McCoy v. Smith
Filing
20
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER granting 9 Motion for Summary Judgment. Signed by District Judge Monti L. Belot on 12/17/2013. (alm)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
TREVOR A. MCCOY,
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
Plaintiff,
v.
JEFFREY SMITH,
Defendant.
CIVIL ACTION
No.
13-1131-MLB
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This case comes before the court on defendant’s motion for
summary judgment.
(Doc. 9).
is ripe for decision.
The motion has been fully briefed and
(Docs. 10, 15, 19).
Defendant’s motion is
granted for the reasons herein.
I.
Facts
On May 31, 2010, Trevor J. McCoy was arrested for embezzling
from his employer, Banana Republic.
On March 4, 2011, Trevor J. was
charged with the crime and a warrant for his arrest was issued.
The
warrant correctly listed the name Trevor J. McCoy, Trevor J.’s year
of birth, driver’s license number and the last four digits of his
social security number.
warrant,
an
plaintiff,
unknown
Trevor
A,
Despite the correct information in the
individual
into
an
inputted
I/LEADS
information
computer
identifying
program.
This
information appeared on a warrant worksheet, a document utilized by
sheriff’s deputies and accessed through a computer system.
The
warrant worksheet listed information for plaintiff, including his age,
date of birth and last known address.
Defendant Jeffrey Smith, a deputy with the Sedgwick County
Sheriff’s office, is one of six deputies who search for suspects with
outstanding arrest warrants on a day to day basis.
At the time the
warrant was issued for Trevor J., Sedgwick County did not provide the
arresting deputies, including defendant, with the actual arrest
warrants issued by the court.1
Instead, defendant retrieved the
warrant worksheets from the I/LEADS computer system and would then
search for the suspects and arrest them.
On May 16, 2011, defendant
logged onto his computer and retrieved the warrant worksheet for
plaintiff. Defendant did not review the actual warrant and was unable
to access the warrant from his computer.
Defendant left the sheriff’s office and went searching for
plaintiff.
Defendant
arrived
at
plaintiff’s
father’s
home
and
informed plaintiff’s father of the outstanding warrant for his son.
Plaintiff’s father had no knowledge of the criminal acts and insisted
his son was studying in Oklahoma. Plaintiff’s father called plaintiff
who denied the criminal activities and stated that he had never worked
at Banana Republic.
Defendant suggested that plaintiff retain an
attorney to take care of the warrant and left his business card with
the criminal case number.
travel to Wichita.
Defendant did not instruct plaintiff to
Defendant did not take any further action
concerning plaintiff or Trevor J. McCoy.
On May 18, plaintiff drove to Sedgwick County Jail and turned
himself in.
Plaintiff began the booking process at 8:15 p.m. and was
released on a $5,000 bond at 9:58 p.m.
1
On June 22, the court entered
The policy has since changed and deputies are provided with a
copy of the arrest warrant to check the information against the
warrant worksheet.
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an order excusing plaintiff from any further obligation in Trevor J.’s
criminal case.
Plaintiff brought this action alleging defendant violated his
rights by arresting him without probable cause and causing him to be
unlawfully detained.
Defendant moves for summary judgment on the
basis of qualified immunity.
II.
Summary Judgment Standards
The rules applicable to the resolution of this case, now at the
summary judgment stage, are well-known and are only briefly outlined
here.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c) directs the entry of
summary judgment in favor of a party who "show[s] that there is no
genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is
entitled to a judgment as a matter of law."
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c).
An issue is “genuine” if sufficient evidence exists so that a rational
trier of fact could resolve the issue either way and an issue is
“material” if under the substantive law it is essential to the proper
disposition of the claim.
Adamson v. Multi Community Diversified
Svcs., Inc., 514 F.3d 1136, 1145 (10th Cir. 2008).
When confronted
with a fully briefed motion for summary judgment, the court must
ultimately determine "whether there is the need for a trial–whether,
in other words, there are any genuine factual issues that properly can
be resolved only by a finder of fact because they may reasonably be
resolved in favor of either party."
477 U.S. 242, 250 (1986).
judgment.
III.
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,
If so, the court cannot grant summary
Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986).
Analysis
Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. section 1983, any person who “under color
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of . . . [law] . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, . . . any
[person] . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or
immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to
the party injured.”
Section 1983 was enacted to provide protections
to those persons wronged by the misuse of power.
While the statute
itself creates no substantive civil rights, it does provide an avenue
through which civil rights can be redeemed.
F.3d 1547, 1552 (10th Cir. 1995).
See Wilson v. Meeks, 52
To state a claim for relief in a
section 1983 action, plaintiff must establish that he was (1) deprived
of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States
and (2) that the alleged deprivation was committed under color of
state law.
See American Mfr’s. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S.
40, 49-50 (1999).
A.
Fourth Amendment
Plaintiff argues that defendant did not have probable cause to
arrest him and, therefore, the arrest was unlawful.
Defendant
responds that he did not arrest plaintiff or, in the alternative, that
mere negligence is not sufficient to overcome qualified immunity.
To
succeed
on
his
claim,
plaintiff
involvement by the defendant officer.
must
allege
personal
Fogarty v. Gallegos, 523 F.3d
1147, 1156 (10th Cir. 2008)(“Individual liability under § 1983 must
be
based
on
personal
involvement
in
the
alleged
constitutional
violation.”) Defendant was not involved in plaintiff’s arrest and
detention at the jail.
Moreover, defendant did not tell plaintiff
that he needed to turn himself in and was not the individual who
inputted the incorrect information into the I/LEADS system.
Nevertheless, the court finds that defendant had probable case
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to arrest plaintiff and, therefore, no constitutional violation
occurred.
“Probable
cause
is
based
on
the
totality
of
the
circumstances, and requires reasonably trustworthy information that
would lead a reasonable officer to believe that the person about to
be arrested has committed or is about to commit a crime.”
Beattie v.
Smith, ---F.3d.---, 2013 WL 5995621, 4 (10th Cir. Nov. 13, 2013); Beck
v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 91 (1964).
A mistaken premise can furnish
grounds for an arrest based on mistaken information, “if the officers
do not know that it is mistaken and are reasonable in acting upon it."
See United States v. Shareef, 100 F.3d 1491, 1505 (10th Cir. 1996).
Moreover, the Tenth Circuit and the Supreme Court have held that
officers can rely on information provided to them by a dispatcher and
NCIC hits.
See United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 231, 105 S.
Ct. 675, 83 L. Ed.2d 604 (1985) (holding that police officers are
entitled to rely on the reasonable information relayed to them from
a police bulletin); See United States v. Shareef, 100 F.3d 1491,
1505-06 (10th Cir. 1996) (upholding as reasonable officer's reliance
on dispatcher's mistaken report of a NCIC match, rejecting argument
officer
should
have
conducted
further
investigation
prior
to
investigative stop); see also United States v. Hines, 564 F.2d 925,
927 (10th Cir. 1977) (noting that information from NCIC computer bank
“has been routinely accepted in establishing probable cause for a
valid arrest”).
While the Tenth Circuit has addressed mistakes concerning the
NCIC system, the Circuit has not yet addressed a mistaken arrest as
a result of an error in the I/LEADS system. The court has located one
district court opinion on this issue.
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In Howard v. Regional Transit
Authority, 667 F. Supp. 540, 546 (N.D. Ohio 1987), the Northern
District of Ohio held that if a “law enforcement officer acts
reasonably and consistent with the information obtained from the
computer system [I/LEADS], then a person who is mistakenly arrested
because of such information cannot maintain a cause of action under
§ 1983.”
Based on the Circuit’s position on the NCIC system, the
court believes that the Tenth Circuit would hold that officers could
rely on information received from the I/LEADS system.
In this case, defendant had no reason to suspect that the
information obtained from I/LEADS was incorrect and the warrant
officers’ standard routine was to utilize the warrant worksheet from
the I/LEADS system when searching for suspects.
An officer acts
reasonably in relying on existing procedures and “should not be held
responsible for the failure of county personnel to clear . . . the
records.”
Hill v. Bogans, 735 F.2d 391, 392-93 (10th Cir. 1984).
Therefore, the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable
to plaintiff, establish that defendant had probable cause to make the
arrest.
Moreover, a reasonable officer in defendant’s position would
believe that plaintiff had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. See
Hill v. California, 401 U.S. at 802.
Plaintiff
additionally
contends
that
defendant
should
have
checked the warrant language and not relied exclusively on the warrant
worksheet. Plaintiff, however, cites no authority that officers are
required to check an arrest warrant after receiving trustworthy
information that there is an outstanding warrant for an individual’s
arrest.
Neither federal nor state law require that an arresting
officer be in possession of the arrest warrant at the time of arrest.
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Fed. R. Crim. R. 4; K.S.A. 22–2305.
Even if there was an internal
policy to double check the warrant against the computer system, this
failure constitutes negligence only.
Under section 1983, plaintiff
must prove that police intentionally deprived him of a constitutional
right.
Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 1159-60 (1976); Martinez v.
Uphoff, 265 F.3d 1130, 1133-34 (10th Cir. 2001). “Neither simple nor
gross negligence implies an intentional and deliberative violation of
constitutional rights, and consequently neither form of negligence
satisfies the scienter requirement of § 1983.” Johnson v. Martin, 195
F.3d 1208, 1219 (10th Cir. 1999).
B.
Unlawful Detention
Because probable cause existed to arrest plaintiff, his claim of
unlawful detention must also fail. Scull v. New Mexico, 236 F.3d 588,
599 (10th Cir. 2000)(defendants believed they had the lawful authority
to imprison plaintiff based on the NCIC hit).
Moreover, the claim
could not proceed against defendant because he did not have any
personal participation in plaintiff’s detention.
Fogarty, 523 F.3d
at 1156 (10th Cir. 2008).
C.
Motion to Amend
In his response, plaintiff seeks to amend to add Sedgwick County
as a defendant.
Defendant objects for several reasons.
Because
plaintiff has not properly moved to amend as required by D. Kan. R.
15.1, the motion is denied.
Plaintiff may file a proper motion to
amend by January 10, 2014, and the court will consider the motion
after it has been fully briefed.
III. Conclusion
Defendant’s motion for summary judgment is granted.
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(Doc. 9).
A motion for reconsideration of this order is not encouraged.
Any such motion shall not exceed 3 double-spaced pages and shall
strictly comply with the standards enunciated by this court in Comeau
v. Rupp, 810 F. Supp. 1172, 1174 (1992).
The response to any motion
for reconsideration shall not exceed 3 double-spaced pages.
No reply
shall be filed.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated this
17th
day of December 2013, at Wichita, Kansas.
s/ Monti Belot
Monti L. Belot
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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