Kelvin Gant v. County of Los Angeles

772 F.3d 608, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 22216, 2014 WL 6610291
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedNovember 24, 2014
Docket12-56080
StatusPublished
Cited by109 cases

This text of 772 F.3d 608 (Kelvin Gant v. County of Los Angeles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kelvin Gant v. County of Los Angeles, 772 F.3d 608, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 22216, 2014 WL 6610291 (9th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION

CHRISTEN, Circuit Judge:

This is a case of mistaken identity arising from the separate arrests and detentions of Kelvin Gant and Jose Alexander Ventura based on warrants intended for other people. Appellants filed over twenty federal and state law claims alleging that various defendants issued flawed warrants, improperly arrested them, or improperly detained them. The district court ruled against all of appellants’ claims in orders granting defendants’ motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We reverse the district court’s judgment on Ventura’s Fourteenth Amendment § 1983 claim against the L.A. County defendants and Ventura’s Bane Act claim against the Chino defendants. We otherwise affirm the district court’s rulings. 1

BACKGROUND

The defendants in this case are the County of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department (“the L.A. County defendants”), the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department (“the L.A. City defendants”), the City of Chino and the Chino Police Department (“the Chino defendants”), and the County of San Bernardino and the San. Bernardino County Sheriffs Department (“the San Bernardino defendants”).

Two arrest warrant systems are relevant to this appeal, and a brief explanation of both is necessary to understand the basis for appellants’ claims. The first is the Wanted Persons System (“WPS”) operated and maintained by the California Department of Justice (“CDOJ”) to record and track warrants issued by California state courts. Any California law enforcement agency can query the WPS database, but only the agency that procured a warrant can update the entry for it. The second system is a separate County Warrant System (“CWS”) operated and maintained by L.A. County to track and record warrants issued by Los Angeles County courts. All Los Angeles County-based law enforcement agencies can query CWS, but, like WPS, only the agency that procures a warrant can update the entry for it in CWS.

Arrest warrants can contain a subject’s name, date of birth, address, physical descriptors, and unique identifiers, including *612 Social Security numbers and various fingerprint-based identification numbers. The CDOJ assigns a fingerprint-based Criminal Investigation and Identification (“CII”) number to its warrants. Los Angeles County agencies assign a fingerprint-based “L.A. Main” number to their warrants. CII and L.A. Main numbers can be used' to generate an arrestee’s criminal history, which can' include the subject’s full name, aliases, birth date,- residential addresses, and Social Security and driver’s license numbers. CII and L.A. Main numbers can also be used to generate a subject’s arrest, prosecution, and conviction histories.

When a person is booked into a California jail, his or her through a process called “Live Scan.” The CDOJ typically responds after a few minutes in one of two ways. If the arrestee’s fingerprints are already on file, the subject’s CII number and criminal history are sent to the arresting agency. If the arrestee’s fingerprints are not on file, the CDOJ assigns the arrestee a new CII number and informs the arresting agency.

1. Appellants’ Claims

A. Kelvin Gant

Kelvin Gant (“Gant”) has been arrested on warrants issued for his non-identical twin brother, Kevin Gant, between five and seven times. 2 The claims Gant raised in this case stem from a mistaken arrest that occurred on April 29, 2008. Torrance police ran a warrant check in the course of questioning Gant about allegedly attempting to fraudulently obtain a refund for a movie ticket. The warrant had been obtained by the L.A. City defendants, who were responsible for inputting it into CWS. It named Gant’s brother, “Kevin Thomas Gant” and included a CII number. Gant was arrested even though he showed the officer a “judicial clearance form” verifying that a warrant for “Kevin Gant” was not meant for him. Torrance police transferred Gant to the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. 3 In the booking process, a Live Scan report was obtained. It showed that Gant had a different CII number than the warrant’s subject, Kevin Gant. It also included “Kevin Thomas Gant” and “Kevin T. Gant” as aliases associated with Kelvin Gant’s fingerprints. Gant was detained overnight and released the following day after a court appearance. Gant does not allege that he told the Los Angeles County Sheriffs department he had a judicial clearance form.

B. Jose Alexander Y entura

On December 13, 2007, a Chino police officer stopped Jose Alexander Ventura for a minor traffic violation. The first fifteen minutes of the stop were audio-recorded. An officer ran a warrant check and discovered an outstanding 1994 warrant obtained by the L.A. City defendants for “Jose Ventura.” 4 The police dispatcher described the warrant subject as a Hispanic male *613 who was 6'1" tall, weighed 200 pounds, and had black hair and brown eyes. Ventura showed the officer a driver’s license that indicated he was 5'6" tall and weighed 180 pounds.

On the audio tape, an officer can be heard asking Ventura to step out of his vehicle. After Ventura complied, another officer arrived and began questioning him. The audio of this questioning recorded Ventura agreeing with an officer’s suggestion that he is 5'11". Ventura alleges that the officers knew he was 5'6" but coached him to “parrot back” that he was 5'11". It is clear from the audio recording that English is Ventura’s second language. One of the officers also incorrectly told Ventura that the warrant includes Ventura’s Social Security number.

Ventura was arrested. The Chino Police Department does not book or hold felony arrestees, but Ventura was transported to the Chino police station while an officer obtained the warrant abstract. 5 The warrant did not contain any unique identifiers such as a CII number or Social Security number. Ventura was then transported to San Bernardino’s West Valley Detention Center (“WVDC”), where he was booked and remained for approximately four days.

During booking at WVDC, officials took Ventura’s fingerprints using Live Scan and electronically transferred them to CDOJ. The parties dispute whether Live Scan could have been used to determine whether the warrant was meant for Ventura because the warrant for “Jose Ventura” did not include a CII number. But in any case, the San Bernardino defendants argue that the Live Scan report was not returned until January 24, 2008, approximately five weeks after Ventura was arrested. Ventura claims he told a WVDC officer that he was not the warrant’s true subject, but the San Bernardino defendants deny Ventura complained that his arrest was a case of mistaken identity.

After spending four days at WVDC, Ventura was transferred to the L.A. County jail, where he was held for two more days. Ventura claims he protested his detention to L.A.

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772 F.3d 608, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 22216, 2014 WL 6610291, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kelvin-gant-v-county-of-los-angeles-ca9-2014.