Erin Lincoln v. City of Colleyville, Texas

Case: 17-10201 Document: 00514416646 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/05/2018

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

No. 17-10201 April 5, 2018

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

ERIN LINCOLN, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of John

Lincoln,

Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

SANDRA SCOTT; KYLE MEEKS,

Defendants - Appellees

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Cons. w/17-10841

ERIN LINCOLN, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of John

Lincoln

Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

C. BARNES

Defendant - Appellee

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Texas

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No. 17-10201 c/w 17-10841

Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and CLEMENT and SOUTHWICK, Circuit

Judges.

EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, Circuit Judge:

Before the court is Erin Lincoln’s appeal of the district court’s grant of

qualified immunity to three police officers—Sandra Scott, Kyle Meeks, and

Clair Barnes—who responded to a shooting incident involving her father. For

the reasons set forth below, the district court’s grant of summary judgment is

affirmed.

I.

On December 26, 2013, agents of the Colleyville Police Department

(“CPD”) responded to a report that a man, armed with a gun, was on his way

to an identified location—4101 Lexington Parkway in Colleyville, Texas—to

kill his mother. Sergeant Charles Tinsman was initially dispatched, and he

arrived at the scene with two other CPD officers; as the incident unfolded, more

CPD officers and officers from other agencies also arrived. The dispatcher

informed the officers that John Lincoln and his daughter, Erin Lincoln, were

inside the house, that Erin had confirmed John was armed, and that she did

not feel threatened. 1 During the incident, John repeatedly came to the front

door of the house, would open the door, and make comments such as “come and

take it,” and “make your move.” The officers requested that a SWAT team

assemble because John was armed and posed a threat to his mother, his

daughter, and the officers. Sgt. Tinsman said that he heard SWAT officers

instruct John to “drop the weapon” and shortly after there was a burst of

gunfire. The shots were fired at approximately 9:59 p.m.

1 John’s mother was not at the home when he arrived there armed, nor was she there

during any of the ensuing incident.

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John was hit by the gunfire and eventually died from the gunshots. He

fell very close to the threshold of the front doorway, and Erin began screaming.

SWAT team members immediately secured the scene and ensured John could

not access his handgun; the officers requested immediate medical attention for

John. Erin was the only other person in the home and rushed to her father’s

side as soon as the shots were fired. SWAT officers had to physically remove

Erin from her father’s side to secure the scene and provide John medical

attention. When the officers removed Erin, she was handcuffed, taken through

the back exit of the house, and placed in the back seat of a CPD officer car. The

officers stated that Erin was kicking and screaming when they removed her.

Erin was eventually uncuffed and waited in the police car while the other

responding officers—including Kyle Meeks, Sandra Scott, and Clair Barnes—

performed initial investigatory work, partly in preparation for Erin’s

interview. Sgt. Tinsman stated that each time he checked on Erin in the

vehicle, another officer was with her; he also stated that Erin never told him

that she wanted to leave.

A. Sandra Scott

Sandra Scott worked as a CPD Officer at the time of the incident. When

Scott was first dispatched to the scene, her role was to patrol pedestrians and

vehicles entering the neighborhood. She did not witness the circumstances that

led to the ultimate shooting of John. Roughly two hours after the shooting,

Scott was summoned to the house where John was shot and asked to transport

Erin in a police car to the CPD station. Scott stated that she transported Erin

from the scene around 12:40 a.m. on December 27, 2013.

At the time she transported Erin, Scott knew only that Erin was a

member of the family that lived at the house where the incident occurred, that

she was John’s daughter, and understood that Erin was a witness who

Detective Meeks was to interview. Scott was not present during Erin’s

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interview at the CPD station. After Erin’s interview concluded, Scott took

pictures of a few scrapes and abrasions on Erin’s body that happened during

her removal from the scene. Scott had no further interaction with Erin. Scott

asserted that Erin never expressed any wish not to give an interview or not to

be transported to the CPD station. She tacitly assumed that Erin was a

cooperative witness.

B. Kyle Meeks

Kyle Meeks was the on-call detective for the CPD when he was advised,

around 10:43 p.m. the night of the incident, that he needed to respond to 4101

Lexington Parkway. Officers already on the scene briefed Meeks on the events

surrounding the shooting. The officers also instructed Meeks that Erin rushed

to her father’s side immediately after he was shot and that she was hysterically

screaming. Meeks was also told that Erin had to be physically removed from

the scene to ensure medical personnel could assist John and also to ensure the

officers could secure the scene and remove John’s handgun.

When Meeks found out that Erin was waiting in a police car, he went to

the car, where Erin was sitting with a female officer, and asked Erin if she was

okay and if she needed anything. Erin told Meeks that she was okay, and after

checking on her, he believed it was reasonable for her to wait in the car for a

number of reasons. The officers needed to remove Erin from the scene to

prevent any continuing interference with the efforts to secure the scene for

investigation, to remove John’s handgun, and to provide him medical

attention. Further, it was a cold night, so he assumed having her stay inside a

warm car would be preferable because she was not warmly dressed. Also, at

the time Erin was waiting in the car, it was not known to what extent she was

involved as either a victim, witness, or even a suspect.

Meeks and Scott (who transported Erin) left the scene and headed to the

CPD station around the same time, where Ranger Clair Barnes was waiting to

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interview Erin. Meeks also understood that other members of Erin’s family

were also going to the CPD station and had agreed to a voluntary interview.

At the station, Meeks conducted an initial interview with Erin that lasted

about 11 minutes. Meeks asked Erin if she would write a statement about the

incident; Erin agreed and wrote a five page statement. Erin remained at the

station, sitting with her family, while other members were interviewed.

Regarding Erin’s cooperativeness as a witness, Meeks stated:

During Erin Lincoln’s interview, and again while I was talking

to Ranger Barnes and other Police Officers to find out if there

were additional questions that should be asked, I repeatedly

checked with Erin Lincoln to see if she was okay or needed to

use the restroom. At no time did Erin Lincoln give me any

indication that she wanted to be anything except cooperative

with the interview process. She did not at any time indicate that

she wanted to leave. She did not at any point indicate that she

was unwilling to be interviewed. At all times she appeared to be

a cooperative and willing subject of an interview. Despite her

claim . . . that she was interrogated for 5 hours, the total amount

of time that went by from the beginning of the interview to the

time the entire interview process ended was about 1 hour and

43 minutes . . . . 2

Finally, Meeks asserted that based on the information provided to him

regarding Erin’s behavior when she had to be removed from the scene, there

was probable cause to charge Erin with interference with performance of public

duties and assault. However, Meeks was only focused on his investigative

duties, and no charges were ever filed against Erin.

C. Clair Barnes

Similar to Scott and Meeks, Ranger Barnes was at the scene of the

incident but did not play any part in Erin’s removal from the home and

2 The record indicates Erin was at the CPD station for around 2 hours and 17 minutes,

1 hour and 43 minutes of which involved her interview process and the remainder of the time

was waiting for family members’ interviews. The cumulative detention was roughly 4 hours.

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placement in the police car. At the scene, Barnes was only informed of the

events that occurred and was briefed so that he could eventually interview

Erin. According to Barnes, his first interaction with Erin was in the CPD

station interview room with Meeks. Barnes indicated that Meeks asked most

of the interview questions, and Erin answered the questions in an engaged and

calm manner. Barnes thought Erin was cooperative and stated that “[a]t no

time did Erin ask if she had to answer questions, or indicate that she no longer

wished to answer any questions or be further interviewed.” Ranger Barnes

asserted that he and Meeks asked Erin if she was okay or needed anything

multiple times throughout the duration of the interview. Ranger Barnes had

no further interaction with Erin after exiting the interview room to allow her

to prepare her written statement.

D. District Court

Meeks, Scott, and Barnes filed motions for summary judgment in the

district court, asserting qualified immunity. The district court granted

qualified immunity as to each officer and dismissed Erin Lincoln’s claims

against them. 3 Erin timely appealed.

II.

“We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo,

applying the same standard on appeal as that applied below.” Rogers v. Bromac

Title Servs., L.L.C., 755 F.3d 347, 350 (5th Cir. 2014). Summary judgment is

proper “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material

fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P.

56(a). “A genuine dispute as to material fact exists if the evidence is such that

3 The district court first granted qualified immunity as to Scott and Meeks in the same

memorandum opinion and order. Barnes proceeded separately, and the district court granted

Barnes qualified immunity in a brief memorandum opinion and order, adopting its reasoning

from its previously issued opinion for Scott and Meeks.

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a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Rogers, 755

F.3d at 350 (internal quotation marks omitted). “This court construes all facts

and inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Id.

(internal quotation marks omitted). But “[s]ummary judgment may not be

thwarted by conclusional allegations, unsupported assertions, or presentation

of only a scintilla of evidence.” McFaul v. Valenzuela, 684 F.3d 564, 571 (5th

Cir. 2012).

“We are not limited to the district court’s reasons for its grant of

summary judgment and may affirm the district court’s summary judgment on

any ground raised below and supported by the record.” Rogers, 755 F.3d at 350

(quoting Boyett v. Redland Ins. Co., 741 F.3d 604, 606–07 (5th Cir. 2014)).

“[O]fficers are entitled to qualified immunity under [42 U.S.C.] § 1983

unless (1) they violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, and (2) the

unlawfulness of their conduct was ‘clearly established at the time.’” District of

Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 589 (2018) (quoting Reichle v. Howards, 566

U.S. 658, 664 (2012)). “Clearly established means that, at the time of the

officer’s conduct, the law was sufficiently clear that every reasonable official

would understand that what he is doing is unlawful.” Id. (citing Ashcroft v. al-

Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011)) (internal quotation marks omitted). “In other

words, existing law must have placed the constitutionality of the officer’s

conduct ‘beyond debate.’” Id. (quoting al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741). “This

demanding standard protects ‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who

knowingly violate the law.’” Id. (quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341

(1986)).

Erin alleges that the officers violated her Fourth Amendment rights, and

that the officers are not entitled to qualified immunity. We consider each prong

in turn.

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III. Fourth Amendment Standard

i. Seizure

The Fourth Amendment states in relevant part: “The right of the people

to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable

searches and seizures, shall not be violated[.]” U.S. CONST. amend. IV. “The

Fourth Amendment applies to all seizures of the person, including seizures

that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest.” United States v.

Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878 (1975) (citing Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S.

721 (1969) and Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)).

Erin generally alleges that the officers violated her Fourth Amendment

rights. “Whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his

freedom to walk away, he has seized that person . . . .” Terry, 392 U.S. at 17.

Erin was physically removed from the scene, placed in a cop car, and—

although never told she had to stay there—felt that she was not free to leave.

As this court has recognized, “there are different ‘tiers of citizen-police contact

for purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis.’” Lincoln v. Turner, 874 F.3d 833,

840 (5th Cir. 2017) (quoting United States v. Massi, 761 F.3d 512, 520 (5th Cir.

2014)). The different “tiers” of Fourth Amendment protection trigger varying

legal analyses. At a minimum, Erin’s seizure was an investigatory,

suspicionless seizure, triggering a Fourth Amendment reasonableness

analysis. See Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 50–51 (1979).

ii. Reasonableness

When deciding whether a seizure is reasonable, the court must weigh

“the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which

the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference

with individual liberty.” Id. at 51. “[T]he Fourth Amendment requires that a

seizure must be based on specific, objective facts indicating that society’s

legitimate interests require the seizure of the particular individual . . . .” Id.

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Erin contends that the officers unreasonably detained her, held her in the

police car, and subjected her to an interview at the CPD station.

Here, the officers advance two basic rationales for the seizure, both of

which relate to underlying investigatory purposes. First, the seizure was

reasonable as a means of obtaining information from Erin, who was the only

person, besides John, in the home during the incident. Second, the seizure was

reasonable as a means of securing the crime scene. This court has noted that

there are few cases addressing the reasonableness of detaining witnesses solely

for investigative purposes. See Turner, 874 F.3d at 845; see also Maxwell v. Cty.

of San Diego, 708 F.3d 1075, 1083 (9th Cir. 2013).

For example, in Walker v. City of Orem, the Tenth Circuit considered a

nearly identical issue. Officers shot and killed a man in a residential driveway,

with his family members watching from the home’s front porch. 451 F.3d 1139,

1144–45 (10th Cir. 2006). When the family members sought to run to the

victim’s side, officers would not allow them to go near the victim. Id. at 1145.

Instead, the officers pointed guns at the family members and required them to

remain in their home for questioning. Id. They were detained for nearly one

and a half hours. Id. The officers there similarly asserted the detention was

reasonable to secure the crime scene and to obtain information from the

detained witness. Id. at 1148. The court held that a 90-minute detention of

witnesses not suspected of criminal activity violated Fourth Amendment

protections. Id. at 1150. It reasoned that “the lengthy detention . . . was

unreasonable and was not justified by either the need for investigation of a

crime or control of a crime scene.” Id.

Similarly, in Maxwell v. County of San Diego, the Ninth Circuit

considered the reasonableness of a five-hour detention of witnesses to a crime.

708 F.3d at 1083. It stated that “[a]lthough detention of witnesses for

investigative purposes can be reasonable in certain circumstances, such

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detentions must be minimally intrusive.” Id. Even in a context where criminal

activity was suspected, the “Supreme Court has never endorsed a detention

longer than 90 minutes.” Id. at 1084 (citing United States v. Place, 462 U.S.

696 (1983)). As such, a five-hour detention of a witness absent any suspicion

was unreasonable. Id.

Although it may have been reasonable “to detain Erin for some amount

of time to determine her role in the situation[,]” Scott, Meeks, and Barnes

“exceeded this authority when [they] . . . detained her in the back of a police

car for two hours.” Turner, 874 F.3d at 849. Moreover, these three officers

extended the seizure through the time Erin was interviewed at the CPD

station—a total of roughly four hours. 4 Unlike the situation in Walker, Erin

was present at an active scene, and it was unclear whether John still posed a

threat to her or the officers because his gun was not secured. It may have been

reasonable for the officers to remove her from the scene given her proximity,

but it does not necessarily follow that they had unbound authority to hold her

for roughly four hours, notably without probable cause. See Maxwell, 708 F.3d

at 1083. “In doing so, [they] violated Erin’s constitutional rights.” Turner, 874

F.3d at 849; see also Walker, 451 F.3d at 1149. Accordingly, although the

officers violated Erin’s Fourth Amendment rights by detaining her for four

hours without probable cause, the court must determine whether that right

was “clearly established.”

IV. Clearly Established

“To be clearly established, a legal principle must have a sufficiently clear

foundation in then-existing precedent. The rule must be ‘settled law,’ which

means it is dictated by ‘controlling authority’ or a ‘robust consensus of cases of

4 Although Scott did not have contact with Erin once at the CPD station, Meeks and

Scott’s joint brief does not raise this issue as a means of lessening or distinguishing Scott’s

potential liability.

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persuasive authority.’” Wesby, 138 S. Ct. at 589–90 (quoting Hunter v. Bryant,

502 U.S. 224, 228 (1991) and al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 741–42). “The ‘clearly

established’ standard also requires that the legal principle clearly prohibit the

officer’s conduct in the particular circumstances before him. The rule’s

contours must be so well defined that it is ‘clear to a reasonable officer that his

conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.’” Id. at 590 (quoting

Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202 (2001)).

In a recent, related appeal, this court held that it was not clearly

established that an officer could not detain the sole compliant witness to a

police shooting. Turner, 874 F.3d at 849. 5 The court disagreed with Erin’s

reliance on Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200 (1979) and Davis v.

Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721 (1969), as evidence that the Fourth Amendment right

violated was clearly established. Turner, 874 F.3d at 849. It held that those

cases did not “clearly establish[] that a law enforcement officer could not detain

a witness to a police shooting for . . . two hours while a SWAT team sorted out

the scene, [particularly] when the witness was standing beside a person when

5 In a different related appeal, concerning Barnes’s appeal of the district court’s denial

of his motion to dismiss, this court affirmed the district court. Lincoln v. Barnes, 855 F.3d

297, 304 (5th Cir. 2017). The court stated that there was an issue of “whether Erin’s detention

at the police station for the purposes of questioning her as a witness to her father’s shooting

and obtaining her statement satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s ‘reasonableness’

requirement.” Id. at 301–02. The court concluded that the issue had been squarely addressed

by the Supreme Court, which established that “police violate the Fourth Amendment when,

absent probable cause or the individual’s consent, they seize and transport a person to the

police station and subject her to prolonged interrogation.” Id. at 302 (citing Dunaway v. New

York, 442 U.S. 200, 216 (1979)). The court ultimately determined that this right was “clearly

established” by Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721 (1969) and Dunaway, but noted that its

conclusion did not turn on the duration of the interrogation. Id. at 304. However, once the

case reached summary judgment proceedings, the evidence illustrated that Erin was a

compliant witness, and the officers believed her to be consenting to the detention. Therefore,

the right at issue before this court is whether detaining the sole, compliant witness to a police

shooting is clearly established; we find the answer to that question is definitively no.

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the police shot him.” Id. at 850; cf. Maxwell, 708 F.3d at 1083 (“In most cases,

the lack of on-point precedent would compel us to grant qualified immunity.”).

Moreover, Walker similarly determined that the officers did not violate

clearly established law when officers forcefully detained witnesses in their own

home. Walker, 451 F.3d at 1151 (“[W]e have found no pertinent Supreme Court

. . . decision prior to the events in question, and no clearly established weight

of authority from other courts, that would have made the unlawfulness of the

officers’ conduct apparent to them.”). The intricate facts here—reasonableness

of detaining a sole, compliant witness to a police shooting—have never been

directly addressed or clearly established by this Circuit or the Supreme Court.

See Turner, 874 F.3d at 849. The Supreme Court has “repeatedly stressed that

courts must not ‘define clearly established law at a high level of generality,

since doing so avoids the crucial question whether the official acted reasonably

in the particular circumstances that he or she faced.’” Wesby, 138 S. Ct. at 590

(quoting Plumhoff v. Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012, 2023 (2014)) (emphasis added).

Our inability to point to a string of cases establishing “settled law” that these

facts amount to a Fourth Amendment violation demonstrates that the violated

right was not so clearly established that these officers can be liable. See id.

In sum, this court, as well as other circuits, have determined that officers

acting under similar circumstances—detaining a sole witness for questioning

and investigative preservation—do not violate any clearly established right. It

follows that these officers—Meeks, Scott, and Barnes—similarly were not

bound by any such clearly established law. The district court correctly granted

these officers qualified immunity.

Affirmed.

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