James D. Gibson v. Samuel McMurray Latrice Sain

159 F.3d 230, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 26593, 1998 WL 726406
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedOctober 20, 1998
Docket97-1215, 97-2073
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 159 F.3d 230 (James D. Gibson v. Samuel McMurray Latrice Sain) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
James D. Gibson v. Samuel McMurray Latrice Sain, 159 F.3d 230, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 26593, 1998 WL 726406 (6th Cir. 1998).

Opinion

OPINION

MERRITT, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Samuel McMurray, a police chief in Muskegon Heights, Michigan, appeals the denial of his motion to dismiss on several grounds in this § 1983 civil rights action. For the reasons discussed below, we reverse the order of the district court and dismiss the suit against McMurray.

I.

Because this is an appeal from a denial of a motion to dismiss, defendant Samuel McMur-ray, the Chief of Police of Muskegon Heights, Michigan, relies, for purposes of this appeal, as he must, on the facts as they are presented by plaintiff. For purposes of this opinion, therefore, we will rely on tbe facts alleged by plaintiff in his complaint.

Plaintiff James Gibson attended, and planned to videotape, a Muskegon Heights School Board meeting on March 15, 1995 because he was concerned about low scores by students in the district on a standardized test. At some point during the meeting, defendant Eddie West, the school superintendent, and defendant Dana Bryant, a school administrator, demanded that plaintiff cease videotaping the meeting. Plaintiff refused, citing Michigan’s open meeting law, 1 and the police were called.

Another defendant, Muskegon Heights police officer Latrice Sain, responded to the call and told plaintiff he would be arrested if he didn’t leave the building. Plaintiff would not leave and Officer Sain forcibly removed him from the building. Plaintiff alleges that he was choked unconscious and had to be treated at the hospital. Later that evening another officer cited plaintiff for trespassing in violation of a local ordinance. Plaintiff filed a complaint with the police department against Officer Sain the next day. The police department conducted an investigation into plaintiffs complaint and found Officer Sain’s actions to be proper.

While the investigation was ongoing, Officer Sain completed a warrant authorization form for plaintiffs arrest and submitted it to a local district judge for approval. Pursuant to the police department’s standard practice, the warrant request form was pre-signed by the city attorney but was not actually reviewed by the city attorney before submission to the judge. Defendant McMurray alleges that the warrant may have been reviewed and verbally authorized by the city attorney, but for purposes of this appeal we assume, as alleged by plaintiff, that the warrant request form was not reviewed by the city attorney. The warrant was issued and it was entered into the “Law Enforcement Information Network.” Plaintiff was not immediately picked up on the warrant.

A month later, on April 16, 1995, plaintiff attended another school board meeting. The *232 police were again called and Officer Sain responded and arrested plaintiff on the outstanding warrant. Plaintiff spent the night in jail. All charges against plaintiff were later dismissed.

Plaintiff alleges that defendant McMurray authorized the police department practice of using presigned arrest forms in violation of M.C.L. § 764.1(2), 2 which had the effect of misleading the district judge who authorized the warrant and led to the illegal arrest of plaintiff by Officer Sain. In his amended complaint, plaintiff alleges that McMurray violated plaintiffs procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by authorizing the use of warrant request forms that were presigned by the city attorney in violation of M.C.L. § 764.1(2). Plaintiff also contends that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated. The district court denied MeMurra/s motion to dismiss, holding that plaintiffs Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by use of the presigned warrants. The district court held that McMur-ray was liable under a theory of supervisory liability and that he did not have qualified immunity.

II.

Defendant McMurray contends that plaintiffs § 1983 claim fails on three grounds: (1) he is not liable under any theory of supervisor liability because he did not participate in the improper arrest of plaintiff; (2) there was no constitutional violation and (3) he has qualified immunity.

As an initial matter, we conclude that we have- jurisdiction to answer the purely legal questions presented by McMurray’s interlocutory appeal. See Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 313, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996) (jurisdiction exists over appeals from summary judgment denials only when they resolve an abstract issue of law relating to qualified immunity).

The district court held that McMur-ray violated plaintiffs Fourth Amendment right because the police used a presigned warrant request form to secure the arrest warrant and because the warrant contained false information in the form of the signature of the prosecuting attorney who had not actually reviewed the form, thereby misleading the judicial officer reviewing the warrant request form.

We agree with McMurray that there is no federal constitutional violation supporting plaintiffs § 1983 claim. The Fourth Amendment does not require prosecutorial review for a warrant to issue nor is there any other federal requirement for a prosecuting attorney to review the facts of a case and make a probable cause determination prior to review by a judicial officer. The Michigan law that requires the prosecuting attorney to review the warrant request form before it is presented to the judicial officer is simply an additional safeguard to the arrest process under Michigan law. The warrant request form must still be evaluated by a “neutral judicial officer” to determine if there is probable cause to issue a warrant.

The district court emphasized in its opinion that the problem with the presigned warrants is that the judicial officer may curtail his or her review if he or she believes that the prosecuting attorney has already reviewed it for probable cause — in other words the judicial officer may rely on the prosecutor’s approval to issue the warrant. We reject the district court’s reasoning that the evaluation by the judicial officer would be different — the implication is that the judicial officer would simply rubber stamp the application- — if he or she knew that the warrant had been reviewed by a prosecuting attorney. The review undertaken by the judicial officer should be an independent review that is not influenced by the fact that a prosecuting attorney also signed the request form.

In the federal courts, Department of Justice rules provide that prosecutors often must review and approve the application for a warrant by FBI or other agents. There is no assumption or indication that this requirement makes any difference in the magistrate *233 judge’s review. Similarly, in the instant case there is no basis for the' assumption that the judicial officer simply “rubber stamped” the warrant application. By allowing the use of presigned applications, the police chief has not committed a Fourth Amendment violation. To hold otherwise would make all warrants issued after prosecutorial authorization invalid—both those that were presigned and those that were reviewed and signed by the prosecutor and then “rubber stamped” by the judicial officer.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

J.B. v. Harwood
N.D. Ohio, 2023
Hill v. Hall
M.D. Tennessee, 2019
Gary Fields v. Henry County, Tennessee
701 F.3d 180 (Sixth Circuit, 2012)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
159 F.3d 230, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 26593, 1998 WL 726406, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/james-d-gibson-v-samuel-mcmurray-latrice-sain-ca6-1998.