Robert Tolan v. Jeffrey Cotton

538 F. App'x 374
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit·Decided August 1, 2013·No. 12-20296·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinions

DENNIS, Circuit Judge, joined by GRAVES, Circuit Judge,

dissenting:

I respectfully but emphatically dissent from the court’s failure to rehear this case en banc. The panel opinion contains three serious errors that should be corrected by this court en banc or by the Supreme Court: (1) The panel opinion erroneously assumes that the Supreme Court’s decision in Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 129 S. Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009), authorizes it to skip the first prong of the Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), analysis and grant Sergeant Jeffrey Wayne Cotton qualified immunity, despite there being no argument or evidence that Cotton’s actions were based on his reasonable mistake of law; consequently, the panel opinion does not correctly apply either prong of the Saucier analysis, but uses a confused jumble of parts of each prong to justify its decision and reach the wrong conclusion; (2) The panel opinion erroneously and misleadingly represents that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact in this case; (3) The panel opinion erroneously and misleadingly represents facts that are genuinely disputed as being undisputed.

1.

In Saucier v. Katz, the Court mandated a two-step sequence for resolving government officials’ qualified immunity claims. First, “a court must decide whether the facts that a plaintiff has alleged (see Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), (e)) or shown (see Rules 50, 56) make out a violation of a constitutional right.” Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232, 129 S.Ct. 808 (citing Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151). Second, “if the plaintiff has satisfied this first step, the court must decide whether the right at issue was ‘clearly established’ at the time of defendant’s alleged misconduct.” Id. Qualified immunity is applicable unless the official’s conduct violated a clearly established constitutional right. Id. (citing Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)).

In Pearson, the Court held that while the sequence set forth in Saucier is often appropriate, it should no longer be regarded as mandatory. Id. at 236, 129 S.Ct. 808. “The judges of the district courts and the courts of appeals should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand.” Id. Importantly, the Court in Pearson did not change the substance or the purpose of the two Saucier prongs. It merely recognized that lower courts should have the discretion to decide whether following the two prongs in sequence as originally set forth [376]*376by Saucier is worthwhile in particular cases. Id. at 242,129 S.Ct. 808.

The panel opinion, in a very confused and erroneous manner, claims that it “do[es] not reach whether Sergeant Cotton’s shooting Robbie Tolan violated his Fourth Amendment right against excessive force (as noted, the district court relied on this first prong of qualified-immunity analysis).” Tolan v. Cotton, 713 F.3d 299, 306 (5th Cir.2013). Instead, the panel opinion concludes that “showing violation of a constitutional right does not end the inquiry when qualified immunity properly has been invoked. Sergeant Cotton is entitled, through summary judgment, to qualified immunity under the second prong of the analysis.” Id.

After the panel opinion states that it will use only the Saucier second prong analysis to decide this case, one would expect it to address whether Cotton made a reasonable mistake of law in using deadly force against Robbie, for that is the purpose of the second prong.1 But it does not do so. Indeed, the panel opinion does not correctly apply either Saucier’s substantive first-prong factual analysis or its second-prong legal analysis. Instead, it applies an amalgam of the two: something that it called a second-prong legal analysis but which has all the earmarks of a first-prong fact-intensive inquiry. As a result, the panel opinion, in making a purported second-prong inquiry, fails entirely to assess whether an objective officer in Cotton’s position could have made a mistake of law and instead performs what appears to be an erroneous, partial, and distorted Saucier first-prong analysis to conclude that summary judgment based on qualified immunity is proper. See Tolan, 713 F.3d at 307-08. Why does the panel opinion announce that, unlike the district court, it will not use the first Saucier prong to start its analysis of this case? A proper application of the first prong, including a proper application of summary judgment law as well as a proper application of Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989), and Pearson would have correctly led only to the conclusion that there are genuine issues as to material facts whether Cotton objectively and reasonably feared for his life when he shot to kill Robbie; and that the parties’ submissions, properly viewed favorably to the plaintiff, could show that the officer’s conduct violated clearly established Fourth Amendment law. Why does the panel opinion say that it will use the Saucier second prong only, but end up using mostly first-prong language in its reasoning? A Saucier second-prong inquiry was not an appropriate starting point because Cotton never testified that he shot Robbie because he made a reasonable mistake as to the legal constraints on his particular conduct in this case. If the panel had asked and answered these questions it could have avoided its mistakes and the unfortunate circuit precedent it makes in this case.

2.

In pursuing its confused Saucier second prong analysis, the panel opinion further compounds its errors by representing that several genuinely disputed material facts [377]*377are really undisputed and by incorrectly representing that the disputed facts are not material. Specifically, the panel opinion presumes that the Tolans’ front porch was not well lit despite the plaintiffs’ evidence that it was reasonably well lit by lights on the porch, in the yard, and from Officer John Edwards’s car spotlight and his flashlight; that Marian Tolan was argumentative and refused orders to remain calm, though she and her husband testified that she was calm and merely explained to both officers that she and her husband owned the Nissan and house and that Robbie lived there with them; that Cotton merely guided Marian toward the garage door despite the Tolans’ testimony that he dragged her and shoved her into the metal garage door; and that Robbie moved to intervene in Cotton’s treatment of Marian, despite the Tolans’ testimony and physical blood-spot evidence that indicated that Robbie had not moved toward Cotton when Cotton shot him.

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Robert Tolan v. Jeffrey Cotton, 538 F. App'x 374 (5th Cir. 2013).

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