Manuel Ortega Melendres v. Joseph Arpaio

784 F.3d 1254
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedApril 15, 2015
Docket13-16285, 13-17238
StatusPublished
Cited by167 cases

This text of 784 F.3d 1254 (Manuel Ortega Melendres v. Joseph Arpaio) 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
Manuel Ortega Melendres v. Joseph Arpaio, 784 F.3d 1254 (9th Cir. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

WALLACE, Senior Circuit Judge:

In a previous opinion in this case, we affirmed the district court’s post-trial preliminary injunction against Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office (individually, Sheriff Arpaio and MCSO; collectively, Defendants), which prohibited Defendants from detaining any individual “based only on knowledge or reasonable belief, without more, that the person is unlawfully present within the United States.” See Melendres v. Arpaio, 695 F.3d 990, 994 (9th Cir.2012) (Melendres I). In this opinion, we address Defendants’ appeal from the district court’s more comprehensive permanent injunction. *1258 We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm in part, and we vacate and remand in part.

I.

The background facts of this case may be found in greater detail in Melendres I. The facts relevant to the arguments made in the present appeal are as follows. Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres; David and Jessica Rodriguez; Manuel Nieto, Jr.; Velia Meraz; the organization Somos America; and the class of individuals the named plaintiffs represent (collectively, Plaintiffs) brought a class action for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that Defendants have a “custom, policy and practice” of racially profiling Latino drivers and passengers, and of stopping them pretextually under the auspices of enforcing federal and state immigration-related laws. Id. at 994-95. Plaintiffs alleged that Defendants’ discriminatory policy extended to the post-stop investigatory process, resulting in longer and more burdensome detentions for Latinos than for non-Latinos. These policies, according to Plaintiffs, violated federal constitutional and statutory law. Id.

It was alleged that Defendants implemented this policy primarily during “saturation patrols,” or “crime suppression, sweeps,” in which Defendant officers would “saturat[e]” a particular area and “sweep[ ]” it, looking for violations of federal civil immigration laws and state immigration-related laws. Id. at 994. Indeed, each of the named individual plaintiffs, except for David and Jessica Rodriguez, was stopped by defendant officers during a saturation patrol. The district court ultimately certified a plaintiff class encompassing “[a]ll Latino persons who, since January 2007, have been or will be ... stopped, detained, questioned or searched by [Defendants’] agents while driving or sitting in a vehicle on a public roadway or parking area in Maricopa County, Arizona,” regardless of whether such persons were stopped, detained, questioned, or searched as part of a saturation patrol. Id. at 995 (alteration in original). At trial, the vast majority of evidence focused on Defendants’ use of race during saturation patrols, although some evidence indicated that Defendants’ policies and practices extended to regular, non-saturation patrols.

After a bench trial, the district court concluded that Defendants employed an unconstitutional policy of considering race as a factor in determining where to conduct patrol operations, in deciding whom to stop and investigate for civil immigration violations, and in prolonging the detentions of Latinos while their immigration status was confirmed. The court found that these unconstitutional policies applied to both saturation and non-saturation patrol activities. As a result, the district court permanently enjoined Defendants from (1) “detaining, holding or arresting Latino occupants of vehicles in Maricopa County based on a reasonable belief, without more, that such persons are in the country without authorization”; (2) “using race or Latino ancestry” as a factor in deciding whether to stop any vehicle with a Latino occupant, or in deciding whether a vehicle occupant was in the United States without authorization; (3) “detaining Latino occupants of vehicles stopped for traffic violations for a period longer than reasonably necessary to resolve the traffic violation in the absence of reasonable suspicion that any of them have committed or are committing a violation of federal or state criminal law”; (4) “detaining, holding or arresting Latino occupants of a vehicle ... for violations of the Arizona Human Smuggling Act without a reasonable basis for believing that, under all the circumstances, the necessary elements *1259 of the crime are present”; and (5) “detaining, arresting or holding persons based on a reasonable suspicion that they are conspiring with their employer to violate the Arizona Employer Sanctions Act.”

The injunction became effective immediately. However, the district court stated it would confer with the parties about the need for additional injunctive relief, given Defendants’ history of being “aggressively responsive” to a majority of the Maricopa County electorate in pursuing law enforcement efforts against “unauthorized residents.” Such efforts had resulted in violations of the district court’s preliminary injunction. The court suggested that additional injunctive relief should address Defendants’ failure to have a “clear policy” about conducting saturation patrols and “other enforcement efforts” in a race-neutral manner, as well as Defendants’ failure to monitor and keep proper records regarding whether officers were “engaging in racially-biased enforcement” during saturation patrols. The district court told the parties that it expected them to submit a “consent decree” if they could agree on all terms necessary to resolve the matter; however, if they could not reach an agreement on “all particulars,” they were to submit a “proposed consent decree” that denoted each point of agreement and disagreement.

After two months of negotiation, the parties submitted a document titled “Parties’ Joint Report Regarding Status of Consent Decree Negotiations” (Joint Report) which contained provisions upon which the parties agreed, designated by black font, and those upon which they disagreed, designated by red or blue font. The Joint Report’s terms did not distinguish between saturation and non-saturation patrols. At the evidentiary hearing on the Joint Report, the district court recognized that the parties had not arrived at a true “consent decree” but rather had produced a “general framework through which [the court could enter] supplemental injunctive relief’ by resolving the parties’ remaining “significant disagreements.” Following that hearing, and using the Joint Report as a framework, the district court entered a supplemental permanent injunction. This injunction required Defendants, among other things, to increase training, improve traffic-stop documentation, develop an early identification system for racial profiling problems, enhance supervision and evaluation of MCSO deputies, and improve reporting of misconduct complaints. The supplemental injunction also directed the appointment of an independent Monitor to assess and report on Defendants’ implementation of the original and supplemental injunctions. As with the parties’ Joint Report, the court’s injunctive provisions were not limited to saturation patrols, but rather applied across the board to all law enforcement activity within the MCSO.

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Bluebook (online)
784 F.3d 1254, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/manuel-ortega-melendres-v-joseph-arpaio-ca9-2015.