Christopher Bates v. Thomas Hadden

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 13-3224

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Christopher Bates

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Thomas Hadden, Individually and in his Official Capacity as Davenport Police

Officer; City of Davenport, Iowa

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

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Appeal from United States District Court

for the Southern District of Iowa - Davenport

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Submitted: May 14, 2014

Filed: August 19, 2014

[Unpublished]

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Before SMITH, BEAM, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Christopher Bates was charged with certain Iowa state drug offenses based on

the investigation of Davenport, Iowa Police Officer Thomas Hadden. The state

prosecutor ultimately dismissed the charges. Thereafter, Bates filed suit against the

City of Davenport and Officer Hadden. Relevant to the present appeal, Bates brought

malicious prosecution and unconstitutional confinement claims against Officer

Hadden under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. According to Bates, Officer Hadden initiated a false

criminal complaint that resulted in Bates spending nearly five months in jail. The

district court1 granted summary judgment to Officer Hadden on all claims. We affirm.

I. Background

In March 2010, Officer Hadden was a police officer working on assignment for

the Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a consortium of law enforcement officers

operating in the "Quad Cities" area.2 Officer Hadden was based in Moline, Illinois.

He received information from a confidential source that illegal drugs were being sold

from a particular residence in Davenport. The source told him that three individuals

were selling drugs there: an elderly woman named Augusta Lacy, a person named

"Buddha," and a person named "Bill." The source gave Bill's phone number to Officer

Hadden.

Officer Hadden conducted a known-associates search on the name "Augusta

Lacy" and located a "Bill Lacy" in a law enforcement database. Officer Hadden found

information about two different Bill Lacys: someone actually named Bill Lacy (whom

the parties refer to as the "real Bill Lacy") and Christopher Bates. Officer Hadden did

not conduct any research to determine Bates's residence, telephone number, or

connection to Augusta Lacy. He similarly conducted no research on the "real Bill

Lacy." Officer Hadden obtained a photo of Bates from a law enforcement database.

1

The Honorable Celeste F. Bremer, Chief United States Magistrate Judge for

the Southern District of Iowa, presiding by consent of the parties pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 636(c).

2

"Quad Cities" refers to the five-city metro area of Davenport and Bettendorf

in Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline in Illinois.

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After calling "Bill's" phone number, Officer Hadden set up a meeting at the

Davenport residence with the man who answered the phone. Officer Hadden

conducted a controlled buy from the man who answered Bill's phone number. The

transaction lasted 15 to 20 seconds. Officer Hadden set up a second controlled buy

with "Bill"on March 24, 2010; the second transaction took approximately 20 seconds.

After the second buy, Officer Hadden reviewed the photograph of Bates and obtained

a photo of the "real Bill Lacy." After comparing the photos, Officer Hadden was sure

that the person that he bought drugs from was Bates.

On August 30, 2010, Officer Hadden initiated a criminal complaint against

Bates. A magistrate approved the complaint and signed a warrant for Bates's arrest.

On September 3, 2010, Bates was arrested. He did not qualify for pre-trial release or

post bond. Based on Officer Hadden's account, on September 9, 2010, Kelly

Cunningham, an assistant County Attorney for Scott County, Iowa, signed and filed

an information accusing Bates of two counts of delivery of a controlled substance.

During a deposition on December 2, 2010, Officer Hadden identified Bates as the

person from whom he made the two controlled drug purchases on March 22 and 24.

In early December 2010, Bates's defense counsel presented Cunningham with

medical and payroll records indicating that Bates had been working in Florida

throughout March 2010 and was seen by a doctor in Florida on the mornings of

March 23 and March 24. Cunningham dismissed the charges, and Bates was released

from custody on January 26, 2011. Officer Hadden, nonetheless, maintains that Bates

was the man who sold him drugs in two controlled buys.

Bates filed a seven-count complaint that alleged tort and § 1983 claims against

Officer Hadden and the City of Davenport. The district court granted summary

judgment in favor of Officer Hadden and the city on all claims. This appeal concerns

Bates's § 1983 claims for malicious prosecution and unconstitutional confinement.

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According to Bates, he has never lived in nor been to the Davenport residence

that was the subject of the drug investigation. He also states that he has not met the

"real Bill Lacy," but he "has seen photographs of the actual Bill Lacy, who does not

resemble Bates." Bates avers that he has no connection to the phone number that

Officer Hadden used to arrange the controlled drug purchases.

The district court found that Officer Hadden was entitled to qualified immunity

on Bates's § 1983 claims. The court found that "[w]hen viewed in the light most

favorable to Bates, the record does not contain any contrary or exculpatory evidence

purposefully ignored by Hadden at the time of his investigation." Because Bates did

not establish that Officer Hadden violated his constitutional or statutory rights,

Officer Hadden was entitled to qualified immunity. The court nevertheless addressed

and dismissed the claims on the merits as well, concluding that "there is no evidence

that Officer Hadden purposefully ignored evidence at the time of Bates' investigation

and arrest, or that he ignored any evidence that suggested Bates' innocence." As such,

"Hadden did not deprive Bates of his rights under the Fourth or Fourteenth

Amendments" and "summary judgment for Hadden is appropriate on all of Bates'

section 1983 claims."

II. Discussion

On appeal, Bates contends that the district court applied the wrong test to his

malicious prosecution and unconstitutional confinement claims. According to Bates,

if the court applies the correct test, "it is clear that genuine issues of material fact exist

for each of these claims"; therefore, the district court erred by granting summary

judgment in favor of Officer Hadden.

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"This court reviews de novo a grant of summary judgment." Torgerson v. City

of Rochester, 643 F.3d 1031, 1042 (8th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (citation omitted).3

"Officials being sued under § 1983 are entitled to qualified immunity for actions that

did not violate a clearly established constitutional right at the time of the alleged

violation such that reasonable officials acting in the officials' position would not have

understood they were violating that right." Harrington v. City of Council Bluffs, Iowa,

678 F.3d 676, 680 (8th Cir. 2012) (citations omitted). "A right is clearly established

when the contours of the right are sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would

understand that what he is doing violates that right." Winslow v. Smith, 696 F.3d 716,

738 (8th Cir. 2012) (quotation and citation omitted).

A. Malicious Prosecution

In a pair of 2001 decisions, we observed that malicious prosecution is not a

constitutional injury. See Kurtz v. City of Shrewsbury, 245 F.3d 753, 758 (8th Cir.

2001) ("Moreover, this court has uniformly held that malicious prosecution by itself

is not punishable under § 1983 because it does not allege a constitutional injury.");

Technical Ordnance, Inc. v. United States, 244 F.3d 641, 650 (8th Cir. 2001) ("The

general rule is that an action for malicious prosecution does not state a claim of

constitutional injury."). As recently as 2012, we expressed uncertainty as to whether

3

Bates asserts that "[s]ummary judgment is an extreme remedy which should

be sparingly employed" and cites a number of precedents from the Supreme Court and

this court to suggest that summary judgment should rarely be granted. See Associated

Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1, 6 (1945); Butler v. MFA Life Ins. Co., 591 F.2d

448, 451 (8th Cir. 1979); Giordano v. Lee, 434 F.2d 1227, 1230 (8th Cir. 1970).

However, "[s]ummary judgment procedure is properly regarded not as a disfavored

procedural shortcut, but rather as an integral part of the Federal Rules as a whole,

which are designed to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every

action." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 327 (1986) (quotation and citation

omitted). In Torgerson, we stated that summary judgment "is designed for every

action"; therefore, panel statements to the contrary, such as those cited by Bates, "are

unauthorized and should not be followed." Torgerson, 643 F.3d at 1043.

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"malicious prosecution is a constitutional violation at all." Harrington, 678 F.3d at

679.

Kurtz and Technical Ordnance raise a high hurdle for Bates's § 1983 malicious

prosecution claim. To surmount this obstacle, Bates points out that Officer Hadden's

criminal complaint led to his incarceration and cites Albright v. Oliver for the

proposition that "[m]alicious prosecution is a constitutional tort actionable under §

1983 and the Fourth Amendment, where it is accompanied by incarceration or other

palpable consequence." (appellant's brief at 14) (citing Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S.

266, 270–71 (1994)). Because Albright was decided in 1994, Bates asserts that

"Hadden had more than sufficient notice that his conduct would violate[ ] Bates' civil

rights." Bates also asserts that we have recognized that malicious prosecution is

cognizable as a Fourth Amendment claim. See Harrington, 678 F.3d at 679.

Both citations are inapposite. In Albright, the Seventh Circuit—not the

Supreme Court—opined that "prosecution without probable cause is a constitutional

tort actionable under § 1983 only if accompanied by incarceration or loss of

employment or some other palpable consequence." Albright, 510 U.S. at 270–71

(plurality opinion) (citing Albright v. Oliver 975 F.2d 343, 346–47 (7th Cir. 1992)).

The Albright plurality expressly disagreed with the Seventh Circuit's reasoning. Id.

("[W]hile we affirm the judgment below, we do so on different grounds."). In

Harrington, we specifically declined to decide whether a Fourth Amendment right

against malicious prosecution exists. Harrington, 678 F.3d at 680 ("The Supreme

Court in [Albright] declined to decide whether defendants have a Fourth Amendment

right against malicious prosecution . . . . Our sister circuits have taken a variety of

approaches on the issue of whether or when malicious prosecution violates the Fourth

Amendment. We need not enter this debate now.") Id. (internal citations omitted).

Our precedents dictate that Officer Hadden is entitled to qualified immunity as

to Bates's malicious prosecution claim. No "reasonable officials acting in [Officer

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Hadden's] position would . . . have understood they were violating" Bates's

constitutional right against malicious prosecution because no such constitutional right

had been clearly established. See Harrington, 678 F.3d at 680.

B. Unconstitutional Confinement

Bates contends that we should analyze his unconstitutional confinement claim

under both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments because "[t]he point where a

Fourth Amendment seizure ends and Fourteenth Amendment detention begins is

unsettled." In his complaint, Bates alleges that

36. [Officer Hadden] violated [Bates's] constitutional rights by

affirmatively and continuously maintaining that [Bates] was the suspect

who sold [Officer Hadden] crack cocaine during the aforementioned

controlled buys. As a result, [Bates] was falsely imprisoned on said

criminal offenses.

***

38. [Officer Hadden] unlawfully initiated, facilitated, encouraged, and/or

acquiesced in the procurement of [Bates] for purposes of detaining him

on the aforementioned criminal charges.

***

40. The charges brought against [Bates] lacked the requisite probable

cause to accuse [Bates] of the above referenced crimes and were brought

with malice and otherwise in reckless disregard of the rights of [Bates].

The factual allegations in Bates's complaint closely track the Fourth and

Fourteenth Amendment claim that the Supreme Court considered in Malley v. Briggs,

475 U.S. 335 (1986). In Malley, state police intercepted a phone call revealing that

a number of individuals smoked marijuana at the defendants' home. Id. at 337–38. A

state police officer filed a felony complaint against the defendants, alleging a

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violation of the state's drug laws, and secured a warrant from a state judge for their

arrest. Id. at 338. They were arrested and detained, but a grand jury ultimately chose

not to indict them. Id. They sued the officer, alleging "that [the officer], in applying

for warrants for their arrest, violated their rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth

Amendments." Id. The Court held that "objective reasonableness . . . defines the

qualified immunity accorded an officer whose request for a warrant allegedly caused

an unconstitutional arrest. Only where the warrant application is so lacking in indicia

of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence unreasonable will the

shield of immunity be lost." Id. at 344–45 (internal citation and footnote omitted).

On appeal, Bates argues at some length that he has "refuted" Officer Hadden's

prior identification of Bates as the seller during the March 2010 controlled buys

because he does not look anything like the "real Bill Lacy." Officer Hadden maintains

that he is certain that Bates was the seller. Bates contends that because he has refuted

Officer Hadden's identification, Officer "Hadden is maintaining this self-serving

position to avoid exposure to liability and summary judgment should be denied on

those grounds alone." (Emphasis and footnote omitted.)

We can only assume that Bates is readily distinguishable from the "real Bill

Lacy." Indeed there is no factual dispute on this point. When Officer Hadden

compared photos of Bates and the "real Bill Lacy," Officer Hadden identified

Bates—not Lacy—as the seller. The material question is whether Officer Hadden was

objectively unreasonable in identifying Bates as the March 2010 drug seller. The

seller need not have been the "real Bill Lacy." The parties do not really disagree on

this point either; Officer Hadden asserts that the "real Bill Lacy" was not the seller

and Officer Hadden raises no allegation to the contrary. We agree with the district

court's conclusion that

the record still fails to contain any showing that further research into the

"real" Bill Lacy would have exculpated Bates and invalidated Hadden's

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eyewitness identification from the controlled buys. . . . Bates has made

no showing in the record that he and the actual seller with whom

Hadden interacted (assuming it was a different person) were so

indistinguishable that no reasonable police officer would have taken

steps to investigate Bates and to procure a warrant for his arrest.

It is well settled that an officer may be mistaken as to whether probable cause

to support a warrant exists without being objectively unreasonable. See, e.g.,

Saterdalen v. Spencer, 725 F.3d 838, 842 (8th Cir. 2013); Brockinton v. City of

Sherwood, Ark., 503 F.3d 667, 672 (8th Cir. 2007). While Officer Hadden may have

been mistaken in his identification of Bates, Bates has presented no evidence that this

mistake was objectively unreasonable. Because Officer Hadden was not objectively

unreasonable in believing that probable cause existed to support a warrant for Bates's

arrest, he is entitled to qualified immunity on Bates's unconstitutional confinement

claim. See Malley, 475 U.S. at 344–45.

III. Conclusion

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

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