Ruby Rodriguez v. Milwaukee County, Wisconsin ( 2019 )


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  •                            NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
    To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
    United States Court of Appeals
    For the Seventh Circuit
    Chicago, Illinois 60604
    Argued January 18, 2019
    Decided March 14, 2019
    Before
    FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
    AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge
    MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
    No. 18-1486
    RUBY RODRIGUEZ,                                   Appeal from the United States
    Plaintiff-Appellant,                           District Court for the
    Eastern District of Wisconsin.
    v.
    No. 2:16-cv-00130
    MILWAUKEE COUNTY, SONIA PORTER, and
    WISCONSIN COUNTRY MUTUAL INSURANCE
    CORPORATION,                                      Nancy Joseph,
    Defendants-Appellees.                          Magistrate Judge.
    ORDER
    Ruby Rodriguez brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Sonia
    Porter and Milwaukee County, alleging violations of her Fourth and Fourteenth
    Amendment rights. A magistrate judge, presiding by consent, see 28 U.S.C. § 636(c),
    granted summary judgment to the defendants, concluding that Rodriguez could
    not prevail on any of her claims against Porter or the county. We affirm.
    No. 18-1486                                                                  Page 2
    On the afternoon of June 25, 2015, Ruby Rodriguez arrived at the Milwaukee
    County Jail with $2,906.07 in cash and a $10,000 cashier’s check, intending to post
    bail for her son. According to the jail’s bail procedure, a warrant check is run on
    anyone posting bail. And when the bail amount is $10,000 or more, the Criminal
    Investigations Unit is contacted to determine the source of the funds.
    Jail staff ran a warrant check on Rodriguez at 3:55 p.m. The check revealed that
    Rodriguez had an outstanding Commitment Order related to a violation for
    resisting or obstructing an officer. The Order instructed law enforcement to arrest
    Rodriguez and “deliver [her] to the Inspector of the House of Corrections of
    Milwaukee County,” where the Inspector was to “receive and keep [her] in
    custody” for nine days unless her outstanding judgment of $439, together with all
    costs and fees, was “sooner paid.”
    Sonia Porter, a corrections officer working as a jail records officer that day,
    learned about the active Commitment Order and proceeded to place Rodriguez
    under arrest, even though she later admitted that she lacked “arrest powers.”
    Rodriguez claims to have asked Porter if she could simply pay the judgment and
    avoid arrest, but Porter rejected the offer. Porter handcuffed Rodriguez, patted her
    down, took her personal belongings, and moved her to a different area for booking.
    Porter’s total interaction with Rodriguez lasted about an hour and twenty minutes.
    Later that night, after she had been fingerprinted and photographed,
    Rodriguez asked to initiate the process for self-bail. But because of the jail’s
    procedures for reviewing the release of inmates, the jail was unwilling to
    immediately process her request. The jail prepares an “arrest detention report
    packet” (ADR packet) for every inmate. All information in the ADR packet,
    including verification of an inmate’s fingerprints, must be completed and
    reviewed before an inmate is released.
    At 3:00 a.m., Rodriguez’s fingerprints were confirmed, and at 4:59 a.m., an
    officer prepared and reviewed Rodriguez’s ADR packet. About ten minutes later,
    the packet was reviewed again by two supervisors, who approved Rodriguez’s
    release. The jail then processed her request for self-bail and released her at 5:43
    a.m., approximately 13 hours after the initial arrest.
    Several months later, Rodriguez filed a § 1983 action in Milwaukee County
    against Porter and Milwaukee County. The case was removed to federal court. In
    her complaint, Rodriguez claimed that Porter violated her Fourth Amendment
    right to be free from unreasonable arrests and her Fourteenth Amendment right
    to due process by (1) arresting her without state-law authority to arrest; (2)
    arresting her without first allowing her to pay the judgment, in violation of the
    No. 18-1486                                                                     Page 3
    terms of the Commitment Order; and (3) detaining her for an unreasonable period.
    Rodriguez also alleged that Milwaukee County was liable for Porter’s
    constitutional violations under Monell v. New York City Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 
    436 U.S. 658
    (1978). Porter and Milwaukee County filed a motion for summary judgment
    on all claims, and the magistrate judge granted the motion, concluding that there
    was no dispute as to any material fact and that the defendants were entitled to
    judgment as a matter of law. We agree.
    Rodriguez’s first two arguments—those relating to Porter’s arrest of her—
    both allege that the arrest violated state law. Maybe it did, at least in part. Porter
    concedes that she lacked authority to make the arrest; on the other hand,
    Rodriguez’s argument that the Commitment Order prohibited her arrest if she
    made an on-the-spot offer to pay the fine is a stretch. Regardless, it is well
    established that an otherwise reasonable arrest does not violate the Fourth
    Amendment simply because it violates state law. Virginia v. Moore, 
    553 U.S. 164
    ,
    176 (2008); see 
    id. (“[S]tate restrictions
    do not alter the Fourth Amendment’s
    protections.”). And the existence of the active Commitment Order instructing law
    enforcement to arrest Rodriguez rendered the arrest reasonable for purposes of
    the Fourth Amendment. Cf. United States v. Brewer, 
    915 F.3d 408
    , 414 (7th Cir. 2019)
    (a state-court magistrate judge issued a warrant authorizing GPS tracking of the
    defendant only within the state of Indiana, but the officers’ continued tracking
    outside of the state was not unreasonable for purposes of the Fourth Amendment);
    Doe v. Sheriff of DuPage Cty., 
    128 F.3d 586
    , 588 (7th Cir. 1997) (a bench warrant
    provided probable cause for the arrest of the plaintiff, which in turn legitimized
    her detention and booking even though she had the ability to post bail
    immediately). Her effort to remedy these alleged state-law violations through the
    Fourth Amendment is frivolous.
    Rodriguez’s argument regarding the length of her detention also fails, at least
    as far as Porter is concerned. Rodriguez attempts to attribute her entire 13-hour
    detention to Porter, but an individual “cannot be held liable in a § 1983 action
    unless [s]he caused or participated in an alleged constitutional deprivation.” Wolf-
    Lillie v. Sonquist, 
    699 F.2d 864
    , 869 (7th Cir. 1983). Rodriguez concedes that her total
    contact with Porter lasted only an hour and twenty minutes and that Porter made
    no decisions regarding her continued detention beyond that point. Thus, the
    question whether Porter violated Rodriguez’s constitutional rights must be
    assessed with respect to that shorter timeframe.
    While we have held that detentions longer than Rodriguez’s were reasonable,
    see, e.g., Chortek v. City of Milwaukee, 
    356 F.3d 740
    , 747–48 (7th Cir. 2004), even a
    shorter detention could violate the Fourth Amendment if it involves “[n]eedless
    No. 18-1486                                                                     Page 4
    delay, or delay for delay’s sake—or worse, delay deliberately created so that the
    process becomes the punishment.” Portis v. City of Chicago, 
    613 F.3d 702
    , 705 (7th
    Cir. 2010). But there are simply no facts in the record from which we could infer
    that any such unreasonable delay occurred during the hour and twenty minutes
    that Porter interacted with Rodriguez. See 
    id. (“[T]he plaintiff
    bears the burdens of
    proof and persuasion on the contention that any particular detention was
    excessive.…”). Thus, Rodriguez’s claim that Porter detained her for an
    unreasonable period goes nowhere.
    The failure of Rodriguez’s claims against Porter render her Monell claim
    against Milwaukee County a nonstarter. Without a constitutional violation, there
    is nothing for which to hold the county responsible. See City of Los Angeles v. Heller,
    
    475 U.S. 796
    , 799 (1986); Thompson v. Boggs, 
    33 F.3d 847
    , 859 (7th Cir. 1994). And
    even if Rodriguez could show that Porter or some other employee violated her
    Fourth Amendment rights by unreasonably detaining her, she can recover from
    the county only if she can establish “the existence of a policy or custom and a
    sufficient causal link between the policy or custom and the constitutional
    deprivation.” See Jones v. City of Chicago, 
    787 F.2d 200
    , 203 (7th Cir. 1986).
    Rodriguez claims that the county had a “widespread practice” of unconstitutional
    arrests and detentions, but she alleges only one such incident: her own. That is
    plainly insufficient. Palmer v. Marion Cty., 
    327 F.3d 588
    , 596 (7th Cir. 2003) (“When
    a plaintiff chooses to challenge a municipality’s unconstitutional policy by
    establishing a widespread practice, proof of isolated acts of misconduct will not
    suffice; a series of violations must be presented to lay the premise of deliberate
    indifference.”).
    Rodriguez’s claims fail at every turn. The magistrate judge’s grant of summary
    judgment to the defendants is AFFIRMED.