James M. Daniels v. John Bango ( 2012 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 11-14927
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 9:10-cv-80077-WJZ
JAMES M. DANIELS,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
JOHN BANGO,
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lDefendant - Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(August 20, 2012)
Before WILSON, PRYOR and MARTIN, Circuit Judges.
WILSON, Circuit Judge:
James M. Daniels spent eight months in jail for a crime he did not commit.
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He was released from pretrial custody upon his acquittal at a bench trial on charges
that he sold crack cocaine to Palm Beach County Deputy Sheriff John Bango, who
was working undercover in Boynton Beach, Florida. As it turned out, the dealer
was actually someone else. Bango misidentified Daniels as the dealer even though
Bango spent about twenty minutes with the dealer during the transaction. After his
acquittal, Daniels sued Bango, contending that Bango violated his civil rights
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by making false statements in the affidavit that supported
probable cause for Daniels’s arrest warrant and omitting material facts. He also
included a Florida state-law claim for malicious prosecution. This appeal is from
the denial of Bango’s motion for summary judgment asserting qualified immunity.
We affirm in part and dismiss in part.
I. Facts
We take the facts from the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation,
adopted by the district judge, and fully supported by the record 1:
On July 26, 2007, Defendant John Bango . . . and his partner,
Agent Thomas Kabis, were working undercover in Boynton Beach,
purchsing narcotics from street-level drug dealers. While making
these purchases, Bango and Kabis drove an unmarked vehicle that
1
The district court correctly viewed the facts in the light most favorable to Daniels. See
Davis v. Williams, 451 F.3d 759, 763 (11th Cir. 2006). The district court also noted that “[w]ith
few exceptions noted herein, the parties do not dispute the relevant facts. Rather, the parties’
disagreement focuses on the legal significance of these facts.” D.E. 41 at 1 n.1.
2
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was equipped with a hidden surveillance camera. Shortly after 3:00
p.m., the officers purchased forty dollars’ worth of crack cocaine from
a young black male. The suspect referred to himself as “Toe” or
“Tobe,” and he later told the officers that his first name was James. 2
During part of the exchange, the suspect rode in the front seat of the
officers’ car. While in the car, the suspect informed the officers that
he “just got out of jail last night,” that he “went to court today,” and
that he was “facing fifteen years” for “burglary with a firearm and
robbery with a firearm.” He also mentioned that he had been arrested
in a nearby area. During the officers’ encounter with the suspect,
which lasted about twenty minutes and took place on a clear day, they
observed him at close range, and he did not try to conceal his face. 3
Later that day, Bango and Kabis returned to their office and
sought to determine the identity of the suspect who had sold them
crack cocaine. Bango watched the first part of the surveillance tape
and printed some still photographs of the suspect. Bango then
searched the Sheriff’s Office’s online “booking blotter” for a black
male named James who had been arrested by the Boynton Beach
Police Department for burglary within the last three months.
Although the booking blotter allows searches for arrests that occurred
up to one year in the past, Bango limited the time frame of his search
to three months because the suspect had “said he had just gotten out of
jail,” and Bango “figured three months would have caught anything.”
Bango later acknowledged, however, that a suspect charged with
burglary “absolutely” could have been incarcerated for more than
ninety days and therefore could have been excluded from Bango’s
search, even if the suspect had recently been released. 4 Bango’s
2
The surveillance recording stopped before the end of the transaction because the camera
ran out of videotape. The suspect disclosed that his name was James after the recording ended.
3
Normally, when the undercover officers left the presence of a drug suspect, they would
describe the suspect’s physical traits out loud so that those descriptions would be recorded by the
surveillance tape. Though the officers stated that they followed this practice for the suspect at
issue here, the surveillance tape had already run out. Thus, the officers’ descriptions of the
suspect were lost.
4
The booking blotter permits searches based on the date of a suspect’s booking but does
3
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search revealed Plaintiff James Daniels, who had been charged on
June 26, 2007, with burglary and petit theft; sentenced to time served
on July 23, 2007; and released from the Palm Beach County Jail on
July 24, 2007, with his case over. After examining Daniels’s
booking-blotter photo, Bango identified Daniels as the individual who
had sold narcotics to Bango and Kabis earlier that day.
Kabis separately searched the booking blotter, “filter[ing] the
search by the agency that made the arrests, the charge that was used to
make the arrest and the name James.” Kabis does not recall what time
frame he used for the search. Kabis’s search also identified Daniels,
and Kabis agreed that Daniels was the suspect who had sold the
officers drugs.
Bango then prepared a probable-cause affidavit to support
Daniels’s arrest for selling cocaine. The affidavit mainly described
the details of the officers’ drug purchase from the suspect. Near the
end of the affidavit, Bango stated that the suspect had told the officers
that “his real first name was James and he had just gotten out [of] the
Palm Beach County Jail for burglary.” Bango further stated that the
officers had used the booking blotter to “locate[] the subject and
confirm[] that his name was James Daniels.” The affidavit did not
note the discrepancies between the suspect’s statements and Daniels’s
record—namely, that (1) the suspect had stated that he “just got out of
jail last night [July 25, 2007],” while Daniels had been released on
July 24, 2007; (2) the suspect had indicated that he “went to court
today [July 26, 2007],” while Daniels’s case had concluded two days
earlier; and (3) the suspect had said that he was “facing fifteen years”
for “burglary with a firearm and robbery with a firearm,” while
Daniels’s case had been resolved two days before with time served.
Bango provided the affidavit, along with the video, photographs
of the suspect and Daniels, and other investigation materials, to an
assistant state attorney for review. See D.E. 20 at 4, ¶ 9; D.E. 28 at 3,
¶ 9. Bango subsequently presented an arrest-warrant application to a
not allow searches based on the date of the suspect’s release from jail. However, a completed
search query lists the date and time of release for each person identified in the search results.
4
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Palm Beach County Circuit Judge. 5 On August 10, 2007, the judge
issued a warrant for Daniels’s arrest on the charge of selling cocaine
within 1,000 feet of a place of worship or a convenience business.
The arrest warrant set a bond of $50,000.
Daniels was arrested on October 13, 2007. 6 He remained in
custody for eight months while awaiting trial. While incarcerated,
Daniels, who had been shown the surveillance videotape, asked other
inmates whether they knew anyone from Boynton Beach who went by
the name “Toe” or “Tobe.” One inmate said that he did know
someone by that name but did not know the person’s real name.
However, the inmate did know that “Toe” or “Tobe” had a sister
whose last name was Reed. Using this information and the suspect’s
disclosure that his first name was James, Daniels’s attorneys
discovered that a black male named James Reed had been released
from the Palm Beach County Jail on the night of July 25, 2007 (the
night before the drug transaction) and, on the morning of July 26,
2007, had returned to Palm Beach County Circuit Court for a non-
custody arraignment on charges of burglary and petit theft. Because
Reed had been arrested on these charges on March 14, 2007—more
than three months before Bango searched the booking blotter on July
26, 2007—Bango’s search would not have identified Reed. 7
5
Bango asserts in his summary-judgment motion that the assistant state attorney, rather
than Bango, submitted the warrant application. But as Daniels points out in his response, see
D.E. 28 at 4–5, ¶ 10, this assertion is refuted by Bango’s deposition testimony, which indicates
that he (and possibly Kabis) presented the warrant application to the judge. See D.E. 20-1 at 99.
(“We had done several buys and . . . we were putting packets together of arrestees for warrants.
We would bring them over ten at a time to the State Attorney’s Office. Allow them to do their
paperwork. We would then go see the judge. The judge would sign it. We would take it and it
would get held back.” (emphasis added)).
6
Although the warrant for Daniels’s arrest was issued two months earlier, the processing
and execution of the warrant were purposefully delayed to protect Bango’s and Kabis’s identities
as undercover officers.
7
It appears undisputed that if Bango had searched the booking blotter using a time period
that included the date of Reed’s arrest—for example, had Bango looked back six months rather
than three—his search would have revealed Reed.
5
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On June 15, 2008, Daniels was acquitted of the cocaine-sale
charge following a bench trial. Apparently contrasting Daniels’s
appearance to photographs of the suspect, the presiding judge stated,
“It does not look like that guy to me. The ears look different.” The
judge added, “I’m sorry. It doesn’t look like him to me . . . the ears
and the nose.”
D.E. 41 at 1–5 (citations omitted).
II. Jurisdiction
Generally, the denial of a motion for summary judgment is not a final order
subject to immediate appeal. Gray ex rel. Alexander v. Bostic, 458 F.3d 1295,
1303 (11th Cir. 2006). A denial of summary judgment on the basis that the
defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity is immediately appealable when it
“concerns solely the pure legal decision of (1) whether the implicated federal
constitutional right was clearly established and (2) whether the alleged acts
violated that law.” Koch v. Rugg, 221 F.3d 1283, 1294 (11th Cir. 2000) (emphasis
omitted) (citing Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313, 115 S. Ct. 2151, 2156
(1995)). The appeal must present “a legal question concerning a clearly
established federal right that can be decided apart from considering sufficiency of
the evidence.” Id. Here, Bango argues that his actions, which are undisputed, did
not violate clearly established constitutional rights; therefore, we find the appeal of
the district court’s qualified immunity determination proper.
6
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Bango contends that we have pendent jurisdiction to review the district
court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment on Daniels’s claim for
malicious prosecution. However, “pendent appellate jurisdiction is limited to
questions that are ‘inextricably interwoven’ with an issue properly before the
appellate court.” Harris v. Bd. of Educ., 105 F.3d 591, 594 (11th Cir. 1997) (per
curiam) (citing Swint v. Chambers Cnty. Comm’n, 514 U.S. 35, 51, 115 S. Ct.
1203, 1212 (1995)). The pendent issue must be essential to the resolution of the
issue over which appellate jurisdiction exists. Swint, 514 U.S. at 51, 115 S. Ct. at
1212. Under Florida law, malicious prosecution requires a plaintiff to prove six
elements of which, at most, only two pertain to our qualified immunity analysis.
See Alamo Rent-A-Car, Inc. v. Mancusi, 632 So. 2d 1352, 1355 (Fla. 1994) (listing
the six factors). Because “we may resolve the qualified immunity issue without
reaching the merits” of the malicious prosecution claim, we do not have
jurisdiction to entertain the interlocutory appeal. Harris, 105 F.3d at 595.
Therefore, we dismiss for lack of jurisdiction Bango’s interlocutory appeal of the
malicious prosecution claim.
III. Standard of Review
We review a district court’s denial of qualified immunity de novo, viewing
all evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving
7
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party. Bennett v. Hendrix, 423 F.3d 1247, 1249 (11th Cir. 2005). Summary
judgment is appropriate where “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact
and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a);
see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S. Ct. 2548, 2552 (1986).
IV. Qualified Immunity
Qualified immunity is “an entitlement not to stand trial . . . when a
government actor’s discretionary conduct does not violate clearly established
statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
Koch, 221 F.3d at 1294 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). After the
officer asserting the affirmative defense of qualified immunity demonstrates that
he acted in his discretionary capacity, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to establish a
constitutional violation. Bennett, 423 F.3d at 1250. Bango acted in his
discretionary capacity as a law enforcement officer; therefore, our analysis focuses
on whether Bango violated clearly established law. See Koch, 221 F.3d at 1294.
We decide whether the facts alleged show a violation of clearly established law by
“(1) defining the official’s conduct, based on the record and viewed most favorably
to the non-moving party, and (2) determining whether a reasonable public official
could have believed that the questioned conduct was lawful under clearly
established law.” Id. at 1295 (footnote omitted). The focus of the second step is
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whether the state of the law at the time gave the officer “fair warning” that his
actions were unconstitutional. Holmes v. Kucynda, 321 F.3d 1069, 1078 (11th Cir.
2003) (citing Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741, 122 S. Ct. 2508, 2516 (2002)).
A. Constitutional Violation
“The Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment requires that warrant
applications contain sufficient information to establish probable cause.” Id. at
1083 (citing Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 164, 98 S. Ct. 2674, 2681 (1978)).
In Franks, the Supreme Court noted that the Fourth Amendment assumes that the
factual showing to support probable cause is true. 438 U.S. at 164–65, 98 S. Ct. at
2681. Although every statement in an application for a warrant does not need to be
objectively accurate, the affidavit must “be truthful in the sense that the
information put forth is believed or appropriately accepted by the affiant as true.”
Id. at 165, 98 S. Ct. at 2681 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Holmes,
321 F.3d at 1083. The reasoning in Franks applies equally “to information omitted
from warrant affidavits.” Madiwale v. Savaiko, 117 F.3d 1321, 1326 (11th Cir.
1997). “[A] warrant violates the Fourth Amendment when it contains omissions
‘made intentionally or with a reckless disregard for the accuracy of the affidavit.’”
Id. at 1326–27 (quoting United States v. Martin, 615 F.2d 318, 329 (5th Cir.
1980)). Therefore, an officer will not receive qualified immunity if a reasonable
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officer should have known that the statements in the affidavit were included with a
reckless disregard for the truth or that facts were recklessly omitted from the
affidavit supporting probable cause. See Kelly v. Curtis, 21 F.3d 1544, 1554 (11th
Cir. 1994).
A law enforcement officer recklessly disregards the truth when he “should
have recognized the error [in the warrant application], or at least harbored serious
doubts” as to the facts contained therein. United States v. Kirk, 781 F.2d 1498,
1503 (11th Cir. 1986). This is especially true when “the inconsistency [gives] the
agent[] cause to investigate further.” Id. Thus when an officer possesses
information that would cause a reasonable officer to have serious doubts about the
identity of a suspect, the officer is required to either take additional steps to
confirm the suspect’s identity before submitting the warrant application or include
the contradictory information in the warrant application. See Tillman v. Coley, 886
F.2d 317, 321 (11th Cir. 1989); Kirk, 781 F.2d at 1503; see also Kingsland v. City
of Miami, 382 F.3d 1220, 1229 (11th Cir. 2004) (finding that an officer cannot turn
a blind eye to “easily discoverable facts” and “choose to ignore information”).
Reviewing the facts of this case, we note that “[i]t is difficult to believe that
the surveillance conditions could have been much better.” Kirk, 781 F.2d at 1502.
Despite Bango’s clear observation of the suspect’s appearance and the wealth of
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information the suspect willingly gave Bango, the affidavit in support of the arrest
warrant only stated that “[t]his subject told us that his real first name was James
and he had just gotten out [of] the Palm Beach County Jail for burglary. Checking
the booking blotter, we located the subject and confirmed that this name was James
Daniels by the booking blotter.” The affidavit did not include any of the known
information that would suggest that Daniels was not the suspect. For example,
Bango did not include that, unlike Daniels, the suspect had specifically stated that
he was released from jail the night before. Nor did he mention that, unlike
Daniels, the suspect said he went to court that morning. Furthermore, Bango did
not include that the suspect claimed that he was still facing a punishment of fifteen
years, unlike Daniels who had been sentenced to time served. Additionally, Bango
omitted the fact that he and Kabis had twenty minutes of close contact with the
suspect in broad daylight and with an unobstructed view of the suspect’s face.
The material inconsistencies between the suspect’s story and the information
in the search results should have led a reasonable officer to harbor serious doubts
about the conclusion that Daniels was the suspect on the video tape. See Tillman,
886 F.2d at 321; see also Madiwale, 117 F.3d at 1327 (“[I]t is possible that when
the facts omitted from the affidavit are clearly critical to a finding of probable
cause the fact of recklessness may be inferred from proof of the omission itself”
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(internal quotation marks omitted)). At the very least, the inconsistencies should
have led Bango to investigate further. See Tillman, 886 F.2d at 321 (“Although the
law does not require that every conceivable step be taken, at whatever cost, to
eliminate the possibility of convicting an innocent person, due process does require
that some steps be taken to eliminate doubts concerning identity that exist prior to
obtaining the warrant and to arrest.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Kirk, 781
F.2d at 1503; Kingsland, 382 F.3d at 1229. Bango and Kabis only relied on the
booking blotter information from the last ninety days when they determined
Daniels was the suspect. The officers’ independent discovery of Daniels’s booking
blotter information does not convert their insufficient investigation into a
reasonable one. See Kirk, 781 F.2d at 1503 (noting that even though four different
officers incorrectly identified a suspect, those officers should have “recognized the
error, or at least harbored serious doubts”).
The district court found that despite the inconsistencies, Bango and Kabis
ignored two other investigative techniques: (1) expanding the booking blotter
search to twelve months and (2) calling the local jails for the names of individuals
who were released the night before. The officers chose to ignore these methods
despite knowing that a suspect charged with burglary could be incarcerated for
more than ninety days. Either of these avenues of investigation would have
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included James Reed in the search results. Most importantly, perhaps, is that both
of these investigative techniques were simple, and we have previously held that
officers should look into easily discoverable facts. See Kingsland, 382 F.3d at
1229 (finding that information that could be uncovered by searching a truck for
drugs and interviewing available witnesses constituted “easily discoverable facts”).
Furthermore, time was not of the essence. The officers knew that they
would be waiting months before arresting the suspect, and no evidence of exigency
appears in the record. Therefore, the circumstances surrounding Bango’s
investigation did not necessitate such a cursory investigation. See Tillman, 886
F.2d at 321 (noting that the officers waited three months before arresting the
suspect). Under the circumstances, Bango could have taken a few more simple
steps to verify his identification. See Kingsland, 382 F.3d at 1229 n.10 (noting that
an officer is not required to eliminate every theoretical possibility, but an officer
may not “turn[] a blind eye to immediately available exculpatory information”).
We cannot quarrel with the district court’s finding that Bango recklessly omitted
material information when he did not take additional steps to verify the suspect’s
identity or include the inconsistencies in his arrest-warrant application to the judge.
B. Arguable Probable Cause
Even though Bango recklessly omitted material facts from the affidavit in
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support of the arrest warrant, he may still be entitled to qualified immunity if there
is arguable probable cause for the arrest. See Madiwale, 117 F.3d at 1327. To
make this determination, we analyze whether “under all of the facts and
circumstances, an officer reasonably could—not necessarily would—have believed
that probable cause was present.” Crosby v. Monroe Cnty., 394 F.3d 1328, 1332
(11th Cir. 2004); see also Grider v. City of Auburn, 618 F.3d 1240, 1257 (11th Cir.
2010) (explaining that a plaintiff must show that “reasonable officers in the same
circumstances and possessing the same knowledge as the Defendants could have
believed that probable cause existed to arrest Plaintiff” (quoting Kingsland, 382
F.3d at 1232)).
Taking the facts in the light most favorable to Daniels and considering all
the facts that Bango knew at the time he obtained the arrest warrant, Bango did not
have arguable probable cause when he signed the affidavit. To conduct this
analysis we consider the facts in the affidavit (notwithstanding the
misidentification) and those facts that were recklessly omitted. See Kirk, 781 F.2d
at 1505 (“Our inquiry now focuses upon whether the affidavit is sufficient to
establish [arguable] probable cause, notwithstanding the misidentification.”);
Madiwale, 117 F.3d at 1327 (taking into consideration the omitted information
when deciding if there was arguable probable cause to obtain search warrants). So
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our circumstances to consider are that a young African American male named
James, who referred to himself as “Toe” or “Tobe,” sold the officers drugs. During
this twenty minute transaction, he admitted that he had been released from jail the
night before, went to court that morning and was facing fifteen years for burglary
with a firearm and robbery with a firearm. Additionally, the officers found through
searching only three months of records on the booking blotter a young African
American male named James Daniels. Daniels had been released from jail two
days earlier, had not gone to court that morning, and was sentenced to time served
for burglary and petit theft.
In analyzing whether there was arguable probable cause, we first note that
the misleading information was the only information in the affidavit that tied
Daniels to the drug deal; therefore, the omissions were material to a finding of
arguable probable cause. See Kingsland, 382 F.3d at 1233 (finding it important
that the recklessly false statements were “material to a finding of arguable probable
cause”). Additionally, the district court found noticeable differences between the
suspect’s physical characteristics and Daniels’s characteristics. 8 The district court
specifically noted that “the suspect’s nose is broad with a pronounced ridge, while
8
Daniels’s booking blotter photo that the officers used to identify him is not contained in
the record on appeal and was not in the record given to the district court. However, the district
court found that the four driver’s license photographs of Daniels taken between July 2006 and
February 2009 were sufficient because Daniels’s facial appearance in all four photos was similar.
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Daniels’s nose is relatively narrow and smooth” and “the suspect’s ears protrude
noticeably away from his head, while Daniels’s do not.” The state court judge
emphasized the same differences when Daniels was acquitted. The physical
differences between the men, coupled with the significant discrepancies between
the suspect’s story and the information about Daniels contained in the booking
blotter, lead to the conclusion that no reasonable officer could have concluded that
he had arguable probable cause to arrest Daniels in light of all of the circumstances
known to Bango. Therefore, we affirm the district court’s denial of qualified
immunity.
V. Conclusion
We affirm the finding of the district court that Bango should not be granted
qualified immunity. We further affirm the finding that, considering all the facts
and circumstances known to Bango, no arguable probable cause existed to issue a
warrant for Daniels’s arrest. Lastly, we dismiss for lack of jurisdiction Bango’s
interlocutory appeal from the denial of his motion for summary judgment on
Daniels’s claim for malicious prosecution.
AFFIRMED IN PART AND DISMISSED IN PART.
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