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Disability Discrimination
****Editor's Case Alert***
County reserve deputies went to a home after a 29-year-old man suffering from
paranoid schizophrenia called 9-1-1 and requested help. Two deputies stated
that upon their arrival, the man came outside, walked toward them, and pulled
a 10-inch knife out of his pocket. The deputies drew their guns and yelled at
him to stop and drop the knife. He disregarded these commands and ran toward
a deputy with the knife in his left hand, his left arm raised. When he was
approximately eight feet away, the deputy fired one shot, which was fatal. A
knife, which the man’s father identified as from the kitchen, was recovered
from near the decedent’s left hand. An examination of the knife did not
reveal any latent fingerprints.
The man’s father filed, claiming that the decedent was never violent, even
when suffering a psychotic episode, and arguing that the bullet trajectory,
the lack of fingerprints, and the fact that the decedent was right-handed,
undermined the deputies’ account. He further asserted claims under the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act for disability
discrimination. A federal appeals court upheld the rejection of the claims on
summary judgment. Substantial testimonial and physical evidence supported the
deputy’s version of events, with no concrete evidence rebutting it. The plaintiff's claim that the officers
shot the decedent for no reason and planted a knife on him after the fact did
not rise above speculation or conjecture. Disability discrimination claims failed because if
the decedent was denied access to medical services, it was because of his
behavior, not because he was mentally disabled. King v. Hendricks County Commissioner, #19-2119, 954 F.3d 981 (7th Cir.
2020).
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False Arrest/Imprisonment: No Warrant
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The plaintiff's claim in a warrantless false arrest lawsuit arose from a sheriff’s
deputy’s visit to her house to check on the welfare of her daughter, who
had expressed suicidal thoughts. The appeals court noted that the deputy
could justify the arrest by showing probable cause for any crime, and
that probable cause existed to arrest the plaintiff for interference with
public duties in light of the prevailing law at the time of the arrest. In this case, probable cause existed to
arrest the plaintiff after she instructed her child to physically disobey
the officer and the child complied. A
reasonable officer could believe that the woman's conduct did not fall
within the speech-only exception where she did not deny that she told the
child to get in her car, contravening the officer’s order that the child get in his patrol car. The
deputy had legal authority to place the child in protective custody.
A federal appeals court therefore upheld a grant of summary judgment on
the plaintiff’s claim of false arrest in violation of the Fourth
Amendment. Voss
v. Goode, #19-20167, 954
F.3d 234 (5th Cir. 2020).
A reporter for a local news organization heard on a police scanner of multiple
traffic stops in a specific area. As he did not have a driver’s license, he
rode a motorized bicycle to the area to take photographs. He suspected
that police were running a prostitution sting operation. An officer
noticed him and radioed the team. Two officers knew of the reporter’s
previous anti‐police speech. They directed him to “move on.” He
asked if he was breaking any laws. An officer told him that he was not,
but that his continued presence would constitute obstruction of a police detail
and result in arrest. He started his bicycle and called out, loudly,
“goodbye officers.” Concerned that the reporter might post pictures on
social media while the sting operation was ongoing and create a danger
for unarmed undercover officers, the officers followed him and arrested
him for driving the wrong way on a one‐way street, operating a
vehicle without insurance, obstructing a police officer, felony
aggravated driving on a revoked license, and operating a motor vehicle
without a valid drivers’ license. News stories listed his name as an
arrestee in the prostitution sting. The charges against him were
dismissed. He sued the officers and the city under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The
federal appeals court upheld summary judgment for the defendants on First
Amendment retaliation and malicious prosecution under Illinois law,
citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervening Nieves
v. Bartlett, #17-1174,
139 S.Ct. 1715
(2019) decision holding, that, in most cases, probable
cause to arrest defeats a claim of retaliatory arrest. There was probable
cause to arrest the reporter, nullifying any retaliatory arrest claim
under the First Amendment. Lund
v. City of Rockford,
#19-1945, 2020 U.S. App. Lexis 12526 (7th Cir.).
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Editor’s Note: For a detailed discussion of Nieves
decision, see Probable Cause
For Arrest Will Ordinarily Defeat First Amendment Retaliation Claim, 2019 (7) AELE Mo. L.J. 101.
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Firearms Related: Intentional Use
After two deputies shot and killed a man, his estate filed a federal
civil rights lawsuit claiming that they violated
his Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. The trial
court denied the deputies’ motion for summary judgment based on qualified
immunity. A federal appeals court agreed that genuine issues of material
fact existed. Therefore, the court held that it lacked jurisdiction to
review the appeal and dismissed. In this case, if the plaintiff’s version
of events were believed, a reasonable officer would have understood that
using deadly force on a man holding a knife, but standing nearly thirty
feet away from the deputies, motionless, and with his hands in the air
for several seconds, would violate the Fourth Amendment. Amador v. Vasquez, #17-51001, 952 F.3d 624 (5th Cir. 2020).
A
woman called 911 and reported that her live-in boyfriend hit her and had
a gun in his truck. The police responded, and she obtained a temporary
restraining order, prohibiting him from possessing firearms and from
returning to her house. The next day, the boyfriend went to her house.
She was talking on the phone, and the friend called the police. The
boyfriend left. A trooper arrived and the woman stated that the boyfriend
had waved a gun throughout their argument. The trooper told her to go to
the police barracks and reported over the radio that the boyfriend had
brandished a firearm. Three troopers then visited the nearby home of the
boyfriend’s mother, who stated that she did not know where he was and that
he might be off his schizophrenia medication.
While driving to the barracks, the woman saw the boyfriend walking
alongside the road and called 911. The troopers responded. One parked his
car and, exiting, observed that the boyfriend was pointing a gun at his
own head. He drew his weapon, stood behind his car door, and twice told
the boyfriend to drop his weapon. When he did not comply, the trooper
shot him twice within seconds of stopping his car. He died that night. In
his mother’s federal civil rights excessive force lawsuit, a federal
appeals court ruled that the trooper was entitled to qualified immunity
because he did not violate the decedent’s clearly established rights. The
trooper’s pre-standoff knowledge of the boyfriend differs from that of
officers involved in the plaintiff’s cited cases, because the trooper
could reasonably conclude under the circumstances that the boyfriend
posed a threat to others. The decedent was easily within
range to shoot the trooper and another officer, and the situation
unfolded in seconds. James
v. New Jersey State Police, #18-1432, 2020 U.S. App. Lexis 12707 (3rd Cir.).
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Immigrants and Immigration Issues
A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling in favor of Rhode Island
municipalities in their lawsuit seeking to invalidate the conditions that
the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) imposed on the cities in connection
with the allocation of federal law enforcement grants. The appeals court
held that the DOJ lacked authority to impose the challenged conditions.
When state and local governments refused to assist wholeheartedly in
federal enforcement of immigration-related laws, the DOJ in an attempt to
punish “sanctuary” cities, purported to condition unrelated federal law
enforcement grants on the provision of the governments’ assistance with the
enforcement of the immigration-related laws. Two Rhode Island cities -
Providence and Central Falls - brought this lawsuit seeking to enjoin the
DOJ from imposing the challenged conditions on their grants. The trial
court granted summary judgment for the cities, concluding that the DOJ
exceeded its statutory authority in imposing the challenged conditions on
the grants. The federal appeals court affirmed, holding that the DOJ was
not vested with the authority to impose the challenged conditions on the
cities’ grants. City
of Providence v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, #19-1802, 954 F.3d 23 (1st
Cir. 2020).
Editor’s Note: There is currently a
circuit split on this issue. In addition to the above reported decision,
the 3rd, 7th, and 9th Circuits have previously been unwilling to enforce
some or all of the DOJ’s immigration-related conditions for federal law
enforcement grants, while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
disagreed. The cases are all cited in the decision discussed above.
Public Protection: Suicidal Persons
A mother, as the representative of her deceased son’s estate, sued a
sheriff’s deputy, claiming that he violated her son’s substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment
by stopping several bystanders from performing CPR on her son after he
attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself. A federal appeals court
overturned the trial court decision denying the deputy qualified immunity,
which it held analyzed this case under the erroneous assumption that a
deliberate indifference level of culpability was sufficient. Rather, the
appeals court held that the deputy’s actions cannot be deemed to violate
clearly established substantive due process rights, unless the jury found
that he acted with a level of culpability more than reckless interference
with bystanders’ attempted rescue efforts. In this case, the appeals court
could not conclude that the deputy's reckless or deliberately indifferent
interference with bystanders’ rescue attempts was sufficient to constitute
a violation of the plaintiff's clearly established substantive due process
rights. The appeals court found that the deputy’s actions would rise to
that necessary level should the jury find that the deputy acted for the
purpose of causing harm to the plaintiff’s son. The court explained that,
if the jury finds that the deputy intended to cause harm to the plaintiff’s
son in the form of death or serious brain injury, and finds the other
circumstances it assumed in this summary judgment posture, then the
plaintiff would have proved a violation of clearly established substantive
due process rights. The appeals court remanded for further proceedings in
light of its ruling. Waldron
v. Spicher, #18-14536, 954 F.3d 1297 (11th
Cir. 2020).
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Search and Seizure:
Home/Business
In a lawsuit brought against three Boston
police officers involved in breaking up a party and arresting a number of
those present, a federal appeals court reversed a judgment for the
plaintiffs, ruling that
the officers were entitled to
qualified immunity for entering without a warrant through the open door of a
house under the community care taking exception to the Fourth Amendment's
warrant requirement. The jury reached a unanimous verdict in favor of the
defendant officers on all counts. The trial court, however, granted the
plaintiffs’ motion for a new trial, finding that the verdict was against the
law as to the officers’ warrantless entry into the home and that the
warrantless entry on the facts as presented in the trial was not protected by
qualified immunity. The court then amended its judgment so that it reflected
a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs as to the section 1983 unlawful entry
claim. The federal appeals reversed, holding that the officers were entitled
to qualified immunity because, under the community caretaking exception,
their entry through the home’s open door did not violate the plaintiffs’
constitutional rights, as they
arrived at a loud party and saw intoxicated guests who appeared to be
underage entering and exiting through an open door. Castagna
v. Jean, #19-1677, 2020 U.S. App. Lexis 11357 (1st
Cir.).
Search and Seizure: Person
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The plaintiffs in a lawsuit claimed that they had been stopped numerous
times for violating various ordinances while they were panhandling on the
streets of Chicago. During these stops, officers typically asked them to
produce identification and then used the provided ID cards to search for
outstanding warrants for their arrest or investigative alerts. The plaintiffs
claimed that these checks unnecessarily prolonged street stops and that the
delays constitute unreasonable detentions in violation of the Fourth
Amendment. They further argued that the city of Chicago maintained an
unconstitutional policy or practice of performing these checks, citing a
Chicago Police Department Special Order regulating name-checks that
purportedly omitted essential constitutional limits, and argued that the
Department failed to train on these same constitutional limits. They also
asserted that the former Police Superintendent issued an unconstitutional
policy by promoting name-checks in conjunction with every street stop. A
federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of the municipal liability
claims. Officers may execute a name check on an individual incidental to a
proper stop under Terry
v. Ohio, #67, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), as long as the resulting delay is reasonable.
The plaintiffs failed to establish that they suffered an underlying
constitutional violation. Accordingly, the city could not be held liable. Hall
v. City of Chicago, #19-1347, 953 F.3d 945 (7th
Cir. 2020).
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Search and Seizure: Search
Warrant
A federal appeals court ruled that a reasonable officer could think that a
warrant to search a vehicle included an implicit authorization to seize the keys
to the vehicle. A second warrant in the case authorizin the seizure of any
and all handguns in the plaintiff’s home, and the seizure of antique
handguns, guns in unopened boxes and holsters was permitted because they were
reasonably related to the suspected crime at issue – the discharge of a
firearm at a visitor to the defendant's home so that the warrant was
sufficiently particular. A defendant sheriff played no part in obtaining or
executing the warrant and the plaintiff failed to allege that he failed to
train or supervise his deputies and, as a result, he was entitled to summary
judgment on the claims against him in his individual capacity. The plaintiff
also failed to allege an actionable municipal custom, and the court therefore
did not err in granting the sheriff summary judgment on the plaintiff’s
official capacity claim. Finally, the plaintiff had an adequate state court
remedy to obtain the return of the seized items, and his due-process claim
over the retention of his property was rejected. Thiel
v. Korte, #19-1860, 954 F.3d 1125 (8th Cir. 2020).
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AELE Seminars:
Public Safety Discipline and
Internal Investigations
Sept. 28-Oct. 1, 2020– Orleans Hotel,
Las Vegas
Click here for further information
about all AELE Seminars.
Resources
COVID-19: AELE has published a web page
containing links to resources on responding to the COVID-19 virus. It can
be accessed at: http://www.aele.org/law/virus2020/
Handcuffs: AELE presented a webinar on
handcuffs, a recording of which is now viewable at https://youtu.be/3-yOVqXDrTo
Statistics:
Offenses
Known to Law Enforcement in Large Cities, 2018 by Erica L. Smith, and
Alexia D. Cooper, Bureau of Justice Statistics (January 17, 2020 NCJ
254502).
Reference:
Cross References
Firearms Related: Intentional Use –
See also, Disability Discrimination
First Amendment – See also, False
Arrest/Imprisonment (2nd case)
Governmental Liability: Policy/Custom
– See also, Search and Seizure: Person
Governmental Liability: Policy/Custom
– See also, Search and Seizure: Search Warrants
Property – See also, Search and
Seizure: Search Warrants
Public Protection: Rescue Situations –
See also, Public Protection: Suicidal Persons
Search and Seizure: Home/Business –
See also: Search and Seizure: Search Warrants
Search and Seizure: Vehicle – See
also, Search and Seizure: Search Warrants
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