Martinez v. City of Oxnard, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE

Citation270 F.3d 852
Decision Date30 October 2001
Docket NumberNo. 00-56520,DEFENDANT-APPELLANT,PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,00-56520
Parties(9th Cir. 2001) OLIVERIO MARTINEZ,, v. CITY OF OXNARD; OXNARD POLICE DEPARTMENT; ART LOPEZ, CHIEF; MARIA PENA; ANDREW SALINAS; RON ZAVALA, DEFENDANTS, AND BEN CHAVEZ,
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Alan E. Wisotsky, Oxnard, California, for the defendants-appellant.

R. Samuel Paz, Los Angeles, California, for the plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Florence Marie Cooper, District Judge Presiding. D.C. No. CV-98-09313-FMC.

Before: Wardlaw, Paez and Tallman, Circuit Judges.

TALLMAN, Circuit Judge:

We must determine whether a police officer who conducts a coercive, custodial interrogation of a suspect who is being treated for life-threatening, police-inflicted gunshot wounds may invoke qualified immunity in a civil suit for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2001). Under the circumstances of this case, we hold he may not.

I.

On November 28, 1997, police officers Maria Pena and Andrew Salinas were investigating narcotics activity near a vacant lot in a residential area of Oxnard, California. While questioning one individual, they heard a bicycle approaching on the darkened path that traversed the lot. Officer Salinas ordered the rider, Oliverio Martinez, to stop, dismount, spread his legs, and place his hands behind his head. Martinez complied.

During a protective pat-down frisk, Officer Salinas discovered a knife in Mr. Martinez's waistband. Officer Salinas alerted his partner and pulled Martinez's hand from behind his head to apply handcuffs. Officer Salinas claims that Martinez pulled away from him. Martinez alleges that he offered no resistance. Either way, Officer Salinas tackled Martinez and a struggle ensued.

Both officers testified that during the struggle Martinez did not attempt to hit or kick them; Officer Salinas struck the only blow. The officers maintain that Martinez drew Officer Salinas's gun and pointed it at them. Martinez alleges that Officer Salinas began to draw his gun and that Martinez grabbed Officer Salinas's hand to prevent him from doing so.

All parties agree that Officer Salinas cried out, "He's got my gun." Officer Pena drew her weapon and fired several times. One bullet struck Martinez in the face, damaging his optic nerve and rendering him blind. Another bullet fractured a vertebrae, paralyzing his legs. Three more bullets tore through his leg around the knee joint. The officers then handcuffed Martinez.

The patrol supervisor, Sergeant Ben Chavez, arrived on the scene minutes later along with paramedics. While Sergeant Chavez discussed the incident with Officer Salinas, the paramedics removed the handcuffs so they could stabilize Martinez's neck and back and loaded him into the ambulance. Sergeant Chavez rode to the emergency room in the ambulance with Martinez to obtain his version of what had happened.

As emergency room personnel treated Martinez, Sergeant Chavez began a taped interview. Chavez did not preface his questions by reciting Miranda warnings. The interview lasted 45 minutes. The medical staff asked Chavez to leave the trauma room several times, but the tape shows that he returned and resumed questioning. Chavez turned off the tape recorder each time medical personnel removed him from the room. The transcript of the recorded conversation totals about ten minutes and provides an incontrovertible account of the interview.

Sergeant Chavez pressed Martinez with persistent, directed questions regarding the events leading up to the shooting. Most of Martinez's answers were non-responsive. He complained that he was in pain, was choking, could not move his legs, and was dying. He drifted in and out of consciousness. By the district court's tally, "[d]uring the questioning at the hospital, [Martinez] repeatedly begged for treatment; he told [Sergeant Chavez] he believed he was dying eight times; complained that he was in extreme pain on fourteen separate occasions; and twice said he did not want to talk any more." Chavez stopped only when medical personnel moved Martinez out of the emergency room to perform a C.A.T. scan.

Martinez filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that the officer defendants violated his constitutional rights by stopping him without probable cause, using excessive force, and subjecting him to a coercive interrogation while he was receiving medical care. He moved for summary judgment on each of his claims. The district court denied Sergeant Chavez's defense of qualified immunity and granted summary judgment for Martinez on his claim that Chavez violated his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by coercing statements from him during medical treatment.1 In this interlocutory appeal, Chavez argues that the district court erred by holding that he was not entitled to qualified immunity.

II.

We have jurisdiction over Sergeant Chavez's interlocutory appeal of the purely legal question whether he is entitled to qualified immunity. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528 (1985). We review de novo the district court's determination on summary judgment that Chavez cannot invoke qualified immunity as a bar to civil litigation. Robinson v. Prunty, 249 F.3d 862, 865-66 (9th Cir. 2001). For the purposes of this interlocutory appeal, we must accept as true the facts alleged by Martinez and determine whether Chavez is nonetheless entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law. Id. at 866.

Section 1983 permits an individual whose federal constitutional or statutory rights have been violated by a public official acting under color of state law to sue the official for damages. Public officials are afforded protection, however, "from undue interference with their duties and from potentially disabling threats of liability." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 806 (1982). Qualified immunity shields them "from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Id. at 818. Only conduct that an official could not reasonably have believed was legal under settled law falls outside the protective sanctuary of qualified immunity. Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227 (1991) (per curiam).

To determine whether Sergeant Chavez is entitled to qualified immunity, we must first determine whether Martinez has stated a prima facie claim that Chavez violated one of his constitutional rights. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, ___, 121 S. Ct. 2151, 2155 (2001). If we determine that Martinez has stated a prima facie case, then we must determine whether the right allegedly violated was clearly established by federal law. Id. We hold that Chavez violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments by subjecting Martinez to a coercive, custodial interrogation while he received treatment for life-threatening gunshot wounds inflicted by other police officers.

In Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 286 (1936), a unanimous Supreme Court condemned police officers' use of violence to coerce confessions from criminal suspects as "revolting to the sense of justice" embodied in the Constitution. Although the coercive tactics employed by the police in Brown involved physical violence, the Court clarified in subsequent opinions that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments also proscribe more subtle forms of police coercion. See Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503 (1963) (holding that a confession obtained by refusing to let a suspect contact his wife was coercive and, therefore, unconstitutional); Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U.S. 528 (1963) (holding that a confession obtained by threatening a suspect with the loss of custody of her children was coercive and, therefore, unconstitutional); Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143 (1944) (holding that prolonged interrogation without rest or contact with individuals other than law enforcement officers was coercive and, therefore, unconstitutional).2

Chief Justice Warren observed in Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U.S. 199, 206 (1960), that "coercion can be mental as well as physical, and . . . the blood of the accused is not the only hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition." A police officer's extraction of a confession is unconstitutional if, "considering the totality of the circumstances, the [officer] obtained the statement by physical or psychological coercion or by improper inducement so that the suspect's will was overborne." United States v. Coleman, 208 F.3d 786, 791 (9th Cir. 2000) (quotations and citation omitted); see also Withrow v. Williams, 507 U.S. 680, 689 (1993).

Martinez argues that, considering the totality of the circumstances, Sergeant Chavez's interrogation was coercive and that it therefore violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Chavez's coercive, custodial questioning violated the plaintiff's substantive Fifth Amendment right against compulsory self-incrimination. Cooper, 963 F.2d at 1235. Under Cooper, a Fifth Amendment violation occurs when a police officer coerces self-incriminating statements from a suspect in custody. Id. at 1236-37, 1242-44. The plaintiff in that case stated a cause of action under § 1983 for violation of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by alleging that police officers used deception and psychological coercion to extract statements from him. Id. at 1242-43. Sitting en banc, we held that the officers' conduct violated the Fifth Amendment even though the plaintiff was never prosecuted, noting that the Fifth Amendment's purpose is to prevent coercive interrogation practices that are "destructive of human dignity." Id. at 1239 (quoting Miranda v. Arizona, 382 U.S. 436, 457-58 (1966)). We echoed the Supreme Court's holding in Miranda that this animating purpose was adequately achieved only if the Fifth Amendment cast...

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