Spencer Ex Rel. Spencer v. Staton

489 F.3d 658, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 14023, 2007 WL 1719928
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJune 15, 2007
Docket06-30020
StatusPublished

This text of 489 F.3d 658 (Spencer Ex Rel. Spencer v. Staton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Spencer Ex Rel. Spencer v. Staton, 489 F.3d 658, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 14023, 2007 WL 1719928 (5th Cir. 2007).

Opinions

EDITH H. JONES, Chief Judge:

In this civil-rights action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Plaintiff-Appellant Bernice Spencer appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendants-Appellees Detective Jack Staton, Detective Dewayne Brumley, and Sheriff Guffey Lynn Pattison. Because material fact issues exist regarding (1) whether the arrest warrant Staton and Brumley obtained was supported by probable cause, and (2) Staton’s and Brumley’s entitlement to qualified immunity, we reverse the district court’s dismissal of Spencer’s federal claims; affirm dismissal of the state-law tort claims against the Detectives; affirm as to Sheriff Pattison; and remand for further consideration.

BACKGROUND

Bernice Spencer arrived in Louisiana from California on August 22, 2003. Her husband, John Spencer, had left California several weeks earlier to care for an ailing aunt in Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. During their stay, they lived in a mobile home along with John Spencer’s brother-in-law, Vasco Zinnerman. John Spencer’s aunt, his cousin Jimmy Turner, and several members of his extended family lived nearby.

On August 24, Andrew and Nancy Johnson, the owners of a Pleasant Hill feed store, were shot to death in a botched robbery attempt. Suspicion quickly coalesced around John Spencer, Turner, and Zinnerman, whom witnesses had seen near the store shortly before the murders. In the course of investigating the incident, Detectives Jack Staton and Dewayne Brumley traveled to the Spencer mobile home in the early-morning hours of August 25. Staton and Brumley questioned the Spencers and Zinnerman at a local police station.

During her interrogation, Bernice Spencer denied any involvement in the murders. She claimed to be unaware who owned a .22 caliber rifle recovered from the mobile home or that it was widely known in the community that “people [were] walking around [the mobile-home park] with guns” on the day of the shooting. Further, she told Staton and Brum-ley that her husband had been with her “the majority of the day,” except for a brief visit he made to his aunt’s nearby mobile home. To the question when she planned to return to California, she replied: “Um, probably next couple of days.” All three suspects were released after a few hours.

As their investigation progressed, however, Staton and Brumley discovered that both John Spencer and Zinnerman owned handguns they frequently used for target shooting behind the mobile home; that John Spencer had attempted to buy ammunition on the day of the shootings; and that a witness had overheard Zinnerman [661]*661ask John Spencer: “Are you sure that the [expletive denoting murder victims] are dead?”

Because of this newly acquired information, Staton and Brumley returned to the mobile home on August 26, only to learn that the Spencers and Zinnerman had left for California earlier that morning. Fearing that the three were attempting to flee, the Detectives obtained arrest warrants for the Spencers and Zinnerman, charging the men with armed robbery and first-degree murder, and Bernice Spencer as an accessory after the fact.

On August 28, the Spencers were apprehended in California. John Spencer later confessed that he had been waiting outside the feed store in a car when his cousin Jimmy Turner shot the Johnsons to death. Bernice Spencer was held in the Solano County, California, jail until Louisiana authorities secured her extradition. The accessory charge against Bernice Spencer was eventually dismissed as part of a plea agreement between a Louisiana district attorney and John Spencer.

Bernice Spencer sued Detectives Staton and Brumley and Sabine Parish Sheriff Guffey Lynn Pattison under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging false arrest, false imprisonment, and conspiracy, and several state-law tort claims. The Defendants moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Finding that a reasonable police officer could have concluded that there was probable cause to arrest Bernice Spencer, the district court granted summary judgment and dismissed the federal and state charges. Spencer appealed.

DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

We review de novo the district court’s summary judgment grant, applying the same standard used below. Roberts v. City of Shreveport, 397 F.3d 287, 291 (5th Cir.2005) (citing Keenan v. Tejeda, 290 F.3d 252, 258 (5th Cir.2002)). Summary judgment is appropriate when the record reveals “no genuine issue as to any material fact” and that “the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

B. Malley Violation1

Bernice Spencer alleges that the warrant application submitted by Staton and Brumley was facially invalid and unsupported by probable cause. Review of the Detectives’ assertion of qualified immunity requires us first to ask “whether a reasonably well-trained officer ... would have known that his affidavit failed to establish probable cause and that he should not have applied for the warrant.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 345, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1098, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986). The Detectives’ determination that the warrant was valid entitles them to qualified immunity from suit unless, “on an objective basis, it is obvious that no reasonably competent officer would have concluded that a warrant should issue” under the circumstances. Id. at 341, 106 S.Ct. at 1096.

Staton’s warrant application to the issuing judge is a textbook example of a facially invalid, “barebones” affidavit.2 Af[662]*662ter reciting Spencer’s biographical and contact information, the affidavit states nothing more than the charged offense, accompanied by a conclusory statement that Spencer assisted her husband and Zinnerman in evading Louisiana authorities. It does not supply the factual basis for probable cause necessary for issuance of an arrest warrant. See United States v. Pofahl, 990 F.2d 1456 (5th Cir.1993); United States v. Brown, 941 F.2d 1300 (5th Cir.1991).

Staton asserts, however, that he supplemented the affidavit with oral testimony based on his personal knowledge and investigation such that — in the aggregate — the information conveyed to the judge supports probable cause for Spencer’s arrest. Because the Fourth Amendment does not require written warrants, an otherwise invalid warrant can be rehabilitated by sworn oral testimony before a judicial officer given contemporaneously upon presentation of the warrant application. United States v. Hill, 500 F.2d 315, 320 (5th Cir.1974) (“It has been accepted principle in this and other circuits that a federal court ...

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Bluebook (online)
489 F.3d 658, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 14023, 2007 WL 1719928, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/spencer-ex-rel-spencer-v-staton-ca5-2007.