Navarro v. City of South Gate

81 F. App'x 192
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit·Decided November 14, 2003·No. No. 02-55395; D.C. No. CV-00-05977-MMM·Published·Cited by 5 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM *

Jose Navarro appeals the grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants on Navarro’s First, Fourth and Eighth Amendment claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm in part, reverse in part and remand to the district court.

We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity. Jackson v. City of Bremerton, 268 F.3d 646, 650 (9th Cir.2001). The relevant facts are known to the parties and are discussed here briefly and only as necessary.

I. Fourth Amendment

The district court granted summary judgment on Navarro’s claims for false arrest, abuse of process and malicious prosecution, finding that the Officers Carrillo and Lopez were entitled to qualified immunity.1 A finding of qualified immunity depends on a two-part analysis. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). First, we must determine whether, taken in the light most favorable to Navarro, the facts alleged show the officers’ conduct violated a constitutional right. Id. If we conclude such a violation could be made out, we must ask whether the right was clearly established. Id. That is, we must determine whether “[t]he contours of the right [are] sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Id. at 202 (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)).

The district court found a material dispute of fact as to whether probable cause existed at the time of arrest because (1) [194] Officer Carrillo admitted he did not consider the issue of self-defense and (2) the officers did not resolve discrepancies in the information provided by Sosa, Hernandez and Acosta. Because this determination is undisputed, we assume that the facts, when viewed in Navarro’s favor, establish that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights by arresting him without probable cause. We therefore proceed directly to the second step of the Saucier analysis.2

It is well-settled that “[pjrobable cause exists when under the totality of circumstances known to the arresting officers, a prudent person would have concluded that there was a fair probability that [the defendant] had committed a crime.” Grant v. City of Long Beach, 315 F.3d 1081, 1085 (9th Cir.2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). In a § 1983 action seeking damages for an arrest without probable cause, “[t]he qualified immunity inquiry ... is an objective one, focusing on whether a reasonable officer could have believed that probable cause existed to arrest the plaintiff.” Mendocino Envtl. Center v. Mendocino County, 14 F.3d 457, 462 (9th Cir.1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have held that “[t]he defendant’s knowledge is relevant, since the objective analysis is focused on a reasonable officer confronted with the facts and circumstances actually known to the officer.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

We conclude that a reasonable officer confronted with the facts and circumstances known to Officers Carillo and Lopez at the time of Navarro’s arrest would not have determined that probable cause existed for the arrest, at least without making further inquiry. Officer Walters’ report strongly suggests that Navarro was trying to defend himself (or possibly the employees and customers of the bar) by frightening away an unruly and “very intoxicated” group of four men who were severely injuring Navarro with bottles and pool sticks. All witnesses clearly stated that a single shot was fired into the ground, as Navarro claimed. Moreover, the officers were aware that Hernandez— the witness whose statements formed the basis of the probable cause determination — had changed his story dramatically since the initial investigation, and that the new version of events that he recounted was not supported by the other witnesses’ accounts.

Yet in the face of this ample evidence indicating that Navarro discharged the weapon in self-defense, Officers Carrillo and Lopez conducted what appears from the record to have been a reckless investigation that neither considered self-defense nor included the minimal follow-up investigation necessary to clarify the inconsistencies relevant to the self-defense inquiry. In particular, the officers failed to ask Sosa, Hernandez or the Acostas whether anyone had used a knife, and they neglected to discuss the one-on-one fight between Hernandez and Navarro that immediately [195] proceeded the gunshot. Moreover, the officers failed to resolve the discrepancy in the number of shots fired as reported by Hernandez, Sosa and Acosta at their initial and subsequent interviews, though they easily could have done so. Notably, Carrillo and Lopez could have consulted Officer Walters or sought basic ballistics evidence to attempt to clarify these discrepancies. Contrary to defendants’ assertion, a further investigation of this nature would not have required the officers to conduct a mini-trial to determine the truth. Rather, this sort of minimal further inquiry is exactly the type of follow-up investigation that a reasonable officer would have conducted in order to establish probable cause in the face of clear exculpatory evidence.

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Navarro v. City of South Gate, 81 F. App'x 192 (9th Cir. 2003).

81 F. App'x 192 (Navarro v. City of South Gate) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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