Marie WINFIELD and Jason Winfield, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Daniel TROTTIER, Defendant-Appellant, Aimee Nolan, State of Vermont, Defendants.
Docket No. 11-4404-CV.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
March 6, 2013
710 F.3d 49
Argued: Oct. 5, 2012.
We think it would be of no consequence to the reasonable person that the judge in the supervisory position had not been the United States Attorney, who carried ultimate responsibility for the office. See United States v. Arnpriester, 37 F.3d 466, 467 (9th Cir.1994) (finding a U.S. Attorney responsible for the activities of his office). Indeed, a supervisor, such as Chief of Criminal Division, is more immediately accountable for the actions of his own section than the United States Attorney is, with a correspondingly immediate difficulty in remaining impartial toward a defendant who seeks to throw more fuel on the embers left from the prior disclosures related to this case. Cf. United States v. Scholl, 166 F.3d 964, 977 (9th Cir.1999) (rejecting a recusal claim against a supervisor with no authority over the section of the office conducting the relevant investigation).
That of course is not quite the end of the matter, for as we mentioned earlier a mandamus petitioner must show irreparable harm if immediate relief is denied, and a balance of equities in his favor. As for the former, we can leave aside any question of harm personal to thе defendant and concentrate on damage to the judicial system. It is enough to say that we need not consider a rule that a clear showing under the substantive recusal standard always suffices to demonstrate irreparable harm, see In Re Martinez-Catala, 129 F.3d 213 at 217-218 (1st Cir. 1997), for here the prior disclosures make it imperative to act promptly to preclude any reasonable question whether untoward Government action in the past may affect the fairness of the judicial branch in the present. Nor does balancing the equities present any close question. The prior disclosures take this case out of the category of the heckler‘s veto, and the defendant has represented that he will not seek any trial delay if a new judge is substituted.
In sum, despite our respect for Judge Stearns and our belief in his sincerity, we are nonethеless bound to conclude that it is clear that a reasonable person might question the judge‘s ability to preserve impartiality through the course of this prosecution and the likely rulings made necessary by the immunity claim.3 The other mandamus conditions being satisfied, the petition is granted, and the case shall be reassigned to a judge whose curriculum vitae does not implicate the same level of institutional resрonsibility described here.
It is so ordered.
Megan J. Shafritz, Assistant Attorney General, (Jana M. Brown on the brief) for, William H. Sorrell, Attorney General, for the State of Vermont for Appellant.
Before: JACOBS, Chief Judge, POOLER and HALL, Circuit Judges.
DENNIS JACOBS, Chief Judge:
At issue is the scope of Winfield‘s consent to the search of her car, which is determined by looking at what a reasonable person would have understood by the exchange between Trottier and Winfield. We conclude that, while the scope of Winfield‘s consent was not limited to a search for any particular object of contraband, it did not extend to the text of her mail. However, since this right was not clearly established at the time of the search, Trottier is entitled to qualified immunity. We therefore reverse.
BACKGROUND
The district court found that the following facts were undisputed. On May 26, 2007, Winfield was driving north on Interstate 89 in Vermont, en route to visit her father in Montreal. Trottier, a state trooper, stopped her for driving twenty miles per hour over the limit, and was inspired to search the car by certain things he deemed suspicious: The passenger, Winfield‘s son Jason, avoided making eye contact with him; and Winfield was eating a Powerbar “in what he regarded as a hurried manner.” Winfield v. Trottier, No. 5:08-cv-278, 2011 WL 4442933, at *1 (D.Vt. Sept. 21, 2011).
As Trottier was waiting for verification of Winfield‘s identity, he approached the car and asked, “Ms. Winfield, you don‘t have to if you don‘t want to, but while we‘re waiting, would you mind coming back here for a minute [behind the car] and talk[ing] to me for a second?” She got out and walked with Trottier to the back of her car while State Trooper Aimee Nolan arrived on the scene, as backup.
The following exchange ensued:
TROTTIER: Listen, is there anything in there I should know about? You seemed awfully nervous when I was talking with you. . . . Your hand was shaking and you‘re—you had, like, a leg tremor going on. No?
WINFIELD: Not that I know of.
TROTTIER: Oh, Okay. Not that you know of, or there‘s nothing? It just kind of, you know, piqued my interest there.
WINFIELD: Really?
TROTTIER: Because when I was talking with you, you were shaking; your voice was shaking.
Winfield explained that she was “probably tired” because her daughter‘s high school graduation was the previous night. The conversation continued:
TROTTIER: Okay. Okay. There‘s nothing in there I should know about is there? No guns or money?
WINFIELD: You can look if you want.
TROTTIER: Oh you dоn‘t mind? Do you mind? No—no large sums of money in there or—no? Okay.
WINFIELD: Be my guest.
TROTTIER: Okay.
WINFIELD: You can look.
TROTTIER: Okay. Here. Hold on one second.
WINFIELD: Inside my trunk?
TROTTIER: Okay.
WINFIELD: I don‘t know [inaudible]—
TROTTIER: Here. Do me a favor, okay?
WINFIELD: I don‘t have anything.
TROTTIER: What‘s that?
WINFIELD: No, I don‘t have anything in there. My—
TROTTIER: Okay. Oh, just stay over here for a second. I don‘t want you to get run over. Do you mind?
WINFIELD: I was just going to pop my trunk.
TROTTIER: Oh, that‘s okay. Do you mind if I look through—do—do you mind? You don‘t mind? Okay. Do me a favor. Stand over here for me. You don‘t have anything on you we should know about, do you? No guns or bombs or anything like that?
WINFIELD: [Inaudible.]
TROTTIER: No? Okay.
Id. at *2-3.
After patting down Jason (with his consent), Trottier searched the car. Trottier, who admits he was not looking for anything in particular, found an envelope addressed either to or from a court, opened it,1 and read what was inside. It was a court document pertaining to the arrest of Winfield‘s husband “for possession,” and a letter that Winfield had written to a judge. Id. at *3 n. 4. After finishing the search and finding nothing, he issued a speeding citation and the Winfields proceeded on their way.
The Winfields sued, alleging, inter alia, violations of the Fourth Amendment‘s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. The district court concluded that “no reasonable understanding of the exchange between Ms. Winfield and Trooper Trottier could be construed as consent for Trooper Trottier to read Ms. Winfield‘s mail, regardless of to whom or from whom [the mail] was addressed.” Id. at *10. The court denied qualified immunity because “[i]t was well-established at the time of the search that ‘[i]t is a violation of a suspect‘s Fourth Amendment rights for a consensual search to exceed the scope of the consent given.‘” Id. at *11 (quoting United States v. McWeeney, 454 F.3d 1030, 1034 (9th Cir.2006)) (second alteration in original).
DISCUSSION
The Court reviews de novo a decision on a motion for summary judgment. Mario v. P & C Food Mkts., Inc., 313 F.3d 758, 763 (2d Cir.2002); see also Miller v. Wolpoff & Abramson, L.L.P., 321 F.3d 292, 300 (2d Cir.2003). Summary judgment is appropriate if there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Miller, 321 F.3d at 300. In assessing a motion for summary judgment, the Court is “required to resolve all ambiguities and draw all permissible factual inferences in favor of the party against whom summary judgment [was granted].” Terry v. Ashcroft, 336 F.3d 128, 137 (2d Cir.2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).
“Qualified immunity protects officials from liability for civil damages as long as ‘their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.‘” Gilles v. Repicky, 511 F.3d 239, 243 (2d Cir.2007) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). In deciding qualified immunity, courts ask whether the facts shown [i] “make out a violation of a constitutional right,” and [ii] “whether the right at issue was clearly established at the time of defendant‘s allеged misconduct.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).
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.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). In this way, qualified immunity shields official conduct that is “‘objectively legally reasonable in light of the legal rules that were clearly established at the time it was taken.‘” X-Men Sec., Inc. v. Pataki, 196 F.3d 56, 66 (2d Cir.1999) (alterations omitted) (quoting Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639); see also Taravella v. Town of Wolcott, 599 F.3d 129, 134-35 (2d Cir.2010).
II
Plaintiffs challenge appellate jurisdiction on the ground that the qualified immunity inquiry in this case turns on a question of fact: the reasonableness determination as to the scope of Winfield‘s consent. We have appellate jurisdiction over this interlocutory appeal. “[A] district court‘s denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law, is an appealable ‘final decision’ within the meaning of
A
“The standard for measuring the scope of a suspect‘s consent under the Fourth Amendment is that of ‘objective’ reasonableness—what would the typical reasonable person have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect?” Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 251 (1991).
As there are no disputed facts in this case, Plaintiffs’ argument is essentially that an appeals court lacks jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal that turns on a determination of reasonableness. But in other contexts, courts hold that reasonableness may be a question of law when the facts are undisputed. See, e.g., Kent v. Katz, 312 F.3d 568, 577 (2d Cir.2002) (“[W]hen the defendant accepts . . . thе plaintiff‘s version of the facts, the defendant may immediately appeal the denial of [a summary judgment] motion because the objective reasonableness of the undisputed actions may then be susceptible to resolution as a matter of law.” (emphasis added) (citing Salim v. Proulx, 93 F.3d 86, 91 (2d Cir.1996))); Huang v. Attorney Gen., 620 F.3d 372, 385 (3d Cir.2010) (“[I]n the context of qualified immunity for constitutional torts, the reasonableness of a state actor‘s conduct based on undisputеd facts is subject to de novo review as a question of law.” (emphasis added)); Vaughn v. Ruoff, 253 F.3d 1124, 1128 (8th Cir.2001) (“If the material predicate facts are undisputed, the reasonableness inquiry is a question of law.“).
In this case involving no disputed facts, we have appellate jurisdiction, under Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), to decide whether there was a violation of a constitutional right.
B
We also have appellate jurisdiction to decide whether the right at issue was “clearly established.” See Moore v. Andreno, 505 F.3d 203, 207 (2d Cir.2007) (“Nevertheless, our appellate jurisdiction over this case is not in doubt. The district court‘s holding that the law governing third-party consent searches was clearly established is a conclusion of law and is thus immediately appealable.“); Salim, 93 F.3d at 89 (finding it “easy to apply” Mitchell v. Forsyth “whenever a defendant‘s interlocutory appeal challenges a denial of a qualified immunity defense on the ground that the district court erred in ruling that the law the defendant is alleged to have violated was clearly established“).
III
Courts may “exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009). Here, we analyze both because it is “difficult to decide whether [the] right [in this case] is clearly established without deciding precisely what the existing constitutional right happens to be.” Id. (quoting Lyons v. Xenia, 417 F.3d 565, 581 (6th Cir.2005) (Sutton, J., concurring)). We consider each qualified immunity inquiry in turn.
A
The Fourth Amendment is not offended by a warrantless, suspicionless search to which a suspect consents. Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250-51 (1991). In general, “an individual who consents to a search of his car should reasonably expect that readily-opened, closed containers discovered inside the car will be opened and examined.” United States v. Snow, 44 F.3d 133, 135 (2d Cir.1995).
“The scope of a search is generally defined by its expressed object.” Id. In Jimeno, a police officer who believed he overheard the defendant arranging an illegal drug transaction over a public telephone followed the defendant‘s car and pulled him over to give him a ticket when he made an illegal turn. Id. The officer then expressed his suspicion and asked, and was granted, permission to search the car for drugs. Id. at 249-50. A brown paper bag on the floor of the car was opened and yielded cocaine. Id. at 250. The Supreme Court held that the search was lawful: If a suspect‘s “consent would reasonably be understood to extend to a particular container, the Fourth Amendment provides no grounds for requiring a more explicit authorization.” Id. at 252.
Here, Winfield‘s consent was not limited to a search for guns or money because Trottier‘s full question did not convey any “expressed object” of the search: “There‘s nothing in there I should know about is there? No guns or money?” The open-ended question reached “anything” hе should “know about,” of which guns and money were examples. A typical reasonable person would not think that Winfield‘s consent was limited to places that could hold guns or money. Winfield‘s consent authorized a search for drugs or smuggled cigarettes or child pornography as things Trottier should “know about,” even in places that could contain neither guns nor large sums of money. This case is nothing like Jimeno; Trottier did not tell Winfield that he was looking for (or suspected she had) any particular kind of contraband.3
Nevertheless, Winfield‘s consent did not arguably extend to Trottier‘s reading her mail. He did not, for example, get specific consent to search for evidence of extortion by mail or securities fraud. The Fourth Amendment specifically protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their . . . papers.”
“[T]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness.‘” Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006). A typical reasonable person would not assume that Winfield gave Trottier consent to read her personal mail. Therefore, Trottier violated Winfield‘s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches.
B
Trottier is entitled to qualified immunity if the right he violated was not “clearly established” at the time of the events at issue. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001). “The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Id. at 202.
We must first determine “the level of generality at which the relevant ‘legal rule’ is to be identified.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639 (1987). To do so, we should “balance . . . the interests in vindication of citizens’ constitutional rights and in public officials’ effective performance in their duties.” Id. (quoting Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 195 (1984)). The right must be defined “in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Id. at 640.
The right at issue is properly stated as follows: It is a Fourth Amendment violation when a police officer reads a suspect‘s private papers, the text of which is not in plain view, while conducting a search authorized solely by the suspect‘s generalized consent to search the area in which the papers are found. No prior case in the Second Circuit has so held. Accordingly, Trottier‘s actions were “objectively legally reasonable in light of the legal rules that were cleаrly established at the time it was taken,” X-Men Sec., Inc. v. Pataki, 196 F.3d 56, 66 (2d Cir.1999) (alterations omitted) (quoting Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639), and he is entitled to qualified immunity.
* * *
The district court‘s decision denying Trottier‘s motion for summary judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the district court with instructions to enter judgment for Trottier on the ground of qualified immunity.
DENNIS JACOBS
CHIEF JUDGE, UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT