Archive for the ‘Constitutional Law’ Category
Nieves v. Bartlett and Retaliatory Arrests: Protecting Law Enforcement at the Expense of the First Amendment and Section 1983
Nieves v. Bartlett: The Court’s First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest Decision
The Supreme Court handed down Nieves v. Bartlett, No. 17-1174, on May 28, 2019. In an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court, resolving a split in the circuits, held that probable cause is a defense to a section 1983 claim against law enforcement officers accused of arresting a person in retaliation for his or her speech. But the Court provided what it called a “narrow qualification”: because officers have such wide-ranging discretion to make warrantless misdemeanor arrests for minor criminal offenses–with the potential for abuse of First Amendment rights–probable cause is not a defense where the plaintiff presents objective evidence that he or she was arrested when other similarly situated persons not engaged in the same protected conduct were not.
In Nieves, the plaintiff was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in the setting of “Arctic Man,” a winter sports festival held in Paxson, Alaska: “During that week, the Arctic Man campground briefly becomes one of the largest and most raucous cities in Alaska.” Criminal charges were eventually dismissed and the plaintiff thereafter filed his section 1983 complaint. The facts were disputed by the parties but the plaintiff alleged in his section 1983 claim that he was arrested in violation of the First Amendment in retaliation for failing to speak to one officer and for intervening in another officer’s discussion with an underage partygoer. The district court determined that there was probable cause to arrest the plaintiff for interfering with an investigation and for initiating a physical confrontation with one of the officers, and thus granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The Ninth Circuit reversed on the ground that probable cause is not a defense. The Supreme Court in turn reversed the Ninth Circuit.
The Majority Opinion by Chief Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts first noted that this issue–whether probable cause is a defense to a First Amendment claim of retaliatory arrest–had been before the Court twice previously (see https://nahmodlaw.com/?s=lozman) but was not resolved on the merits. He then went on to discuss the general requirement in First Amendment retaliation cases of proof by a plaintiff of but-for causation, citing Mt. Healthy Bd. of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977). He observed that in many retaliation cases, showing the causal connection between a defendant’s animus and the plaintiff’s injury is “straightforward.” But in situations involving claims of First Amendment retaliatory prosecution, the causal connection is much more attenuated, because an officer’s animus in making an arrest, for example, is not the retaliatory action itself, which is the separate act of a prosecutor in bringing charges. The related presumption of prosecutorial regularity was therefore a major reason that Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 547 U.S. 250 (2006), ruled that a plaintiff bringing a section 1983 claim of First Amendment retaliatory prosecution must allege and prove the absence of probable cause in order to proceed further or, in other words, that the decision to press charges was objectively unreasonable.
Chief Justice Roberts, admitting that the two situations–retaliatory prosecutions and retaliatory arrests–are not identical, nevertheless concluded as a matter of policy that the Hartman requirement imposed on plaintiffs in First Amendment retaliatory prosecution cases should also apply to First Amendment retaliatory arrest cases. It accepted the officers’ contention that retaliatory arrest claims involve factual complexities parallel to those involved in retaliatory prosecution claims. For one thing, police officers made split-second decisions all the time, sometimes based on what was said. For another, the Fourth Amendment is an objective inquiry and a purely subjective approach would tend to undermine Fourth Amendment precedent and might even improperly set off wide-ranging discovery into an officer’s subjective state of mind, contrary to the thrust of qualified immunity and Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982). The Court also analogized retaliatory arrest to the common law tort of malicious prosecution, which has an absence of probable cause requirement imposed on plaintiffs.
Finally, Chief Justice Roberts, perhaps prodded by Justices Breyer and Kagan who might not otherwise have joined the opinion to create a majority, recognized that police officers have wide-ranging discretion to conduct misdemeanor arrests even for minor offenses, and could thereby abuse this discretion in violation of the First Amendment. It was therefore appropriate for a plaintiff in a First Amendment retaliation case to have the opportunity to show that, even where there was probable cause to arrest, this is not a defense where the plaintiff presents objective evidence that he or she was arrested when other similarly situated persons not engaged in the same protected conduct were not. This “narrow qualification” to its holding would protect the First Amendment adequately.
Justices Breyer, Alito, Kagan and Kavanaugh joined the Court’s opinion, as did Justice Thomas except for Part IID and its “narrow qualification.” Justice Thomas argued that the common law was clear that probable cause defeated false imprisonment, malicious arrest and malicious prosecution claims, and so the rule should be the same in section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest cases.
Justice Gorsuch’s Opinion
Justice Gorsuch concurred in part and dissented in part in a thoughtful but rather conflicted opinion, observing that the presence of probable cause should not defeat a First Amendment retaliatory arrest as a matter of First Amendment doctrine. However, as a matter of section 1983 and Fourth Amendment policy, probable cause analysis is not “entirely irrelevant to the analysis.” In addition, probable cause may be relevant not only to causation but also to separation of powers and federalism. Thus, he argued that the Court should not at this time have carved out the “narrow qualification” that it did, apparently based on U.S. v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456 (1996), a racial discrimination selective prosecution case. He would have simply held “as the majority does, that the absence of probable cause is not an absolute requirement of such a claim and its presence is not an absolute defense.” He would leave for another day the harder probable cause and First Amendment questions until they were properly raised before the Court.
Justices Ginsburg’s and Sotomayor’s Opinions
Justice Ginsburg concurred in the judgment in part and dissented in part. In her view, Mt. Healthy was applicable: with its burden-shift to the defendant to show that, even without the impermissible motive, the defendant would have do the same thing anyway, Mt. Healthy struck the right balance between protecting free speech and section 1983 law enforcement defendants. “In any event, I would not use this thin case to state a rule that will leave press members and others exercising First Amendment rights with little protection against police suppression of their speech.”
Justice Sotomayor dissented. She agreed with the “eight Justices” majority that probable cause alone does not “always suffice[]” to defeat a section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim. However, she strongly disagreed with a “slimmer majority” that a showing of probable cause defeats such a claim unless the person arrested can show that otherwise similarly situated individuals whose speech differed were not arrested (the “narrow qualification”). She commented that the majority did not really try to show how First Amendment or section 1983 doctrine supported this result. In her view, the Court should evaluate section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims in the same way they evaluate other First Amendment retaliation claims: under the Mt. Healthy burden-shift test. This test, she pointed out, is not easily satisfied by many plaintiffs even when there is proof of retaliatory animus. Finally, she criticized the majority’s use of comparison-based evidence as “the sole gateway through the probable-cause barrier that it otherwise erects.” This, in her view, will lead to arbitrary results and shield unconstitutional conduct: “a particularly brazen officer could arrest on transparently speech-based grounds and check the statute books later for a potential justification.”
Comments
1. Nieves posed this choice for the Court: protect police officers or protect the First Amendment. The Court chose to protect police officers. It thereby mangled both section 1983 and the First Amendment. Consequently, Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor got it right: Mt. Healthy should have governed section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims.
2. The decision in Nieves stems from the Court’s misguided decision in Hartman involving First Amendment retaliatory prosecutions. In Hartman the Court improperly inserted pro-law enforcement policy into section 1983 statutory interpretation in the course of setting out the proper elements of a section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory prosecution claim. This set the stage for Nieves. As I have argued previously–see the post cited above–to the extent that such policy considerations are relevant, they belong on the qualified immunity side of section 1983 statutory interpretation (indeed, the Court has used qualified immunity with a vengeance to favor law enforcement). In this regard, note that the Court in Nieves explicitly cited Harlow v. Fitzgerald, where the Court eliminated the subjective part of the then-existing qualified immunity test in order to protect defendants from what it considered non-meritorious claims.
The Court in Nieves compounded its mistake by extending Hartman (where the presumption of prosecutorial regularity was the driving consideration) to Nieves and First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims, where this presumption simply does not play any role.
3. The “narrow qualification” somewhat helps plaintiffs bringing section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims. But the evidentiary burden of proof on plaintiffs to show similarly situated individuals who did not engage in protected speech and were not arrested, and plaintiffs’ ability thereby to end-run a finding of probable cause, is extremely high. Compare the onerous burden on section 1983 plaintiffs bringing claims of class-of-one equal protection violations.
4. Here are the results in real world terms:
(1) Going forward, the law regarding First Amendment retaliatory arrests is clearly established for qualified immunity purposes;
(2) Probable cause is a defense to section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims unless the plaintiff can show that he or she was treated differently from others similarly situated because of his or her speech.
(3) Probable cause is not a defense to a section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim brought against a municipality whose official policy or custom brought about the plaintiff’s allegedly unconstitutional arrest. This is the teaching of Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, decided in 2018 and discussed in the post cited above as well as in Chapter 3 of my treatise, CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES LITIGATION: THE LAW OF SECTION 1983 (4th ed. 2018, West).
The Free Speech Rights of Condo Owners and Boards: A Video
Some weeks ago I spoke to the Chicago Bar Association’s Real Estate Committee about the free speech rights of condominium associations and condominium owners. There was a spirited discussion with very good questions after I finished my 20-25 minute presentation.
Feel free to skip the first eight minutes of preliminary committee matters and to go right to my talk. I hope you find it of interest.
Here it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnnKFGIx6Vk
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The Excessive Fines Clause, Timbs v. Indiana and Section 1983 Implications
The Eighth Amendment
The Eighth Amendment declares: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Although the Eighth Amendment on its face applies only to the federal government, the Excessive Bail and Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clauses, like many other provisions of the Bill of Rights, have gradually been incorporated and applied to the states and local governments through the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause. But what of the Excessive Fines Clause?
Timbs v. Indiana and the Excessive Fines Clause
On February 20, 2019, the Supreme Court held in Timbs v. Indiana, No. 17-1091, reversing the Indiana Supreme Court, that the Excessive Fines Clause is similarly incorporated and applies to states and local governments. The Court, in an opinion by Justice Ginsburg, found that the Excessive Fines Clause is fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty with deep roots in history and our tradition. The Court further rejected Indiana’s argument that the Clause does not apply to the use of civil in rem forfeitures, reasoning that the proper incorporation inquiry is whether the right guaranteed in fundamental and deeply rooted, not whether each and every particular application of that right is fundamental or deeply rooted. The Supreme Court then remanded to the Indiana Supreme Court to determine whether the attempted civil in rem forfeiture in Timbs violated the Excessive Fines Clause.
What does this have to do with section 1983? A great deal, it turns out.
Civil In Rem Forfeiture Proceedings
In Timbs itself, the criminal defendant pleaded guilty to state charges of dealing in a controlled substance and conspiracy to commit theft, and had already been sentenced to one-year home detention and five-years probation, with fees and costs totaling $1203.
But this did not satisfy Indiana. It also engaged a private law firm–a not unusual tactic in such cases–to bring a civil suit on behalf of the state for forfeiture of the criminal defendant’s recently purchased $42,000 Land Rover. The suit charged that the vehicle had been used to transport heroin. Notably, the maximum monetary fine for a drug conviction under Indiana law is $10,000, less than one-quarter of the value of the Land Rover. In addition, the Land Rover was purchased by the defendant with money from an insurance policy when his father died.
Section 1983 Implications
Here’s where section 1983 may come into the picture. The criminal defendant in Timbs, and others like him, can now use the Excessive Fines Clause as an affirmative Eighth Amendment defense to a civil in rem forfeiture proceeding. Going even further, the criminal defendant in Timbs, and others like him, can raise the Excessive Force argument as the basis of a section 1983 counterclaim for damages. Since the civil in rem forfeiture proceeding is brought on behalf of the state, albeit by a private law firm, there would still be state action.
It is true that the state itself is not a suable person for damages under section 1983 (in contrast, local governments can indeed be sued for damages under section 1983). Nevertheless responsible state officials (and local government officials as well) could be sued for damages in their individual capacities. Timbs has now clearly established relevant Eighth Amendment Excessive Fines Clause law for qualified immunity purposes, although what is excessive or not was not addressed by the Court.
Note also that a possible hurdle for criminal defendants who want to bring section 1983 claims against state and local government officials based on the Excessive Fines Clause could be absolute prosecutorial immunity.
(See chs. 7 & 8, Nahmod, CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES LITIGATION: THE LAW OF SECTION 1983 (West 2018), on absolute and qualified immunity).
But I am getting ahead of myself here. Despite these qualifications, Timbs is an Eighth Amendment game-changer.
Brochure for 36th Annual Section 1983 Conference on April 11-12, 2019
As I mentioned in an earlier save-the-date post, the 36th Annual Conference on Section 1983 will be held at Chicago-Kent College on Law on Thursday and Friday, April 11-12, 2019. This Conference is an outstanding value and is suitable for both newcomers to the field and experienced attorneys.
Many aspects of section 1983 doctrine and practice will be expertly covered, including attorney’s fees, together with Equal Protection, the Religion Clauses and pending Supreme Court cases.
The Conference’s nationally known speakers are Kimberly Bailey, Gerald Birnberg, Karen Blum, Erwin Chemerinsky, Rosalie Levinson, John Murphey and Sheldon Nahmod.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me directly: snahmod@kentlaw.edu
Here is the link to the brochure, with relevant registration details: . https://cle.kentlaw.edu/database/brochures/sec83%20brochure%20201970554751.pdf
Flint, Michigan, the Safe Drinking Water Act and Section 1983 Constitutional Claims
Boler v. Earley, 865 F.3d 391 (6th Cir. 2017), is a significant Sixth Circuit case involving the Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 U.S.C. secs. 300g-1 et seq (SDWA). It arose out of the disturbing and infamous events involving the contaminated drinking water of residents of Flint, Michigan.
The plaintiffs were residents of Flint, Michigan, who were adversely affected by water contamination. They sued various state and local officials and entities under section 1983 alleging substantive due process and equal protection violations, together with various state law claims. The defendants argued that the SDWA showed that Congress intended to preclude the plaintiff’s constitutional claims, thus limiting the plaintiffs to whatever SDWA remedies they had.
Rejecting this argument and ruling that the SDWA did not preclude the plaintiff’s section 1983 constitutional claims, the Sixth Circuit relied on the SDWA’s text and legislative history, as well as its remedial scheme, for its conclusion. The court also mentioned the SDWA’s savings clause and examined the divergence of the rights protected by the SWDA and the constitutional provisions raised by plaintiffs. All of these considerations demonstrated that Congress did not intend to preclude section 1983 constitutional claims when it enacted the SDWA. Thus, the plaintiffs were entitled to go ahead with their substantive due process and equal protection claims.
Comments
1. The precise issue presented in Boler was whether the plaintiffs could even proceed with their section 1983 constitutional claims in light of the SDWA. I discuss this preclusion issue generally in sec 2:46 of my treatise, NAHMOD, CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES LITIGATION: THE LAW OF SECTION 1983 (2018)(West). See also Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, 129 S. Ct. 788 (2009), unanimously holding that Title IX did not preclude section 1983 equal protection sex discrimination claims against school districts and officials.
2. This preclusion issue is different from what I have called the “laws issue,” namely, whether the violation of a federal statute by a state or local government official, or by a local government, can be the basis of a section 1983 claim. See sections 2:27-2:47 of my treatise.
3. Allowing the plaintiff’s section 1983 claims to go forward in Boler resulted in a subsequent (and very recent) landmark decision in which the Sixth Circuit held that the plaintiffs pleaded plausible substantive due process claims against various individual defendants, and also that these individual defendants were not protected by qualified immunity because the relevant substantive due process law was clearly settled at the time. See Guertin v. State of Michigan, Nos. 17-1698, 1699, 1745, 1752 & 1759 (6th Cir., January 4, 2019).
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Substantive Due Process Privacy Violations and Section 1983 Claims
Section 1983 makes actionable violations of “rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution.” This includes not only violations of incorporated provisions of the Bill of Rights such as the First, Second, Fourth and Eighth Amendments but also the Fourteenth Amendment’s stand-alone provisions, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.
As a result of Supreme Court contraceptive, abortion and homosexual sodomy decisions–see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), as modified by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992); Lawrence v. Texas, 123 S. Ct. 2472 (2003)–a constitutional right of privacy is now recognized under the Due Process Clause. This right essentially protects procreations, marriage, family matters and sexual autonomy.
See generally my earlier post on substantive due process and the right of privacy here: https://nahmodlaw.com/2014/09/29/know-your-constitution-7-what-is-subtantive-due-processright-of-privacy/
A good recent example of a section 1983 damages action arising out of a substantive due process violation is Perez v. City of Roseville, 2018 WL 797453, *2 (9th Cir. 2018). This Ninth Circuit case involved a former probationary police officer who was discharged after an internal investigation into her romantic relationship with a fellow police officer She alleged under section 1983 that this violated her due process rights to privacy and intimate association because it was based in part on disapproval of her private, off-duty sexual conduct.
Reversing the district court which had granted summary judgment to the defendants, the Ninth Circuit observed that it had “long held that the constitutional guarantees of privacy and free association prohibit the State from taking adverse employment action on the basis of private sexual conduct unless it demonstrates that such conduct negatively affects on-the-job performance or violates a constitutionally permissible, narrowly tailored regulation.” In this case, a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether the plaintiff was terminated at least in part because of her extramarital affair.
The Ninth Circuit went on to rule that the defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity because the relevant due process law was clearly settled long ago in Thorne v. City of El Segundo, 726 F.3d 459 (9th Cir. 1983). Judge Tashima concurred, 2018 WL 797453, *14, disagreeing with the majority’s reasoning on this issue.
Comment
The broader the scope of the right of privacy, the broader the potential scope of section 1983 damages liability. This is true, of course, for other constitutional violations that are actionable under section 1983.
It is also important to note that the contours of the right of privacy are for the most part clearly established for qualified immunity purposes.
I discuss many other section 1983 substantive due process privacy cases in my treatise, CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES LITIGATION: THE LAW OF SECTION 1983 (2018)(West) at sec. 3:78.
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Manuel v. City of Joliet and Accrual: The Plaintiff Wins in the Seventh Circuit
Background
I posted several times previously on Manuel v. City of Joliet, 137 S. Ct. 911 (2017), an important section 1983 malicious prosecution case that came out of Seventh Circuit and made it to the Supreme Court, which reversed and remanded. My most recent post on Manuel, which can serve as background, is here:
Recall that after the plaintiff in Manuel was arrested on March 18, 2011, and charged with possessing unlawful drugs, he was held in jail pending trial pursuant to a judge’s decision. Forty-seven days later, all charges were dismissed against him because the drugs he was carrying were apparently legal, and he was released the next day. On April 22, 2013, the plaintiff sued for damages under section 1983 and the Fourth Amendment, alleging that his detention without probable cause was unconstitutional. Reversing the Seventh Circuit and remanding, the Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiff was entitled to seek damages under the Fourth Amendment but remanded to determine whether his complaint was timely under the applicable two-year Illinois statute of limitations.
On Remand to the Seventh Circuit
In Manuel v. City of Joliet, 2018 WL 4292913 (7th Cir. 2018), the particular issue before the Seventh Circuit, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision and remand, was when his section 1983 Fourth Amendment cause of action accrued? Was it March 18, when the plaintiff was arrested and ordered by the judge to remain in custody, in which case the suit would not be timely? Was it May 4, 2011, when the prosecutor dismissed the charge, in which case his suit would be timely? Or was it on May 5, 2011, when the plaintiff was released, in which case his suit would also be timely? The Seventh Circuit ruled that the plaintiff’s section 1983 Fourth Amendment cause of action accrued on May 5, 2011, when he was released; thus, his suit was timely.
The Defense Argument Based on Wallace v. Kato Rejected
In an opinion by Judge Easterbrook, the Seventh Circuit rejected the defense argument that the cause of action accrued when the plaintiff was brought before the judge and held pursuant to legal process, per Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007). First, here, unlike in Wallace, the plaintiff challenged his custody, and not just his arrest. Second, and more important, the Seventh Circuit asserted: “[T]he line that the Justices drew in Wallace–in which a claim accrues no later than the moment a person is bound over by a magistrate or arraigned on charges … and [that] all Fourth Amendment claims are to be treated alike–did not survive Manuel.” The Seventh Circuit reasoned that because the Court held in Manuel that wrongful pretrial custody violates the Fourth Amendment even when it follows the start of legal process in a criminal case, “[w] hen a wrong is ongoing rather than discrete, the period of limitations does not commence until the wrong ends.”
The Plaintiff’s Argument Based on the Tort of Malicious Prosecution Also Rejected
The Seventh Circuit also rejected the plaintiff’s analogy to the tort of malicious prosecution, under which favorable termination–here, May 4, 2011, when the prosecutor dismissed the charge–would be determinative. Characterizing the plaintiff’s claim as a Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim was “wrong” after Manuel. The Seventh Circuit explained:
The problem is the wrongful custody. … But there is a constitutional right not to be held in custody without probable cause. Because the wrong is the detention rather than the existence of criminal charges, the period of limitations also should depend on the dates of the detention.
Finally, the Seventh Circuit observed that its conclusion was supported by the accrual principle that the “existence of detention forbids a suit for damages contesting that detention’s validity.” It commented that in light of Supreme Court precedent, section 1983 “cannot be used to contest ongoing custody that has been properly authorized.”
Comment
Once the Seventh Circuit determined that Wallace v. Kato was inapplicable in light of the Court’s decision in Manuel, an accrual decision favoring the plaintiff readily followed, even though not based on the plaintiff’s malicious prosecution analogy. Indeed, the Seventh Circuit expressly, and correctly, declared that malicious prosecution doctrine was irrelevant to what was a straightforward section 1983 Fourth Amendment claim challenging illegal custody.
In so stating, the Seventh Circuit was not only consistent with its own prior case law but also with my long-standing position (discussed in earlier posts and in my section 1983 treatise) that malicious prosecution doctrine should play no direct role in the elements of section 1983 claims. In this view, what is crucial is the particular constitutional claim, here the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, the Seventh Circuit went on to observe that malice was irrelevant to a claim like Manuel‘s: “[T]his is a plain-vanilla Fourth Amendment claim, and under that provision is objective.”
Thus, it bears repeating the Seventh Circuit’s accrual decision was based on the particular Fourth Amendment claim directed against plaintiff’s custody.
Quere: Is the Seventh Circuit’s decision certworthy in light of the Seventh Circuit’s take on the adverse, if not overruling, effect of Manuel on Wallace?
See generally, on section 1983 malicious prosecution, my treatise: CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES LITIGATION: THE LAW OF SECTION 1983 ch. 3 (2018)(West & Westlaw).
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Video of Lecture on the Religion Clauses, RFRA and RLUIPA
I lectured on the Religion Clauses, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) at the New Mexico State Bar Convention in Ruidoso, New Mexico, in August, 2017.
The lecture lasted an hour and nine minutes. It is a good overview and summary and can also serve as a useful introduction, even for non-lawyers, to those who want to become knowledgeable quickly about these topics.
Below is the link to the Youtube video of this lecture. I hope you find it of interest.
If you want a copy of the accompanying outline, please email me at snahmod@kentlaw.edu and I’ll send it to you.
I can be followed on Twitter @NahmodLaw.
A DeShaney Danger Creation Case that Survived Summary Judgment
Over the years I have posted many times about the difficulty plaintiffs have in surmounting the no-affirmative duty substantive due process rule of DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989). This case declared that government has no affirmative duty to protect or rescue individuals from private harm. See Nahmod, CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES LITIGATION: THE LAW OF SECTION 1983 secs. 3:59-3:61 (4th ed. 2017)(West).
As noted in the voluminous case law, there are two possible end-runs around this no-duty rule. First, where there is special relationship between the government and the plaintiff, a very limited category of cases in which the plaintiff is dependent on government and cannot act on his or her own behalf. And second, danger creation, where government itself is not neutral but rather creates the danger to the plaintiff.
But even where an affirmative substantive due process duty has been shown, the plaintiff must go on to show a breach of that duty, or a violation of substantive due process.
Irish v. Maine, 849 F.3d 521 (1st Cir. 2017), and danger creation.
In Irish v. Maine, the former boyfriend of the one of two plaintiffs (the other plaintiff was her mother) broke into her parents’ home, fatally shot her boyfriend, shot her mother, abducted her and engaged in a shootout with police during which another individual was shot fatally. The plaintiff alleged that the rampage began after a police officer left the former boyfriend a voice message notifying him that the plaintiff had made a complaint to police about the former boyfriend’s serious violent crimes against her earlier, and asking him to come in for an interview. This was despite the plaintiff’s explicit request that the former boyfriend not be notified by police because of her concern that such notice would incite further violence against her, which turned out to be true.
Reversing the district court which had dismissed plaintiff’s danger creation substantive due process claim, and had also granted defendants’ qualified immunity motion, the First Circuit remanded for further fact finding. It observed that there was no evidence as to whether the police decision to leave a voice message was in line with police protocol and training. There was also no evidence on exactly what the officers knew about the veracity of plaintiff’s allegations against the former boyfriend, about his propensity for violence and about whether he would likely act on that propensity. According to the First Circuit, these facts were relevant to both the viability of the due process claim and qualified immunity.
Comment
The first question is whether there was a general substantive due process duty imposed on the police to protect the plaintiff from her former boyfriend. The short answer under DeShaney is no. The second question is whether the police in this case had any kind of special relationship with the plaintiff, and here too the short answer is no. The crucial question, then, is whether the police violated substantive due process in creating the danger to the plaintiff by leaving a voice message for the former boyfriend despite the plaintiff’s explicit request that the police not notify him because that would incite him to further violence.
Note that the issue in the First Circuit was not whether the voice message actually caused the former boyfriend’s violent acts; this seems to have been shown. Rather, having thus shown the existence of an affirmative due process duty to protect or rescue though the police creation of the danger, did the plaintiff also show a breach of that duty, namely, a violation of substantive due process? And the constitutionally required state of mind for such a substantive due process violation is deliberate indifference.
This is why the First Circuit remanded. If leaving a voice message was not in line with protocol, this would tend to show deliberate indifference. Similarly, if the police knew about the truthfulness of the plaintiff’s description of her former boyfriend and that he would likely engage in violence against her, that too would tend to show deliberate indifference.
(For more discussions of recent circuit court decisions addressing DeShaney issues, search this blog for “DeShaney”)
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Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach and First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest Damages Claims: The Court Again Sidesteps the Probable Cause Issue
Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach
In Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 138 S. Ct. — (2018), the Supreme Court once again avoided ruling generally on the question whether a section 1983 plaintiff who alleges a retaliatory arrest in violation of the First Amendment must allege and prove the absence of probable cause in addition to impermissible First Amendment motive. Or, to put it another way, whether probable cause to arrest is a defense to a First Amendment retaliatory arrest damages claim. Instead, it ruled narrowly for the plaintiff based on the particular facts of his case.
In Lozman, the plaintiff alleged that a city (through its policymakers) had him arrested in retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment rights. He claimed that he was arrested at a city council meeting when he got up to speak because he previously had criticized the city’s eminent domain redevelopment efforts and had also sued the city for violating the state’s Sunshine Act. He was never prosecuted. However, the plaintiff conceded that there was probable cause for his arrest for violating a Florida statute prohibiting interruptions or disturbances at certain public assemblies, because he had refused to leave the podium after receiving a lawful order to do so.
Ordinarily, such a plaintiff, in order to make out a section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim, would only have to allege and prove that this impermissible retaliatory motive caused him harm, and the defendant would have the burden of disproving the absence of but-for causation in order to escape liability. Mt. Healthy Bd. of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977). But here the city argued that even if its motive was impermissible under the First Amendment, there was probable cause–an objective Fourth Amendment standard–to arrest the plaintiff anyway, and that this constituted a defense to the plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim.
In Lozman, the Eleventh Circuit had ruled that probable cause was indeed a defense to a section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim. Specifically, it determined that a section 1983 retaliatory arrest plaintiff must allege and prove not only the retaliatory motive but the absence of probable cause as well. In other words, the absence of probable cause was an element of the section 1983 plaintiff’s retaliatory arrest claim.
The Eleventh Circuit’s Reliance on Hartman v. Moore
The Eleventh Circuit’s decision was based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250 (2006), which held that for section 1983 retaliatory prosecution claims against law enforcement officers (prosecutors themselves are absolutely immune from damages liability for their decision to prosecute), the plaintiff must allege and prove not only the impermissible motive but the absence of probable cause as well. The Court reasoned that there was a presumption of prosecutorial regularity that the section 1983 plaintiff must overcome as an element of his retaliatory prosecution case. Accordingly, as a matter of section 1983 statutory interpretation and policy (but not of constitutional law), the plaintiff should have this twin burden in retaliatory prosecution cases.
The Court in Hartman explained that a retaliatory prosecution case was very different from the usual First Amendment retaliation case that involved a relatively clear causal connection between the defendant’s impermissible motivation and the resulting injury to the plaintiff. It was appropriate in such cases to apply the Mt. Healthy burden-shift rule under which the defendant has the burden of disproving but-for causation in order to prevail.
As discussed in a prior post, the Court previously had a similar First Amendment retaliatory arrest issue before it in Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658 (2012). But it avoided addressing the merits by ruling for the individual defendants on qualified immunity grounds.
In my view, as I have argued previously, the Court’s decision in Hartman should not be applied to First Amendment retaliatory arrest cases. The express reason for the Hartman rule is that First Amendment retaliatory prosecution cases involve a presumption of prosecutorial regularity. But this reason is clearly inapplicable where there is no prosecution and the constitutional challenge is to the arrest itself.
Moreover, First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims involve the impermissible motivation (a subjective inquiry) of law enforcement officers irrespective of probable cause, which is an objective (could have arrested) inquiry. Under this objective inquiry, the existence of probable cause precludes a Fourth Amendment violation based on an arrest even where that arrest is grounded on an offense different from the offense for which probable cause is deemed to be present. This provides a great deal of protection for police officers who allegedly make arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
However, if a police officer arrests a person for racial reasons, and the claimed injury is grounded on those racial reasons, it should not matter for the Equal Protection claim–-even if it would for a Fourth Amendment claim–-that the officer had probable cause to do so, namely, that the officer could have arrested the plaintiff. This reasoning should apply as well to §1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claims.
It was always questionable whether the Court in Hartman should have allowed policy considerations to change the usual section 1983 causation rules in First Amendment retaliatory prosecution cases. Regardless, that reasoning should most definitely not be extended to First Amendment retaliatory arrest cases. Such policy considerations as are discussed in Hartman are most appropriately addressed, if they are to be addressed at all, as part of the qualified immunity inquiry, not the elements of the section 1983 retaliatory arrest claim.
The Supreme Court’s Narrow Decision in Lozman
In any event, in Lozman, the Court, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy, reversed the Eleventh Circuit and ruled that in this particular case the plaintiff did not have to allege and prove the absence of probable cause, and probable cause was not a defense to his First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim.
Emphasizing the narrowness of its decision, the Court pointed out that the plaintiff only challenged the lawfulness of his arrest under the First Amendment; he did not make an equal protection claim. Further, he conceded there was probable cause for his arrest, namely, that he could have been arrested for violating the Florida statute. Thus, the only question was whether the existence of probable cause barred his First Amendment retaliation claim in this case.
The Court went on to observe that the issue in First Amendment retaliatory arrest cases was whether Mt. Healthy or Hartman applied. It addressed what it considered to be the strong policy arguments on both sides of the issue. The Court then determined that resolution of the matter would have to wait for another case: “For Lozman’s claim is far afield from the typical retaliatory arrest claims, and the difficulties that might arise if Mt. Healthy is applied to the same mine run of arrests made by police officers are not present here.” For one thing, the plaintiff did not sue the officer who made the arrest. For another, since he sued the city, he had to allege and prove an official policy or custom, which “separates Lozman’s claim from the typical retaliatory arrest claim.” Moreover, the causation issues here were relatively straightforward because the plaintiff’s allegations of an official policy or custom of retaliation were unrelated to the criminal offense for which the arrest was made but rather to prior, protected speech. In short, the causal connection between the alleged animus and the injury would not be “weakened by [an official’s] legitimate consideration of speech.”(quoting Reichle, 566 U.S. at 668).
This did not mean that the Lozman plaintiff would necessarily win on remand. A jury might find that the city did not have a retaliatory motive. Or, under Mt. Healthy, the city might show that it would have had the plaintiff arrested anyway regardless of any retaliatory motive.
Justice Thomas was the sole dissenter. He maintained that the Court had simply made up a narrow rule to fit this case. Instead, he argued that plaintiffs in First Amendment retaliatory arrest cases have the burden of pleading and proving the absence of probable cause. That is, probable cause “necessarily defeats First Amendment retaliatory-arrest claims.” Accordingly, the plaintiff should lose here.
Comments
The better approach, as indicated above, is to apply Mt. Healthy in all retaliatory arrest cases. Hartman should be limited to retaliatory prosecution cases. Nevertheless, after Lozman the question is still open in the Supreme Court. This means, among other things, the retaliatory arrest individual defendants will continue to have a powerful qualified immunity argument, namely, that the law is not clearly settled even now, per Reichle v. Howards.
Note, however, that the Court may yet resolve this question in its forthcoming 2018 Term. On June 28, 2018, it granted certiorari in Nieves v. Bartlett, 712 Fed.Appx. 613 (9th Cir. 2017)(No.17-1174), to address once again whether probable cause is a defense to a section 1983 First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim. In this unreported decision, the Ninth Circuit ruled that probable cause is not a defense to First Amendment retaliatory arrest damages claims.
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