Sperry v. Maes

592 F. App'x 688
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedNovember 17, 2014
Docket13-1336
StatusUnpublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 592 F. App'x 688 (Sperry v. Maes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sperry v. Maes, 592 F. App'x 688 (10th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

MARY BECK BRISCOE, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Todd Sperry filed claims against Castle Rock police officers Jason Maes and George Elder and the Town of Castle Rock, Colorado for malicious prosecution in violation of the Fourth Amendment under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and for the failure to recognize and accommodate a disability under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12132. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. We affirm.

I.

This case arises out of a criminal theft investigation conducted by the Town of Castle Rock Police Department. Todd Sperry contends that the investigation and his subsequent arrest were (1) in retaliation for prior complaints made by Sperry regarding how the department investigated the car crash that killed his son, and (2) without probable cause because the officers knew he was mentally disabled and unable to form the mens rea required for the type of theft charged.

A. Factual background

On November 13, 2007, Todd Sperry’s son died in a one-car crash investigated by the Castle Rock Police Department. Sperry, who is cognitively disabled and has trouble reading and adding simple numbers, was greatly upset by the crash and by the resulting police investigation. On the night of the crash, then-Castle Rock Police Chief Tony Lane went to Sperry’s house because officers said Sperry was “kind of out of control” and expressed concern he might hurt himself or somebody else. Aplee. Supp.App. at 403. Lane stated that he did not know about Sperry’s mental disability at the time and that Sperry’s reactions were not “unexpected or out of the ordinary” for someone who had just lost a son. Id. Lane said he later heard that Sperry was “different” and sometimes “mildly irrational” (though he would not go so far as to say “retarded”), but he was primarily concerned with Sperry as a “potential threat to officer safety.” Id. at 403-04.

In the days after the crash, Sperry said he called Corporal Ty Petersen, an officer with the Castle Rock Police Department, approximately 20 times to make complaints about the investigation. According to Sperry, Petersen “threatened to arrest [him] for interfering with his investigation” and demanded to see photographs that Sperry had taken of the scene. Id. at 391. Sperry said “a lot of police came over asking for the photos” and threatened him following the crash, but he was not able to identify most of them. Id. Police officers also took Sperry to a mental health facility several days after the accident.

Lane said everyone in the department knew about the fatal crash, but said he was unaware of what officers knew about Sperry’s mental health other than some circulated safety information. Specifically, a *690 police lieutenant emailed the entire department shortly after the accident to tell officers that Sperry was taken in for a mental health evaluation and to advise them that Sperry had displayed aggressive behavior in the past. 1 Id. at 462. Sperry stated that the unnamed officers he interacted with “knew” about his disability because his “family told them and I told them,” and “they said I wasn’t talking right.” Aplee. Supp.App. at 385.

In February 2008, Sperry was issued a debit card by H & R Block containing his tax refund. On or shortly before April 14, 2008, the card’s balance was — $76.56. Between April 14, 2008, and June 6, 2008, Sperry used the card 73 times at a particular gas station and made a total of $5,109.78 in purchases. Each time the credit card reader declined the card and displayed a message that a bank authorization code was required, and each time Sperry used what he said was his personal identification number (PIN), 1932, to make the purchase. 2 It is unknown whether Sperry understood that his debit card had a finite balance or that his PIN was not a valid bank authorization code, but after a clerk contacted the issuing bank on June 6, 2008, and informed Sperry that the debit card had no money on it, Sperry never returned to the store.

Clifton Porter, an employee of the oil company affiliated with the gas station who was familiar with the credit card system, investigated Sperry’s debit card charges for the company and filed a police report with the Castle Rock Police Department on July 8, 2008. Officer George Elder took Porter’s statement that day, which detailed the charges and Porter’s belief that the funds had been obtained illegally by Sperry “duping” the gas station employees into letting him use an unauthorized code. Id. at 68, 78. Elder passed the information he received from Porter on to a supervisor and did not conduct any further investigation into the matter. 3 Elder said he did not know at any point that Sperry was cognitively disabled.

Detective Jason Maes was assigned to follow up on Elder’s initial police report. Maes said he had never met Sperry and did not know he had a mental disability. Sperry disputed this in his deposition. Sperry identified Maes as someone who had previously spoken with Sperry after the death of his son regarding a different arrest warrant and said, “We know there’s something wrong with you.... You’re different. Did your mom drop you when you *691 were a baby.” Id. at 296. Sperry identified Maes not by his name tag, but by appearance (“holes in his face”) and by the officer saying his name was “Maes” to another person. Id.

In performing his investigation, Maes reviewed the credit card receipts and conducted a photo line-up with the two gas station clerks, both of whom identified Todd Sperry as the suspect. Maes interviewed the clerks and said neither indicated Sperry might have a mental disability, with both describing the debit card misuse as intentional. After reviewing the receipts and records from H & R Block, Maes said he noticed multiple days with multiple charges at the same place, which he believed based on his experience to be “uncommon and highly suspect.” Id. at 301. Maes also said he considered it “suspicious” that Sperry never returned to the gas station after June 6, 2008, despite being a frequent customer for the previous two months. Id.

Maes filed an arrest affidavit on September 4, 2008, and stated in a later affidavit that he based his probable cause determination for the theft charge 4 on the “totality of the circumstances,” and that Sperry’s use of a code “was not as important as the fact that he did in fact override the system and knowingly overcharge his account with a significant sum.” Aplee. Supp.App. at 301-02, 324. However, his arrest affidavit does state that Sperry “somehow obtained a pre-authorization code” to override the credit card system, which Sperry disputes. Id. at 323.

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Bluebook (online)
592 F. App'x 688, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sperry-v-maes-ca10-2014.