Risbridger v. Connelly

• Decision Date: 27 November 2001
• Docket Number: PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS,No. 00-2471,00-2471
• Citation: 275 F.3d 565
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2002) BENJAMIN TRAVIS RISBRIDGER,, v. LAWTON CONNELLY, CHIEF OF POLICE, CITY OF EAST LANSING, IN HIS OFFICIAL AND INDIVIDUAL CAPACITIES; SHEREIF FADLY, A POLICE OFFICER OF THE CITY OF EAST LANSING, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY,, CITY OF EAST LANSING, A MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, DEFENDANT. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 565

275 F.3d 565 (6th Cir. 2002)

BENJAMIN TRAVIS RISBRIDGER, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. LAWTON CONNELLY, CHIEF OF POLICE, CITY OF EAST LANSING, IN HIS OFFICIAL AND INDIVIDUAL CAPACITIES; SHEREIF FADLY, A POLICE OFFICER OF THE CITY OF EAST LANSING, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS, CITY OF EAST LANSING, A MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, DEFENDANT.

No. 00-2471

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Argued: November 27, 2001

Decided and Filed: January 4, 2002

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan at Lansing. No. 99-00130--Gordon J. Quist, District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Michael J. Steinberg (argued and briefed), American Civil Liberties Union Fund of Michigan, Detroit, MI, Dorean M. Koenig (argued and briefed), Thomas Cooley Law School, Lansing, MI, for appellee.

Mary Massaron Ross (argued and briefed), Plunket & Clooney, Detroit, MI, for Appellants.

Before: Guy and Boggs, Circuit Judges; Carr, District Judge.^*

OPINION

Ralph B. Guy, Jr., Circuit Judge.

Defendants Lawton Connelly, Chief of Police for the City of East Lansing, and Shereif Fadly, an East Lansing police officer, appeal from the entry of partial summary judgment and the district court's decision to deny them qualified immunity with respect to the plaintiff's Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Officer Fadly stopped plaintiff, Benjamin Risbridger, based on reasonable suspicion that he was involved in an assault and battery, and asked Risbridger for his identification. When Risbridger adamantly refused, Fadly arrested him for hindering or obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duties in violation of a city ordinance. The misdemeanor case against Risbridger was ultimately dismissed and this civil action followed.

After a review of the record and the arguments presented on appeal, we find the individual defendants are entitled to qualified immunity and reverse the entry of partial summary judgment in favor of plaintiff on his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims against them.

I.

The material facts are undisputed. At approximately 2:30 a.m. on November 30, 1997, Officer Fadly was called to the 300 block of M.A.C. Street to assist Officers Phillips and Blanck after they stopped two males who were acting suspiciously. These individuals told Officer Phillips that they had witnessed a fight in the alley. As they continued to be questioned, plaintiff and his brother walked by and one of the witnesses identified plaintiff as having been involved in the fight. As a result, Officer Fadly approached plaintiff and asked to see his identification. Plaintiff answered: "No. What for?" Officer Fadly informed plaintiff that he was investigating a fight and that a witness had pointed him out. Officer Fadly asked again for plaintiff's identification and warned that he could be arrested if he refused. Plaintiff refused and was arrested.¹

Plaintiff was charged with disorderly conduct under East Lansing, Michigan, Code, Title IX, Ch. 108, § 9.102(19), which makes it a misdemeanor to "[a]ssault, obstruct, resist, hinder, or oppose any member of the police force . . . in the discharge of his/her duties as such." In Michigan, an officer may make a warrantless arrest of a person who commits a misdemeanor in the officer's presence. Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 764.15(1)(a).² After arriving at the police station, plaintiff identified himself and related that he had encountered the two "witnesses" in a bar just before they were escorted out by the bartender. Plaintiff was booked on the ticket for hindering or obstructing an officer and released on bond at approximately 6:00 a.m. He was not questioned any further about the assault.

Risbridger filed a motion to dismiss the misdemeanor ticket for hindering or obstructing an officer on constitutional grounds. After a hearing in May 1998, the state court judge rejected Risbridger's First Amendment overbreadth challenge but found that the arrest was invalid because Risbridger was free to decline to speak to Officer Fadly. Following that ruling, the city decided not to prosecute the ticket and an order of nolle prosequi was entered.

In November 1999, plaintiff sued Officer Fadly, Chief Connelly, and the City of East Lansing. Plaintiff alleged violations of his federal and state constitutional rights and asserted several state law claims. Defendants filed a joint motion to dismiss or for summary judgment, based in part upon qualified immunity, with respect to all of the claims. Plaintiff moved for partial summary judgment in his favor on the § 1983 claims, only. On October 31, 2000, the district court (1) granted the defendants' motion with respect to plaintiff's free speech claims brought under both the federal and state constitutions; (2) denied defendants' motion with respect to all other claims; and (3) granted partial summary judgment in favor of plaintiff on his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims. See Risbridger v. Connelly, 122 F. Supp. 2d 857 (W.D. Mich. 2000). The individual defendants appealed.

II.

A district court's decision rejecting an individual defendant's claim to qualified immunity is immediately appealable to the extent that it raises a question of law, notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment. Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 310-11 (1996); Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985). Since the issues in this case do not turn on which facts the parties may be able to prove, we have jurisdiction over this appeal. Williams v. Mehra, 186 F.3d 685, 690 (6th Cir. 1999) (en banc). Our review of the denial of qualified immunity is de novo. Blake v. Wright, 179 F.3d 1003 1007 (6th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1136 (2000).

"[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded 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." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). We have articulated a three-part inquiry for evaluating a defendant's entitlement to qualified immunity, which asks (1) whether the facts taken in the light most favorable to plaintiff could establish a constitutional violation; (2) whether the right was a "clearly established" right of which any reasonable officer would have known; and (3) whether the official's actions were objectively unreasonable in light of that clearly established right. Williams, 186 F.3d at 691.

The right must be defined at the appropriate level of specificity to determine whether it was clearly established at the time the defendants acted. Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 615 (1999) (citing Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641 (1987)). This means that to be "clearly established" the contours of the right must be sufficiently clear so that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. Id. See also Dominique v. Telb, 831 F.2d 673, 676 (6th Cir. 1987). A right is clearly established if there is binding precedent from the Supreme Court, the Sixth Circuit, the district court itself, or other circuits that is directly on point. Blake, 179 F.3d at 1007. "'This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.'" Wilson, 526 U.S. at 615 (quoting Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640).

A. Fourth Amendment

Plaintiff's Fourth Amendment claim rests not on the stop, which he concedes was lawfully based on objectively reasonable suspicion consistent with Terry; but, rather, on his arrest for hindering or obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duties by refusing to provide identification. Nor does plaintiff seriously challenge the existence of probable cause to believe the ordinance was violated by his refusal to identify himself. When Officer Fadly approached plaintiff based on at least reasonable suspicion that an assault had occurred and that plaintiff was involved, he had probable cause to believe plaintiff was hindering or obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duties by refusing to identify himself.³

Instead, plaintiff argues that although Officer Fadly was entitled to ask for his identification, it violated his Fourth Amendment rights to subject him to criminal sanctions for refusing to provide identification during a valid Terry stop. The genesis of the right of which plaintiff claims the defendants should have known is found in the following passage from Justice White's concurrence in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968):

There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a policeman from addressing questions to anyone on the streets. Absent special circumstances, the person approached may not be detained or frisked but may refuse to cooperate and go on his way. However, given the proper circumstances, such as those in this case [involving reasonable suspicion], it seems to me the person may be briefly detained against his will while pertinent questions are directed to him. Of course, the person stopped is not obligated to answer, answers may not be compelled, and refusal to answer furnishes no basis for an arrest, although it may alert the officer to the need for continued observation.

392 U.S. at 34 (White, J., concurring). While this concurrence has been quoted and cited with approval in other Supreme Court decisions, those cases did not resolve the question presented here. See, e.g., Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497-98 (1983) (during a consensual police-citizen encounter, an individual may decline to answer questions and his refusal to answer does not, without more, furnish reasonable suspicion); Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 210 n.12 (1979) (custodial interrogation based on less than probable cause violates the Fourth Amendment).

In fact,...