Ruehman v. Sheahan, s. 93-4031

• Decision Date: 06 September 1994
• Docket Number: 94-1333,Nos. 93-4031,s. 93-4031
• Citation: 34 F.3d 525
• Parties: Keith RUEHMAN and Alan Miller, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael SHEAHAN, Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 525

34 F.3d 525

Keith RUEHMAN and Alan Miller, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael SHEAHAN, Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois,

Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 93-4031, 94-1333.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 19, 1994.

Decided Sept. 6, 1994.

Thomas G. Morrissey (argued), Mary D. Cahill, Mary L. Boelcke, Chicago, IL, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Robert D. Quinlivan (argued), Chicago, IL, Mary Ellen Dienes, Northfield, IL, for defendant-appellant.

Before COFFEY, FLAUM, and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

Illinois courts issue arrest warrants faster than the police can execute them. Since 1982 the Sheriff of Cook County has used a computer called SPWA to track active warrants. The Sheriff's computer records more than 125,000 warrants. After a warrant issues from or is recalled by a court in Cook County, the Clerk of the Circuit Court puts a copy into a Sheriff's basket at the Clerk's office. Someone from the Sheriff's office periodically picks up these papers so that warrant clerks can enter them into SPWA. His staff keeps the paper records in separate files. The Clerk's office keeps a computer database of felony warrants; every month, the Clerk sends the Sheriff a list of non-traffic warrants and recall orders so the Sheriff can update his computer records. Although only the Sheriff's office has direct access to SPWA, other law enforcement agencies often ask for information by telephone or teletype, and the Sheriff obliges. The state police manage LEADS, a database that includes all active warrants in the state. Any officer who pulls over a motorist or questions a passerby can check with LEADS and SPWA to determine if the person is wanted in Illinois.

Keith Ruehman and Alan Miller accuse the Sheriff of neglecting to purge their warrants from SPWA, leading to their unlawful arrests by other law enforcement agencies in Illinois. A state judge sentenced Miller to seven days in jail for violating the terms of court supervision. Miller did not surrender as ordered; an arrest warrant was issued on August 31, 1989. Miller turned himself in one week later and served his term. The judge recalled Miller's warrant on September 7. On September 20 the Sheriff's staff entered the warrant into SPWA; the three-week delay is unexplained, as is the fact that the order of September 7 passed unnoticed in the Sheriff's office. The Sheriff forwarded a copy of the warrant to the Dolton police, who entered the warrant into the LEADS database. Miller was riding with friends in a car four months later. Oak Forest Police pulled the car over and found Miller's name in LEADS. A police dispatcher checked with SPWA, which confirmed that the Sheriff still thought Miller a fugitive. Miller was carrying an uncertified copy of the quash-and-recall order, but the police thought the computers more credible and arrested him.

Ruehman was arrested for drunk driving in 1986. He posted a bond but failed to appear in court in October 1986, and a warrant issued for his arrest. He voluntarily came to court in January 1987 and served 90 days in jail. The judge orally ordered the warrant recalled. State police cleared it from LEADS on January 12, 1987. The Sheriff claims not to have received a copy of the recall order and did not purge SPWA. Four years later, a Chicago Ridge officer stopped Ruehman's car and found that LEADS gave no reference to his name. The 1986 warrant was still in SPWA's memory banks, however. The police held Ruehman for more than 14 hours before finding the mistake.

Plaintiffs insist that proper training of clerks and regular auditing of SPWA would have saved them embarrassment and hardship. They say that the Sheriff's office didn't bother to check the SPWA database against the files in the Clerk's Office or State's Attorney's office for outdated traffic warrants (although it did cross-check for felony warrants), and that the Sheriff ignored warnings from his subordinates that inaccurate data permeated the system. The manual for the LEADS system requires regular auditing of all warrants against the Clerk's database; the Sheriff does not take this precaution. Had warrant clerks entered Miller's quash order into SPWA, Oak Forest Police would not have arrested Miller. Had the Sheriff checked his computer against the hard copies of court orders or the Clerk's files--even once in four years--he would have found that Ruehman was no longer wanted. Plaintiffs say that the Sheriff's policies led to many recalled warrants being reported as active although simple safeguards--which the state police observe--could have prevented erroneous arrests.

Ruehman and Miller sued under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 everyone arguably involved with their arrests--the Sheriff in his individual and official capacities, the arresting officers, the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, several municipalities, and the municipalities' chiefs of police. The district court quickly dismissed the arresting officers on the ground of immunity, leading the plaintiffs to concentrate on the Sheriff. Yet the assumption that the police have immunity is questionable. Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306 (1971), tells us that officers may treat information that a warrant is outstanding for a suspect's arrest as presumptively correct, but when "the contrary turns out to be true, an otherwise illegal arrest cannot be insulated from challenge by the decision of the instigating officer to rely on fellow officers to make the arrest." Id. at 568, 91 S.Ct. at 1037. See also United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 232, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985). An arrest without benefit of probable cause is illegal, no matter what the officers believed. Do persons who rely on incorrect information that a warrant exists receive immunity? We broached but did not resolve a similar issue in Gordon v. Degelmann, 29 F.3d 295, 299-300 (7th Cir.1994). Qualified immunity protects those who act in the shadow of legal uncertainty, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987), but the errors here were entirely factual. Perhaps there is an open legal question whether officers may rely on a warrant-tracking system such as SPWA. See Duckett v. Cedar Park, 950 F.2d 272 (5th Cir.1992). We need not pursue the question, because the Sheriff is the only appellant (so far). In his official capacity, the Sheriff cannot claim qualified immunity. Instead he seeks shelter from the eleventh amendment, commonly called an "immunity" but actually a restriction on the jurisdiction of the federal courts. The district court denied the Sheriff's motion to dismiss, 842 F.Supp. 1043 (N.D.Ill.1993), and he immediately appealed. Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 684, 121 L.Ed.2d 605 (1993). The only parties to this appeal are Ruehman, Miller, and the Sheriff in his official capacity--which is to say, as a proxy for the polity of which he is an official. Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 70-71, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2311-12, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1991).

But which polity is that? Everything depends on the answer, for although states and their agencies are protected by the eleventh amendment, Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U.S. 781, 98 S.Ct. 3057, 57 L.Ed.2d 1114 (1978), counties and municipalities are not. Lincoln County v. Luning, 133 U.S. 529, 10 S.Ct. 363, 33 L.Ed. 766 (1890); Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 280, 97 S.Ct. 568, 572-73, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). An official-capacity suit challenging the execution of the warrants would be a suit against the state, because state courts issued the warrants. See Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 25 L.Ed. 676 (1879). Plaintiffs seek to avoid this pitfall by protesting the Sheriff's design of the warrant-tracking system. Their theory is that in designing and implementing SPWA, the Sheriff acted for Cook County.

If this strategy works, it may solve the plaintiffs' eleventh amendment problem at the expense of undercutting their claim against the Sheriff on the merits. The fourth amendment uses an objective standard, but the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment "applie[s] to deliberate decisions of government officials to deprive a person of life, liberty or property." Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 331, 106 S.Ct. 662, 665, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986). See also Archie v. Racine, 847 F.2d 1211 (7th Cir.1988) (en banc). Plaintiffs do not contend that the Sheriff deliberately buried the quash-and-recall orders because he likes to arrest people without cause. Plaintiffs characterize their claims as protesting the Sheriff's "failure to heed warnings" about the system and "failure to audit" the system. Such allegations do not make out a constitutional tort. See Collins v. Harker Heights, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992). Negligence, if that is what the Sheriff's decisions come to, does not violate the due process clause. See Mitchell v. Aluisi, 872 F.2d 577 (4th Cir.1989) (sheriff not liable under Sec. 1983 for negligently failing to recall a warrant). Ruehman and Miller might win on a state-law negligence theory, but errors of state law do not automatically violate the Constitution, even if they lead to improper arrests. Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 146, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 2695-96, 61 L.Ed.2d...