Juan Martinez v. Los Angeles Police Department

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: July 25, 2024
• Docket: 22-15509
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 25 2024

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

JUAN FRANCISCO MARTINEZ, No. 22-15509 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:18-cv-00964-TLN-AC v. MEMORANDUM* LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT, Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Troy L. Nunley, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted March 10, 2023 Submission Vacated September 1, 2023 Resubmitted July 25, 2024** Pasadena, California

Before: COLLINS, LEE, and BRESS, Circuit Judges.

Juan Martinez (“Martinez”) was arrested by an officer of the Stockton Police

Department (“SPD”) on the basis of a warrant abstract transmitted from the Los

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** This case was originally argued and submitted to a panel consisting of Judges Kleinfeld, Watford, and Collins. After Judge Watford resigned from the court and Judge Kleinfeld became unavailable, Judges Lee and Bress were drawn to replace them pursuant to General Order 3.2(h), and the submission to the prior panel was vacated. Judges Lee and Bress have reviewed the briefs, record, and video recording of the prior oral argument. The reconstituted panel has unanimously concluded that this case is suitable for decision without further oral argument. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”). The warrant abstract described a different

Juan Martinez who happened to share Martinez’s name and birthdate. Martinez

sued LAPD and several others under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for his mistaken arrest. As

to LAPD, Martinez claimed that it had “failed to train its personnel” to verify

identifying information in an arrest warrant “with the arresting agency.” Martinez

claims that, had LAPD personnel discussed with SPD the identifiers in the warrant

abstract, SPD would have realized that Martinez’s fingerprints and other identifiers

did not match those of the Juan Martinez described in the warrant. The district

court granted LAPD’s motion for summary judgment, and Martinez timely

appealed from the final judgment. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

Reviewing the district court’s decision de novo, Donell v. Kowell, 533 F.3d 762,

769 (9th Cir. 2008), we affirm.

1. “Plaintiffs who seek to impose liability” on local governmental entities

such as LAPD “under § 1983 must prove that ‘action pursuant to official municipal

policy’ caused their injury.” Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 60–61 (2011)

(quoting Monell v. Department of Soc. Servs. of the City of N.Y., 436 U.S. 658, 691

(1978)). “In limited circumstances, a local government’s decision not to train

certain employees about their legal duty to avoid violating citizens’ rights may rise

to the level of an official government policy for purposes of § 1983.” Id. at 61.

But to satisfy Monell’s municipal-policy requirement, “a municipality’s failure to

2 train its employees in a relevant respect must amount to ‘deliberate indifference to

the rights of persons with whom the [untrained employees] come into contact.’”

Id. (quoting City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 388 (1989)). The standard of

deliberate indifference usually requires a plaintiff to show “[a] pattern of similar

constitutional violations by untrained employees.” Id. at 62. In the absence of

such a pattern, Monell liability on a failure-to-train theory will lie only if “the

unconstitutional consequences of failing to train” were “patently obvious.” Id. at

64.

As noted, the basis for Martinez’s § 1983 claim is that LAPD failed to train

its employees to take steps to ensure that an arresting agency properly compared an

arrested suspect’s identifying information against the identifying information

contained in a warrant abstract that LAPD had sent to an outside police

department. But Martinez has introduced no evidence that this purported failure to

train has produced a pattern of constitutional violations. Nor has he shown that it

was “patently obvious” that he or others like him would be wrongfully arrested

simply because LAPD did not discuss the identifying information in the warrant

abstract with the arresting agency. The warrant abstract here, by itself, gave SPD

everything it needed to conclude, with sufficient certainty, that Martinez was not

the Juan Martinez described in the warrant. Martinez was eight inches taller and

90 pounds heavier than the warrant subject. Moreover, the warrant abstract

3 included other information about the subject that was sufficient to distinguish him

from Martinez, such as the subject’s Social Security number and his unique

fingerprint identifier. Given that the warrant abstract made clear that Martinez was

the wrong man, it was not patently obvious that Martinez would be arrested by

SPD simply because LAPD personnel did not go over the warrant information with

SPD. Martinez has not shown that it is patently obvious that, unless LAPD

affirmatively assists the arresting agency in evaluating the details of a warrant

abstract, the agency will be so incompetent that it will not be able to make

appropriate use of the amply sufficient information that LAPD has provided.1

Because LAPD cannot be held liable under Monell, we need not determine

whether Martinez’s underlying constitutional claim has any merit. The judgment

of the district court is affirmed.

AFFIRMED.

1 Martinez contends that LAPD’s conduct contravened various California state laws and policies, but even if he is correct, violations of state law do not, without more, establish a violation of federal constitutional rights. See Samson v. City of Bainbridge Island, 683 F.3d 1051, 1060 (9th Cir. 2012); Miller v. Stagner, 757 F.2d 988, 993 (9th Cir. 1985).