Cherrington v. SkeeterCherrington v. Skeeter
OPINION
ROSEN, District Judge.
Plaintiffs/Appellants Mary Cherrington and her daughter, Daija King, appeal the District Court‘s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of Defendants/Appellees Andre Skeeter, Jon Kinney, and the City of Circleville, Ohio in this action brought under
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In the summer of 1996, the Defendant/Appellee City of Circleville, Ohio commenced an undercover law enforcement investigation in response to concerns of increased illegal drug trafficking activities within the City. Because of insufficient resources and a concern that the City‘s traditional police force could not conduct an anonymous undercover operation amidst Circleville‘s small population, the City sought outside assistance in its investigation. Specifically, Defendant/Appellee Police Chief Jon Kinney contacted a private security firm, which in turn referred Chief Kinney to Defendant/Appellee Andre Skeeter, a private investigator. Based on this referral, Chief Kinney met with Skeeter, reviewed his credentials, conducted a background check, and then decided to hire him.
Skeeter was sworn in as a police officer on September 3, 1996, and began his undercover investigation under the direct supervision of Investigator Kevin Clark. Skeeter spoke with Clark on a regular basis, and submitted periodic reports on the progress of his investigation. Skeeter also met from time to time with Chief Kinney. Throughout his investigation, Skeeter was not told to target any particular individuals, but rather was directed to go out into the Circleville community, befriend people, and determine who to target for further investigation. Through these efforts, Skeeter came into contact with Plaintiff/Appellant Mary Cherrington. The two became friends, periodically
After nearly a year of this investigation, Chief Kinney, Investigator Clark, Skeeter, and the county prosecutor decided to conclude the matter by arresting selected individuals and seeking their cooperation in additional drug purchases. Chief Kinney further determined, in consultation with the county prosecutor, that these individuals should be taken to a motel rather than the Circleville police department or the county jail, in order to avoid tipping off potential targets of this “buy-bust” operation. Skeeter chose Cherrington as one of the individuals to arrest, believing that she might be willing to cooperate with the authorities.
Accordingly, on the evening of Friday, August 29, 1997, Skeeter arranged for a mutual acquaintance, Leslie Jones, to go to Cherrington‘s residence and ask her to purchase $100 worth of cocaine. Cherrington agreed, left her home to make the purchase, and returned about a half an hour later. A short time later, Cherrington‘s friend, Scott Smallwood, arrived at her house and began smoking crack in the kitchen. Skeeter then arrived at Cherrington‘s home, accompanied by another law enforcement agent. Upon witnessing Smallwood smoking crack and learning that Cherrington had made the requested cocaine purchase, Skeeter placed both Cherrington and Smallwood under arrest. This arrest apparently occurred at around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 30, 1997.
Cherrington was told to pack a bag, and Skeeter then drove her and her two-year-old daughter, Plaintiff/Appellant Daija King, to a Travel Lodge motel at the outskirts of Circleville. At around 3:15 a.m., Cherrington signed a form indicating that she had been advised of her Miranda rights by Inspector Clark, and that she had agreed to waive these rights and voluntarily speak to the police. Cherrington remained at the motel with her daughter for the next 24 hours, during which time she cooperated with the authorities by arranging a drug purchase. Cherrington testified at her deposition that she requested permission to contact someone to pick up Daija, but that this request was refused, leading her to surreptitiously call a friend to come and get her daughter. Before this friend could arrive, however, Cherrington and Daija were taken from the motel and placed in a police car.
On Sunday, August 31, 1997 at 3:37 a.m., about 24 hours after her arrest, Cherrington was taken to the Circleville police department for processing and placed in a cell. Her daughter Daija was released to a friend. Over 48 hours later, at around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, September 2, 1997,2 Cherrington was arraigned on drug trafficking charges. She subsequently pled guilty to two counts of trafficking in cocaine.
Based on these incidents, Plaintiffs/Appellants Mary Cherrington and Daija King brought this
II. ANALYSIS
A. The Standards Governing This Appeal
This case is on appeal from the District Court‘s grant of summary judgment to Defendants. Accordingly, we review this District Court ruling de novo. See Holloway v. Brush, 220 F.3d 767, 772 (6th Cir. 2000). Likewise, to the extent that this appeal challenges the District Court‘s decision to confer qualified immunity upon the individual Defendants, we review this question of law de novo. See Gardenhire v. Schubert, 205 F.3d 303, 310 (6th Cir. 2000).
B. The Individual Defendants Are Protected by Qualified Immunity Against the § 1983 Claims Asserted by Daija King.
Among the grounds advanced in Defendants’ summary judgment motion in the court below, the individual Defendants, Andre Skeeter and Chief Kinney, argued that they were shielded from liability under
The Supreme Court has instructed that a qualified immunity inquiry generally entails two discrete analytical steps. As a threshold matter, we must ask whether the record, viewed most favorably to the plaintiff, establishes that “the officer‘s conduct violated a constitutional right.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 2156, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001); see also Burchett v. Kiefer, 310 F.3d 937, 942 (6th Cir.2002). “If no constitutional right would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified immunity.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. at 2156. “On the other hand, if a violation could be made out on a favorable view of the parties’ submissions, the next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established.” 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. at 2156; see also Burchett, 310 F.3d at 942.
To this point, the parties have made little effort to identify the constitutional rights of Daija King that might have been implicated by Defendants’ conduct. Indeed, the record on appeal fails to indicate that the parties even addressed Daija King‘s claims in their submissions to the
Yet, other cases tend to place a different constitutional gloss upon Daija King‘s claims in this case. In Davis v. Brady, 143 F.3d 1021, 1024-26 (6th Cir.1998), for example, we held that a
[W]hen the State takes a person into custody and holds him there against his will, the Constitution imposes upon it a corresponding duty to assume some responsibility for his safety and well-being. The rationale for this principle is simple enough: when the State by the affirmative exercise of its power so restrains an individual‘s liberty that it renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time fails to provide for his basic human needs—e.g., food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety—it transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by the
Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause. The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State‘s knowledge of the individual‘s predicament or from its expression of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf. In the substantive due process analysis, it is the State‘s affirmative act of restraining the individual‘s freedom to act on his own behalf—through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty—which is the “deprivation of liberty” triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause....
DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 199-200, 109 S.Ct. at 1005-06 (citations and footnote omitted). These principles seemingly are implicated here, where Defendants restrained Daija‘s freedom to act on her own behalf or to secure the assistance of a substitute caregiver in providing for her basic needs.
In the end, however, the outcome is the same whether we analyze Daija King‘s allegations under
Unfortunately, the present case does not fit neatly within any of these recognized analytical frameworks. Plainly, Daija King was not held on suspicion of any criminal activity. Nor, in contrast to the child abuse and neglect cases, did Defendants seize Daija out of a belief that she faced an imminent danger of harm in her home. Neither can it be said that Daija was detained in order to “facilitate[ ] the orderly completion of” Mary Cherrington‘s arrest and “minimize[ ] the risk of harm to officers and others” as they carried out this arrest. Burchett, 310 F.3d at 943. Rather, Daija King was taken along with her mother because the arresting officers deemed it inappropriate to leave the two-year-old child alone at home, and because they either failed to identify or declined to pursue other options for ensuring Daija‘s safety and well-being following her mother‘s arrest.
Lacking any direct guidance on the legal inquiry that might govern such a situation, the District Court assessed Defendants’ conduct under a general standard of reasonableness. (See District Court Op. at 5-6, J.A. at 715-16.) This approach comports with the Supreme Court‘s general instruction that, in cases involving seizures short of a traditional arrest, the courts should be guided by “the ultimate standard of reasonableness embodied in the
At least one other court has employed this same “reasonableness” inquiry under facts similar to those presented here. In Matheny v. Boatright, 970 F.Supp. 1039, 1041 (S.D.Ga.1997), the defendant police officers brought the plaintiff children along as their mother, Angela Matheny, was arrested on drug charges, taken to a detention facility, interrogated, and booked. Matheny alleged that she had sought permission to contact her children‘s aunt and grandmother to come and take care of the children, but that she was not allowed to make such arrangements until nearly an hour after she arrived at the detention facility. The Court analyzed these circumstances under
Matheny does not contend that Defendants had any physical contact with the children. Nor does she claim that the children suffered any physical injury inflicted by Defendants. Matheny also does not claim that Defendants directed
any harsh or abusive language at the children. In light of the circumstances surrounding Matheny‘s arrest, namely that her three minor children were present without any other adult present to care for them, Defendants’ actions were reasonable. The facts suggest that rather than putting the children at risk, Defendants undertook to care for the children until suitable arrangements could be made for their care.
Matheny, 970 F.Supp. at 1046.4
We agree with the District Courts here and in Matheny that
Yet, it ultimately is unnecessary for us to decide whether the individual Defendants did or did not heed the
For a right to be clearly established, [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. Although it need not be the case that the very action in question has been previously held unlawful, ... in the light of pre-existing law, the unlawfulness must be apparent.
Burchett, 310 F.3d at 942 (internal quotations and citations omitted).
As is evident from our foregoing discussion, the pre-existing law is silent on the lawfulness of keeping a young child with her mother while the latter is placed under arrest and held in custody at a location other than a traditional detention facility. If the Defendant officers had scoured the case law at the time (or even to this day), they could not have located a decision indicating that Daija King‘s
We reach precisely the same conclusion upon evaluating Daija King‘s claims under substantive due process standards. Here, we have somewhat more case law to guide us; several cases, including at least one in this Circuit, have considered the substantive due process implications of a police officer‘s decision about what to do with children whose parent or custodian has been placed under arrest. See, e.g., Walton v. City of Southfield, 995 F.2d 1331, 1336-39 (6th Cir.1993); Moore v. Marketplace Restaurant, Inc., 754 F.2d 1336, 1354-55 (7th Cir.1985); White v. Rochford, 592 F.2d 381, 383-86 (7th Cir.1979); Matheny, 970 F.Supp. at 1043-45. Upon reviewing these cases, we conclude that the allegations and evidence in this case are insufficient to establish either a substantive due process violation or a violation of a clearly established constitutional right.
In Walton, for example, plaintiff Barbara Walton was driving a car in which her fifteen-year-old daughter and two-year-old granddaughter were passengers. The defendant police officers stopped and approached the car to investigate why the two-year-old was not riding in a proper child-restraint seat. Upon determining that Walton was driving with a suspended license, the officers placed her under arrest. When she asked that the children be placed in protective custody, the officers responded that they could not do so, but suggested that the children could call someone to pick them up. The officers then waited while the children entered a nearby office building to make a phone call, but did not remain on the scene to confirm that they had secured a ride home. In fact, nearly six hours passed before someone finally arrived to pick up the children.
We held that the defendant officers were entitled to qualified immunity on the children‘s substantive due process claims. We began by noting that the Sixth Circuit had not yet addressed the issue of passenger abandonment by state or local law enforcement officials, but that other Circuits had done so, reaching somewhat different conclusions. In addition, while cases such as White, supra, had recognized a due process protection against police abandonment of passengers upon arresting the driver of a vehicle, we found that White was distinguishable as involving abandonment “in a more dangerous situation.” Walton, 995 F.2d at 1338-39.6 Accordingly, despite “an exercise of very poor judgment on the part of the defendant police officers,” we held that “the ‘contours of the [due process] right,’ if there is such a right, were not sufficiently clear so that a reasonable officer would have known that leaving the children in the parking lot violated that right.” Walton, 995 F.2d at 1333, 1339.
Because Walton did not decide whether such a substantive due process right exists, it did not reach the issue of the standard by which to judge alleged violations of such a right. We addressed this question in Davis, supra, however, holding that “where the plaintiff suffered injury as a result of being placed in the state‘s custody, it has consistently and uncontroversially been the rule that a constitutional claim arises when the injury occurred as a result of the state‘s deliberate indifference to the risk of such an injury.” Davis, 143 F.3d at 1026; see also Bukowski v. City of Akron, 326 F.3d 702, 710 (6th Cir.2003) (applying a deliberate indifference standard to a substantive due process claim). Similarly, the other above-cited child abandonment cases consider whether the conduct of the defendant police officers amounted to “gross negligence” or a “reckless disregard” for the safety of the children. See Moore, 754 F.2d at 1355; White, 592 F.2d at 385.
Under this standard, we do not believe that the record in this case can be viewed as establishing a violation of Daija King‘s substantive due process rights. Admittedly, the situation into which she was placed—being taken with her mother as she was placed under arrest, and being held in a hotel room for a 24-hour period,
In any event, as with our
C. Under the Present Record, the Individual Defendants Are Not Entitled to Qualified Immunity on Mary Cherrington‘s Claim that She Was Denied a Prompt Judicial Determination of Probable Cause.
Of the various
Though Plaintiff Cherrington has mentioned this ruling only in passing, the Supreme Court‘s decision in County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 111 S.Ct. 1661, 114 L.Ed.2d 49 (1991), provides the basis for her present
In this case, Mary Cherrington was arrested without a warrant in the early morning hours of Saturday, August 30, 1997, but she was not brought before a magistrate for a probable cause determination until about 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, September 2, 1997. This delay of over 72 hours significantly exceeded the general 48-hour rule announced in County of Riverside. Absent some “bona fide emergency or other extraordinary circumstance,” then, this delay violated Cherrington‘s
Neither of Defendants’ two proposed “extraordinary circumstances” take this case outside the usual 48-hour rule. First, Defendants note that their undercover investigation continued after Cherrington‘s arrest, and that she agreed to cooperate in this ongoing operation by attempting to arrange a drug purchase. Defendants reason that this undercover effort would have been jeopardized if Cherrington had been brought before a magistrate. Yet, this undercover operation surely had concluded by Sunday, August 31, 1997 at 3:37 a.m., when Cherrington was taken from the Travel Lodge motel and placed in jail. Even so, Cherrington was made to wait more than 48-hours from this point before a magistrate found probable cause to arrest her. Cherrington‘s participation in the ongoing investigation, then, did not prevent Defendants from complying with County of Riverside‘s 48-hour rule.9
Next, Defendants point to the intervening weekend and Labor Day holiday between Mary Cherrington‘s arrest and the magistrate‘s probable cause determination. County of Riverside itself, however, expressly cautions that intervening weekends and holidays do not qualify as “extraordinary circumstances” that permit relief from the 48-hour requirement. See County of Riverside, 500 U.S. at 57-58, 111 S.Ct. at 1670-71. Accordingly, this Court recently held that a municipality‘s “part-time court” scheme, under which “court was never held on weekends or holidays,” would “very likely run afoul of the forty-eight hour time limit established in Riverside” in cases of warrantless arrests on Friday evenings or Saturday mornings. Alkire v. Irving, 330 F.3d 802, 815 (6th Cir.2003).
In sum, the undisputed record establishes a violation of City of Riverside‘s 48-hour rule, and Defendants have failed to identify any emergency or other extraordinary circumstance that might take this case outside of the general rule. It follows that Plaintiff Cherrington can withstand the first prong of the qualified immunity inquiry by virtue of the violation of her
Nonetheless, we hasten to add that the liability of the individual Defendants is not a foregone conclusion upon remand. Because the District Court determined at the threshold that there had been no constitutional violation, it had no occasion to consider whether the two individual Defendants actually named in the complaint, Andre Skeeter and Chief Kinney, could be held liable for such a violation. Likewise, the parties have not addressed this issue in their briefs on appeal, and the record does not disclose all of the pertinent details of the specific roles played by Defendants Skeeter and Kinney in Mary Cherrington‘s detention and eventual appearance before a magistrate. Consequently, we are limited to offering only a few general observations that the District Court might wish to consider in any subsequent proceedings.
It is axiomatic, of course, that
Under Ohio law, where an arrest is made without a warrant, it generally falls to the “arresting officer” to “bring the arrested person without unnecessary delay before a court having jurisdiction of the offense.”
Under this record, it is possible that either or both of the named Defendants had a duty under Ohio law to see that Cherrington was promptly brought before a magistrate for a determination of probable cause to arrest her, and that either or both failed to take the necessary steps to discharge this obligation. It is equally possible, however, that one or both of these Defendants took some steps to ensure that there was a prompt judicial determination of probable cause, but that, through no fault of their own, this did not occur. In other words, we lack the information necessary to resolve the issue of causation—namely, whether the delay in Mary Cherrington‘s probable cause determination was attributable to the actions (or inaction) of one or both of the named Defendants. See, e.g., Luck v. Rovenstine, 168 F.3d 323, 327 (7th Cir.1999) (addressing this question of causation in the specific context of a claimed violation of County of Riverside‘s 48-hour rule); Hallstrom v. City of Garden City, 991 F.2d 1473, 1478-79, 1481-82 (9th Cir.1993) (same); Strepka v. Miller, 28 Fed.Appx. 823, 828 (10th Cir.2001) (same). See generally Gazette v. City of Pontiac, 41 F.3d 1061, 1066 (6th Cir.1994) (addressing the proximate cause element of a
D. Under the Present Record, the Defendant City Is Not Entitled to Summary Judgment on Plaintiff Cherrington‘s County of Riverside Claim.
As their final issue on appeal, Plaintiffs challenge the District Court‘s award of summary judgment to the Defendant City of Circleville on their
A municipality cannot be held vicariously liable under
must also demonstrate that, through its deliberate conduct, the municipality was the “moving force” behind the injury alleged. That is, a plaintiff must show that the municipal action was taken with the requisite degree of culpability and must demonstrate a direct causal link between the municipal action and the deprivation of federal rights.
Board of County Comm‘rs of Bryan County v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 404, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 1388, 137 L.Ed.2d 626 (1997); see also City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 385, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 1203, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989) (“[O]ur first inquiry in any case alleging municipal liability under
On appeal, Plaintiffs contend that the requisite municipal policy or custom can be found in the Defendant City‘s alleged failure to properly train its officers, and particularly Defendant Skeeter. The Supreme Court has held that “the inadequacy of police training may serve as the basis for
In an effort to establish their “failure to train” theory, Plaintiffs cite evidence tending to indicate that Defendant Skeeter received little or no instruction or guidance regarding Circleville police department policies and procedures. Be that as it may, however, Plaintiffs notably fail to specify exactly which constitutional injuries might have resulted from this lack of training, nor have they pointed to evidence in the record that might tend to establish a direct causal link between Skeeter‘s allegedly deficient training and a particular constitutional injury suffered by either Daija King or Mary Cherrington. We decline Plaintiffs’ invitation to engage in a generalized, open-ended inquiry whether a lack of proper training could have been the “moving force” behind some constitutional violation that might be gleaned from the record before us. Rather, absent any specific guidance from Plaintiffs on this point, we limit our consideration of the City‘s potential liability to the two alleged violations expressly raised on appeal—namely, the allegedly unlawful detention of Daija King incident to her mother‘s arrest, and the violation of Mary Cherrington‘s right to a prompt judicial determination of probable cause.
As to Daija King‘s constitutional claims, we readily conclude that the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law to forge the requisite causal connection between her allegedly unlawful detention and any inadequacy in the training of the Defendant City‘s police officers. To be actionable, a municipality‘s training must be inadequate to the tasks that its officers must perform, this inadequacy must be the product of deliberate indifference, and this inadequacy must have been closely related to or have actually caused the plaintiff‘s injury. See Russo v. City of Cincinnati, 953 F.2d 1036, 1046 (6th Cir.1992). We have read City of Canton as recognizing at least two situations in which inadequate training could be found to be the result of deliberate indifference. “One is failure to provide adequate training in light of foreseeable consequences that could result from the lack of instruction,” as would be the case, for example, if a municipality failed to instruct its officers in the use of deadly force. Brown v. Shaner, 172 F.3d 927, 931 (6th Cir.1999). “A second type of situation justifying a conclusion of deliberate indifference is where the city fails to act in response to repeated complaints of constitutional violations by its officers.” Brown, 172 F.3d at 931.
The detention of Daija King incident to her mother‘s arrest does not remotely fit into either of these established categories of actionable failures to train. Given the dearth of case law addressing the issue, it cannot be said that police officers routinely confront the question of what to do with children upon arresting their parent or guardian. Thus, the De
Matters are somewhat different with regard to Mary Cherrington‘s claim of an unduly delayed judicial determination of probable cause for her arrest. It surely is foreseeable that the Defendant City‘s police officers will occasionally make warrantless arrests, and thus will require instruction on the need to ensure that individuals arrested without a warrant are brought before a magistrate within 48 hours for a probable cause determination. Moreover, Plaintiffs have pointed to Defendant Skeeter‘s testimony that he generally did not receive any instruction regarding any Circleville police department policies or procedures. (See Skeeter Dep. at 49-50, J.A. at 114-15.) Under this record, a trier of fact could conclude that the Defendant City‘s training of Skeeter was “inadequate to the tasks that officers must perform,” and that this inadequacy reflected the City‘s “deliberate indifference” to the
Nonetheless, this still leaves the question whether this inadequate training was “closely related to” or “actually caused” a violation of Mary Cherrington‘s
In light of this evidentiary gap on a material issue, we cannot say as a matter of law that the Defendant City is not liable for the deprivation of Plaintiff Cherrington‘s
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, we REVERSE the rulings of the court below on Plaintiff Mary Cherrington‘s
Notes
Indeed, even Cherrington‘s own testimony on this point is less than definitive. She testified that while she was still in her apartment immediately following her arrest, Skeeter threatened that she would “lose my child ... [and] lose my home” if she did not cooperate with the authorities. (Cherrington Dep. at 73, J.A. at 269.) Cherrington further stated that Skeeter repeated this threat after they arrived at the hotel. (Id. at 94, J.A. at 290.) She then testified that she agreed to cooperate because “[t]hey had my child, and I didn‘t want to lose her.” (Id. at 106, J.A. at 302.) Thus, while Cherrington might well have drawn a connection in her own mind between Daija‘s presence at the hotel and her decision to cooperate with the authorities, nothing she was told expressly forged this link, and the individual Defendants did not acknowledge this motive at their depositions. Rather, from all that appears in the record, and from all that Cherrington states she was told at the time, Skeeter might have employed the very same threats even if Daija had not been kept with her mother, but instead had been placed with an agency or taken to the home of a friend or relative.
Where a person is arrested without a warrant the arresting officer shall ... bring the arrested person without unnecessary delay before a court having jurisdiction of the offense, and shall file or cause to be filed a complaint describing the offense for which the person was arrested.