White v. Stone

• Decision Date: 13 September 2022
• Docket Number: 21-cv-1207-SCY-JFR
• Parties: CLIFTON WHITE, Plaintiff, v. GEOFFREY STONE, in his individual capacity, ERIC BROWN, in his individual capacity, FLORENCE MULHERON, in her individual capacity, ELIJAH LANGSTON, in his individual capacity, AARON VIGIL, in his individual capacity, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico

CLIFTON WHITE, Plaintiff,
v.
GEOFFREY STONE, in his individual capacity, ERIC BROWN, in his individual capacity, FLORENCE MULHERON, in her individual capacity, ELIJAH LANGSTON, in his individual capacity, AARON VIGIL, in his individual capacity, Defendants.

No. 21-cv-1207-SCY-JFR

United States District Court, D. New Mexico

September 13, 2022

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT LANGSTON'S MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS

Following events at a Black Lives Matter protest he organized, Plaintiff Clifton White was arrested for parole violations. He argues the arrest was pretextual and brings claims against his parole officer, Defendant Elijah Langston, for violation of the Fourth Amendment (count VI) and conspiracy to violate civil rights (count VII).^[1] Doc. 1-1. Defendant Langston moves for judgment on the pleadings based on qualified immunity. Doc. 25; see also Doc. 32 (response); Doc. 35 (reply). The Court agrees that qualified immunity shields Defendant Langston from these claims and, therefore, GRANTS his motion for judgment on the pleadings.^[2]

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BACKGROUND

The Court takes the following facts from Plaintiff's complaint, which the Court assumes are true for the purposes of the present motion and which the Court views in the light most favorable to Plaintiff. Doc. 1-1. On September 6, 2019, Plaintiff was released on parole. Doc. 1-1 ¶ 2.^[3] Having experienced discrimination and inequity in the criminal justice system, he began organizing with the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement that same year. Id. ¶¶ 4, 7. On May 28, 2020, Plaintiff organized a large peaceful protest with this group, but some protesters became unruly after the protest's conclusion and set off aerial mortars. Id. ¶¶ 9, 11. Gunshots were fired; the police attributed them to a silver Kia Amanti and arrested the four teenage boys occupying the car. Id. ¶ 12. The police left the Kia in the street with the keys unsecured on top of the vehicle, so Plaintiff, as an organizer of the protest, attempted to secure the vehicle by driving it to the 400 block of Wellesley Boulevard SE. Id. ¶¶ 14, 16. Albuquerque Police Department (“APD”) patrol units stopped the Kia and detained Plaintiff for an unspecified reason. Id. ¶ 17. The owner of the Kia declined to press charges and the District Attorney declined to approve a warrant to arrest Plaintiff for stealing the vehicle. Id. ¶¶ 18-20. The officer who had detained Plaintiff, Defendant Stone, obtained a search warrant for the vehicle, and upon finding that it was “very clean and did not have any items inside,” determined that Plaintiff had “tampered with the evidence in the Kia.” Id. ¶ 21.

Plaintiff met with Defendant Langston, his probation and parole officer, on May 31, 2020. Id. ¶ 26. Defendant Langston knew that Plaintiff had had contact with APD officers on May 28, 2020, and had earlier approved extending Plaintiff's curfew past 9:00 p.m. to

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accommodate Plaintiff's employment. Id. ¶¶ 24-25. Defendant Langston indicated that Plaintiff's parole term was going well and did not inform Plaintiff of any pending violations. Id. ¶ 26. Plaintiff also alleges that he was wrongfully on parole at this time despite the State's jurisdiction over him expiring in September of 2016 and that Defendant Langston was aware of this. Id. ¶¶ 22-23.

In retaliation for Plaintiff's speech at the protest, Defendant Stone contacted Defendant Langston to find out the terms of Plaintiff's parole and find technical violations for which Defendant Stone might be able to arrest him. Id. ¶ 31.^[4] On June 1, 2020, APD officers including Defendant Stone followed Plaintiff undercover without probable cause or reasonable suspicion that he had committed any crimes. Id. ¶¶ 32-33. They followed him into a liquor store, then put on their police vests and arrested him for parole violations. Id. ¶ 33. Meanwhile, according to Plaintiff's parole record, Defendant Langston did not issue any new violations until after this arrest took place; instead, he inserted violations that allegedly occurred in January and February 2020, without notifying Plaintiff within the required five-day period. Id. ¶ 34. Plaintiff was booked into jail and placed into solitary confinement, and the deputy chief of police referred to him using a racial slur. Id. ¶¶ 35-36.

Plaintiff was transferred to Central New Mexico Correctional Facility on June 4, 2020. Id. ¶ 40. He alleges that several irregularities took place related to his parole hearing: he was given inadequate notice, faced delays or denials when attempting to speak to his legal counsel, and was not given access to counsel at the parole hearing itself. Id. ¶¶ 42-53. On or about the day of Plaintiff's transfer, Defendant Langston filled out a “Parole Violation Scoring Form” which

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stated that Plaintiff was an absconder with an active gang membership and indicated the highest level Austin Risk Score, despite the fact that Defendant Langston had recently met with Plaintiff and had not identified any of these issues. Id. ¶ 54. One of the members of the parole board “emphatically stated” that the violations of which Plaintiff was accused were technical in nature and not the sort that would normally justify a remand into incarceration. Id. ¶ 58. Nonetheless, the board voted to sentence Plaintiff to the remainder of his parole term. Id. ¶ 60.

LEGAL STANDARD

I. Judgment on the Pleadings

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) states, “After the pleadings are closed-but early enough not to delay trial-a party may move for judgment on the pleadings.” The court rules on a motion for judgment on the pleadings using the same standard as a Rule 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Aspenwood Inv. Co. v. Martinez, 355 F.3d 1256, 1259 (10th Cir. 2004). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) allows a court to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim upon which the court can grant relief. “[T]o withstand a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain enough allegations of fact, taken as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Khalik v. United Air Lines, 671 F.3d 1188, 1190 (10th Cir. 2012) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). While a complaint does not require detailed factual allegations to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, it “requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555.

“A claim is facially plausible when the allegations give rise to a reasonable inference that the defendant is liable.” Mayfield v. Bethards, 826 F.3d 1252, 1255 (10th Cir. 2016). The court's consideration, therefore, is limited to determining whether the complaint states a legally

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sufficient claim upon which the court can grant relief. See Sutton v. Utah State Sch. for the Deaf & Blind, 173 F.3d 1226, 1236 (10th Cir. 1999). The court is not required to accept conclusions of law or the asserted application of law to the alleged facts. See Hackford v. Babbitt, 14 F.3d 1457, 1465 (10th Cir. 1994). Nor is the court required to accept as true legal conclusions that are masquerading as factual allegations. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). The court must, however, view a plaintiff's allegations in the light most favorable to him. Schrock v. Wyeth, Inc., 727 F.3d 1273, 1280 (10th Cir. 2013).

II. Qualified Immunity

Qualified immunity protects public officials from liability “insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). In order to defeat qualified immunity, a plaintiff must assert facts that rebut the presumption of the officer's immunity from suit. Medina v. Cram, 252 F.3d 1124, 1130 (10th Cir. 2001). The plaintiff carries the burden of showing that (1) the public official violated a constitutional or statutory right and (2) the right was clearly established when the alleged violation occurred. Olsen v. Layton Hills Mall, 312 F.3d 1304, 1312 (10th Cir. 2002); Martinez v. Beggs, 563 F.3d 1082, 1088 (10th Cir. 2009). A court may address these prongs in either order, Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236, but a plaintiff must satisfy both in order to avoid qualified immunity, Olsen, 312 F.3d at 1304. As with other motions to dismiss, to survive a motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 677.

A right is clearly established if “[t]he contours of the right [are] sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Anderson v. Creighton,

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483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). The action at issue need not have been previously declared unlawful, but its unlawfulness must be evident in light of preexisting law. Beedle v. Wilson, 422 F.3d 1059, 1069 (10th Cir. 2005). Except for egregious circumstances in which every reasonable officer would understand the conduct at issue to be unreasonable, unlawfulness is generally demonstrated “when there is controlling authority on point or when the clearly established weight of authority from other courts supports plaintiff's interpretation of the law.” Id. at 106970 (internal quotation marks omitted). Qualified immunity provides “ample room for mistaken judgments” and protects all but “the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 314, 343 (1986).

Taking the standards together, “[t]o survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings based on qualified immunity, plaintiffs ‘must allege sufficient facts that show-when taken as true- the defendant plausibly violated [their] constitutional rights, which...