Robinson v. Keita

20 F. Supp. 3d 1140, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21322, 2014 WL 657408
CourtDistrict Court, D. Colorado
DecidedFebruary 20, 2014
DocketCivil Action No. 12-cv-00483-WYD-KMT
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 20 F. Supp. 3d 1140 (Robinson v. Keita) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Robinson v. Keita, 20 F. Supp. 3d 1140, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21322, 2014 WL 657408 (D. Colo. 2014).

Opinion

ORDER ON SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Wiley Y. Daniel, Senior United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

THIS MATTER is before the Court on Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment filed on March 26, 2013. The individual Defendants assert that they are entitled to qualified immunity on Christian Aubin Robinson’s [“Robinson”] claims in the Amended Complaint. Defendant City and County of Denver [“Denver”] claims it is entitled to summary judgment on the municipal liability claims. A response to the summary judgment motion was filed on May 20, 2013, and a reply was filed on June 17, 2013.

Additionally, Robinson filed a Notice of Clarification regarding his response on June 26, 2013, along with a Motion to Supplement Response Brief with a Recently Discovered Exhibit and a Notice of Conventionally Submitted Exhibit on July 18, 2013. A response and a reply to the motion to supplement were both filed on August 7, 2013. The Motion to Supplement Response Brief was granted on August 27, 2013.1

[1144]*1144II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Before addressing the facts, I note that I have cited only to the facts most relevant to my opinion as they are rather voluminous. I have, however, considered all the facts cited by the parties and evidence related thereto. Also, I have cited to the record only when the facts are disputed.

This is a civil rights suit by Robinson for damages arising out of Denver police and sheriff officers’ conduct in allegedly unreasonably arresting and incarcerating him pursuant to a warrant for a twelve (12) day period. {See Am. Compl. ¶ 1, ECF No. 44.) Defendants assert that Robinson was arrested on a warrant containing his name and identifying information when he came to the headquarters of the Denver Police Department [“DPD”] in order to try to cure the identity mixup that led to him being named in the warrant.

Robinson’s arrest and incarceration arose out of the fact that a person named Michael Cagle [“Cagle”] used Robinson’s Colorado Identification [“ID”] card to identify himself to DPD officers when he was arrested in 2009, and identified himself as “Christian Robinson”.2 When Ca-gle failed to appear at court appearances, a warrant was issued that contained only Robinson’s name and information except for a State Identification Number [“SID”] connected to Cagle.

At the time of Cagle’s arrest, the Denver Sheriffs Department [“DSD”] took Cagle’s unique identifying information and associated much of this information with the arrestee “Christian Robinson”, related to Criminal Case No. 09CR6188, including fingerprints, SID number, and mugshot photos belonging to Cagle. The DSD kept the above identifying information regarding the arrest of Cagle on file in various computer systems, including Cagle’s fingerprints, SID number and mugshot photos.

The Denver District Court [“state district court”] transmitted warrant information using an electronic system to the DSD on September 8, 2010. The warrant was placed on National Crime Information Center [“NCIC”] and Colorado Crime Information Center [“CCIC”], which are computer databases of information used by criminal justice agencies to access criminal histories and other information.

The warrant that was sent by the state district court to the DSD and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation [“CBI”] on September 8, 2010, contained only Robinson’s name, alias, and information except for a SID connected to Cagle. {See ECF No. 55, Exs. H and A; see also ECF No. 67, Ex. 10.) Cagle’s name does not appear on that warrant. {Id.) Robinson admitted this in response to the summary judgment motion.3

[1145]*1145The state district court transmits its warrants to the DSD NCIC Unit so that additional identification information may be added, and also for DSD to act as a contact when law enforcement requests a confirmation of the warrant. Warrants are then “packed”. Packing is a warrant modification process that involves the DSD taking custody of the warrant, adding/changing information in it, and deciding whether to put it on the NCIC network. (ECF No. 66, Ex. 1, Tafoya Dep. 10:5-11:4, 62:18-25; see also ECF No. 53, Ex. K-Packing.”)

Mary Goos [“Goos”] is an NCIC Agent for the DSD. Part of her job is to add additional identification information to the warrants she receives from the court. While Goos testified that her job does not include removal of information from the warrant. (ECF No. 53, Ex. L, Goos Dep. 7:5-8:10), Robinson denies this. Prior to a policy change included in Defendants’ Exhibit K (“Never change the SID number on original warrant from the court”), Robinson points to testimony that the SID numbers were occasionally (albeit infrequently) changed if they appeared to be incorrect or in conflict with information in a warrant transmitted to the DSD NCIC unit. (ECF No. 66, Ex. 1, Tafoya Dep. 14:11-21, 17:16-18:25, 28:10-22, 61:11-62:1.)

In this case, in the process of “packing” the warrant for distribution, Goos saw that the SID number on the warrant (which belonged to Cagle) did not match the name “Christian Robinson”. Thus, she removed the SID belonging to Cagle from the warrant and replaced it with a SID belonging to Robinson which she found using a CCIC/NCIC search. (ECF No. 53, Ex. L, Goos Dep. 8:14-18; ECF No. 66, Ex. 1, Tafoya Dep. 11:19-12:21.)4 Robinson asserts that this change continued on in the modified warrant that was then distributed to law enforcement, per the standardized packing process. (ECF No. 66, Ex. 1, Tafoya Dep. 62:18-25; see also ECF No. 55, Ex. K.)

Goos does not remember the incident or why she changed the SID number, but it was a mistake for her to do this. (ECF No. 53, Ex. L, Goos Dep. 8:14-18, 21:13-22:10, 23:13-20.)5 It is known to Denver that the most important piece of identification information in a warrant is the SID number. That number allows law enforcement personnel to correctly connect fingerprint, mugshot and other key identifying information to the “body” seized. Both Goos and Denver know that an incorrect adjustment to a warrant during the “packing” process could result in fundamental changes to the warrant, including a change in whom the warrant had been issued for.

Other than this incident, Goos testified she had not changed information on a court warrant. (ECF No. 53, Ex. L, Goos Dep. 8:7-13.) Robinson denies this, noting several circumstances that were identified before his case that involved the need to change seemingly conflicting warrant information that had been sent incorrectly from the state district court. (ECF No. 66, Ex. 1, Tafoya Dep. 16:20-25.) License numbers have been transposed, SID numbers have been transposed, FBI numbers have been incorrectly transmitted, and [1146]*1146names have been incorrectly entered. Ruth Tafoya [“Tafoya”], the NCIC supervisor at the DSD, testified that the need to make changes is very infrequent — she had only seen a change to the SID number two or three times. (Id. 14:11-15:3, 17:2-15, 19:23-20:5.)

Goos testified that any problem with conflicting or erroneous information is for the supervisor to resolve. (ECF No. 53, Ex. L, Goos Dep. 19:21-20:13.) She further testified, however, that she was not trained in what to do when she found conflicting information in the warrant. She just took it upon herself to give such conflicts to her supervisor.

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20 F. Supp. 3d 1140, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21322, 2014 WL 657408, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/robinson-v-keita-cod-2014.