David Sosa v. Martin County, Florida

57 F.4th 1297
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJanuary 20, 2023
Docket20-12781
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 57 F.4th 1297 (David Sosa v. Martin County, Florida) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
David Sosa v. Martin County, Florida, 57 F.4th 1297 (11th Cir. 2023).

Opinion

USCA11 Case: 20-12781 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 01/20/2023 Page: 1 of 89

[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 20-12781 ____________________

DAVID SOSA, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus MARTIN COUNTY, FLORIDA, SHERIFF WILLIAM SNYDER, of Martin County, Florida in an official capacity, DEPUTY M. KILLOUGH, individually, DEPUTY SANCHEZ, individually, JOHN DOE MARTIN COUNTY DEPUTIES,

Defendants-Appellees. USCA11 Case: 20-12781 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 01/20/2023 Page: 2 of 89

2 Opinion of the Court 20-12781

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 2:19-cv-14455-DMM ____________________

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, WILSON, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, BRANCH, GRANT, LUCK, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges. WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which NEWSOM, BRANCH, GRANT, LUCK, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges, join. JORDAN, Circuit Judge, filed an opinion concurring in the judg- ment, in which WILSON and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges, join. NEWSOM, Circuit Judge, filed a concurring opinion, in which WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and LAGOA, Circuit Judge, join. ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, filed a dissenting opinion. WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge: This appeal requires us to decide whether an individual de- tained for three days based on mistaken identity for a valid arrest warrant has stated a claim for relief under the Fourteenth Amend- ment for his over-detention. Deputy sheriffs arrested David Sosa based on a warrant for another man of the same name, detained him, and released him when his identity was verified three days USCA11 Case: 20-12781 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 01/20/2023 Page: 3 of 89

20-12781 Opinion of the Court 3

later. Sosa sued the deputies for violating his alleged due-process right to be free from over-detention. But in Baker v. McCollan, the Supreme Court held that a detention due to mistaken identity “gives rise to no claim under the United States Constitution” when it lasts only “three days” and is “pursuant to a warrant conforming . . . to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.” 443 U.S. 137, 144–45 (1979). The district court dismissed Sosa’s complaint for fail- ure to state a claim. Because Baker squarely controls this case, we affirm and remand to the panel for the disposition of any remaining issues. I. BACKGROUND

This appeal is from a dismissal for failure to state a claim, see FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6), so we accept the allegations of the com- plaint as true. Henley v. Payne, 945 F.3d 1320, 1326 (11th Cir. 2019). The Martin County Sheriff’s Department twice has arrested David Sosa based on an arrest warrant for a different man with the same name. In 2014, a deputy sheriff stopped Sosa, a resident of Martin County, Florida, for a traffic violation. The deputy checked Sosa’s driver’s license using the Sheriff’s computer system and dis- covered a warrant issued 22 years earlier in Harris County, Texas for another man named David Sosa. Although Sosa protested dur- ing the traffic stop that the wanted man’s date of birth, height, weight, social security number, and tattoo information did not match his own identifiers, deputies arrested, detained, and USCA11 Case: 20-12781 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 01/20/2023 Page: 4 of 89

4 Opinion of the Court 20-12781

fingerprinted Sosa. After three hours, the sheriff’s department con- firmed his identity and released him. Four years later, on Friday, April 20, 2018, another deputy sheriff checked Sosa’s driver’s license during a traffic stop and found the same Texas warrant. Again, Sosa objected that the iden- tifiers listed on the warrant did not describe him. Sosa also told the deputies about the misidentification in 2014. Deputies arrested Sosa and brought him to the Martin County jail, where, despite Sosa’s continued insistence to deputies and jailers that he was not the wanted man, his detention lasted three days over a weekend. On Monday, April 23, 2018, Sosa was fingerprinted, and the sher- iff’s department released him after the fingerprints confirmed that the warrant was for a different man. Sosa filed a civil-rights action, see 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of his rights under the Fourth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against Martin County; the Martin County Sheriff in his official capacity; Deputy Killough, the officer who arrested Sosa in 2018; Deputy Sanchez, an officer to whom Sosa protested his innocence during his three- day detention; and other unnamed deputies. Sosa alleged that the defendants “searched and detained and arrested him without prob- able cause or reasonable suspicion,” that they took “an [u]nconsti- tutionally lengthy time” “to check [his] identity,” and that the Sher- iff and County “did not have adequate written policies, or train or supervise the deputies properly” to prevent Sosa’s arrest. USCA11 Case: 20-12781 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 01/20/2023 Page: 5 of 89

20-12781 Opinion of the Court 5

The district court dismissed the complaint. See FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). It determined that Sosa had not plausibly alleged that the deputies had violated Sosa’s rights under the Fourth or Four- teenth Amendments. And it held that because the deputies were not liable, there was no basis for liability against the Sheriff and County. A panel of this Court affirmed in part and reversed in part. Sosa v. Martin Cnty., 13 F.4th 1254, 1279 (11th Cir. 2021), reh’g en banc granted, op. vacated, 21 F.4th 1362 (11th Cir. 2022). The panel opinion explained that the arrest was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, id. at 1266, and that Sosa’s claims against the County and the Sheriff were not viable, id. at 1279. The panel majority also concluded that Sosa stated a valid claim for violating his “substan- tive due-process right to be free from continued detention after it should have been known that [he] was entitled to release,” id. at 1266, based on our precedent in Cannon v. Macon County, 1 F.3d 1558 (11th Cir. 1993). But the panel dissent concluded Baker fore- closed Sosa’s over-detention claim. Sosa, 13 F.4th at 1279 (Luck, J., dissenting). We voted in favor of rehearing the case en banc and vacated the panel opinion. Sosa, 21 F.4th at 1362. We instructed the parties to brief only issues related to the over-detention claim. And we heard oral argument only on those issues. USCA11 Case: 20-12781 Document: 63-1 Date Filed: 01/20/2023 Page: 6 of 89

6 Opinion of the Court 20-12781

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review de novo a dismissal for failure to state a claim. Henley, 945 F.3d at 1326. III. DISCUSSION

Our decision begins and ends with Baker. There, Leonard McCollan “procured” a driver’s license that bore his own picture but, in all other respects, the information of his brother, Linnie. 443 U.S. at 140. “Leonard, masquerading as Linnie, was arrested . . . on narcotics charges,” “booked as Linnie,” and “released on bail as Linnie . . . .” Id. at 140–41. Evidently, Leonard violated the terms of his bond because an arrest warrant was soon after issued for Lin- nie McCollan. See id. at 141. When Linnie ran a red light, the police checked his driver’s license, discovered the warrant, and arrested him, despite his protests of mistaken identity. Id. On Saturday, De- cember 30, 1972, the police defendants took custody of Linnie “un- til [Tuesday,] January 2, 1973, when officials compared his appear- ance against a file photograph of the wanted man and, recognizing their error, released him.” Id. Linnie later filed a civil-rights action alleging a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id.

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Bluebook (online)
57 F.4th 1297, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/david-sosa-v-martin-county-florida-ca11-2023.