEXANDER M SPATER; and MR. SAMUEL WALTERS, (for appellant).

ATTY. MATAN & SMITH, and MR. JAMES D. COLNER, (for appellees).

ATTY.MR. WILLIAM J. STEELE, co-counsel(for appelleeDean Eby).

ATTY.MR. HERSCHEL M. SIGALL, co-counsel(for appelleeScott Wagner).

OPINION

Before HON. PETREE, J., HON. WHITESIDE, J., HON. MARTIN, J.

PETREE J.

Plaintiff, Gregory Murphy, brought this action against the city of Reynoldsburg, its Mayor, its Police Chief, and two of its police officers seeking damages for the violation of his civil rights under Section 1983,Title 42, U.S. Code, and for conspiracy to violate his civil rights under Section 1985,Title 42, U.S. Code.The trial court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment and plaintiff brings this timely appeal, asserting the following assignments of error:

"I.The trial court erred in not considering any of the depositions, memoranda, or any other materials filed with the court when he granted the motion for summary judgment.

"II.The trial court erred in finding that defendants had probable cause to stop plaintiff when facts in the depositions showed that there was no probable cause to believe that plaintiff had engaged in any criminal activity.

"III.Even if there were probable cause to stop and arrest the plaintiff, defendants violated plaintiff's constitutional rights, because they watched, stopped, detained, arrested, and prosecuted the plaintiff because he is black."

On December 21, 1987, Gregory Murphy drove to Columbus from his home in Kentucky, planning to meet a friend at the Ramada Inn in Reynoldsburg.When Murphy left the Ramada Inn later that night, he was followed by a Reynoldsburg police officer who pulled him over a short distance from the hotel.After asking, to see Murphy's license and registration, the officer discovered that Murphy's driver's license was under suspension.Murphy was then arrested and taken to the Reynoldsburg police station.When Murphy's car was searched and impounded later that same evening, a large quantity of cocaine was found partially hidden in the front seat.As a result, Murphy was charged with a single count of aggravated drug trafficking.Murphy's criminal trial on these charges ended in a hung jury and after the court declared a mistrial, the state dismissed the charges.

In October 1988, an unrelated incident sparked a wide-ranging investigation within the Reynoldsburg police department.Interviews were conducted with every member of the department.During these interviews, some of the department's officers referred to another group of officers as the SNAT team.The officers said that SNAT stood for "strategic" or "special nigger arrest team."At best, SNAT was a crude and offensive joke.At worst, the interviews suggested that a number of Reynoldsburg police officers, referring to themselves as the SNAT team, intentionally discriminated against blacks.

The police department began a second investigation in May 1989.This investigation was intended to expose whatever truth there was to the SNAT allegations.When the investigation ended, the city concluded that there was no proof that a SNAT team actually existed.Rather, the city concluded that SNAT was a joke and that some of its officers were in need of further racial awareness training.

After these investigations came to light in 1989, Murphy filed this action in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.Murphy contends that he was the victim of a SNAT arrest, one executed without probable cause and with discriminatory motivation.The complaint names five defendants: the two police officers involved in Murphy's arrest, Dean Eby and Scott Wagner; the Reynoldsburg Police Chief, Jess Moore; the Reynoldsburg Mayor, Robert McPherson; and the city of Reynoldsburg.Murphy maintains that Eby and Wagner are members of a conspiracy, otherwise known as SNAT, which discriminates against blacks.He contends that Eby lacked probable cause or reasonable suspicion to stop and arrest him and that he was stopped only because he is black.The complaint further alleges that Moore and McPherson were aware of SNAT, but failed to take effective action to eliminate it.Finally, Murphy contends that racial discrimination was so prevalent and widespread within the Reynoldsburg police department that it constituted a custom or practice for which the city should be held liable.Upon these allegations, Murphy seeks damages pursuant to Sections 1983and1985,Title 42, U.S. Code.^[1]

In his second and third assignments of error, Murphy contends that the trial court erred in rendering summary judgment for defendants.We will begin by addressing Murphy's Section 1983 claims asserted against Eby and Wagner.A Section 1983 suit provides a remedy for the deprivation of rights secured by the United States Constitution when the deprivation is caused by persons acting under the color of state law.^[2]West v. Atkins(1988), 487 U.S. 42, 48.Here, there is no question that defendants were acting under the color of state law and the case turns on whether Murphy has been deprived of rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution.In his complaint, Murphy maintains that Eby and Wagner lacked probable cause or reasonable suspicion to stop and arrest him.The relevant facts surrounding Murphy's arrest, construed most strongly in his favor, are as follows.

On the evening of December 21, 1987, Murphy drove to the Reynoldsburg Ramada Inn to meet a friend, Marvin Jerry Warner.He arrived at the hotel between 8 and 9 p.m. Murphy drove to the rear of the hotel and backed his car into a parking space, leaving the engine running and the headlights out.Murphy waited at least two hours for Warner to arrive.During that time, a Reynoldsburg police officer, Dean Eby, periodically circled the parking lot in his patrol car.Eby observed Murphy sitting in his car and radioed Tim Moore, a special duty officer employed by the hotel.Eby suggested that Moore might want to "check it out."

Murphy eventually went inside the hotel looking for Warner.He found Warner in the hallway and they left together by the rear door.At this point, Moore radioed Eby, telling him that two suspicious persons had just left the hotel by the rear door.Murphy and Warner drove in Murphy's car from the rear of the hotel around to the front lobby.Eby followed them in his patrol car.Murphy and Warner went inside to make a phone call.A few minutes later, Murphy came back outside alone and drove away.Eby followed Murphy as he left the hotel and pulled him over a short distance up the street.A second officer, Scott Wagner, arrived a few minutes later.Eby asked to see Murphy's driver's license and discovered that it was under suspension.Murphy was arrested and taken to the Reynoldsburg Police Station.Wagner took no active role in the arrest and he was called away after only a few minutes at the scene.

The trial court granted summary judgment for defendants upon the grounds that there was probable cause to make an arrest.From the foregoing facts, there can be little dispute but that Eby had probable cause to arrest Murphy once he discovered that Murphy's driver's license had been suspended.The determinative question is whether Eby was justified in stopping Murphy to begin with.

When a police officer stops an automobile on a public street, it constitutes a "seizure" governed by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.Delaware v. Prouse(1979), 440 U.S. 648.Even though a police officer does not possess probable cause to make an arrest, the officer may briefly stop a suspicious individual in order to investigate further.Terry v. Ohio(1968), 392 U.S. 1, 22;Adams v. Williams(1972), 407 U.S. 143, 145.This has become known as an investigatory stop.To warrant such a stop, the police officer "must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion."Terry, supra, at 21.These facts and circumstances will be evaluated by the reviewing court in their totality.United States v. Cortez(1981), 449 U.S. 411, 417.The resulting test is an objective one: viewed through the eyes of a reasonable and prudent police officer, the facts and circumstances must raise a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity.Cortez, supra, at 418;Reid v. Georgia(1980), 448 U.S. 438, 440.

In a Section 1983 suit, questions of probable cause and reasonable suspicion must be submitted to the jury if there is room for a difference of opinion.Jones v. Lewis(C.A.6, 1989), 874 F.2d 1125, 1130;Llaguno v Mingey(C.A.7, 1985), 763 F.2d 1560, 1565;McKenzie v. Lamb(C.A.9, 1984), 738 F.2d 1005, 1008.Summary judgment is appropriate only if there are no genuine issues of material fact and, construing the evidence most strongly for plaintiff, reasonable minds can only conclude that the stop was justified by reasonable suspicion.On the other hand, summary judgment is inappropriate where reasonable minds can reach different conclusions on the facts presented.Norris v. Ohio Std. Oil Co.(1982), 70 Ohio St. 2d 11.As the court noted in State v. Andrews(1991), 57 Ohio St. 3d 86, 87, reasonable suspicion is an elusive concept which is highly dependent on the facts of each case.See, also, Cortez, supra, at 417.Because the standard is so factually dependent, questions of probable cause and...