Whitewater v. Goss ( 2006 )

F IL E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
U N IT E D ST A T E S C O U R T O F A PP E A L S
August 23, 2006
T E N T H C IR C U IT
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
R OBER T WH ITEWA T ER ; JU DY
JOHNSO N, as next friend and parent
of B ryan Johnson, a minor; B OADY
JOHNSO N; CARRIE BAKER, as
parent and next friend of Boady Baker,
a minor child,
Plaintiffs - Appellants, No. 05-7081
v. E. D. Oklahoma
DELENA GOSS, in her official (D.C. No. 04-CV -2-P)
capacity,
Defendant - Appellee.
O R D E R A N D JU D G M E N T *
Before L U C E R O , PO R FILIO , and H A R T Z, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs Robert W hitewater, Judy Johnson, Bryan Johnson, Boady
Johnson, Carrie Baker, and Boady Baker filed suit in the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging
violations of their constitutional rights arising out of the search of their home by
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
the Special W eapons and Tactics (SW AT) Team of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s
Department. The defendants w ere Sheriff Delena Goss, the Cherokee County
Board of C ommissioners, and several officers and employees of the Sheriff’s
Department. Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed all their claims except claims
against Sheriff Goss in her official capacity. The district court granted summary
judgment on those claims. Plaintiffs appealed. W e have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
On April 24, 2002, the SW AT team executed a search warrant for
Plaintiffs’ house. Sheriff Goss made the decision to use the SW AT team but did
not participate in the initial entry. The six Plaintiffs were in the house when the
SW AT team entered. They entered with guns drawn, secured the premises, and
escorted Plaintiffs outside w hile they searched the house. According to Plaintiffs,
12-year-old Bryan Johnson was held at gunpoint for at least 15 minutes during the
intrusion. After the search Robert W hitewater, Judy Johnson, and Boady Johnson
were arrested.
Plaintiffs contend that two of their claims should have survived summary
judgment: (1) the Fourth Amendment was violated by Sheriff Goss’s decision to
employ the SW AT team w ithout first undertaking a reasonableness analysis, and
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(2) the Fourth Amendment was violated when Bryan Johnson was held at
gunpoint for 15 minutes.
II. D ISC U SSIO N
“W e review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo,
applying the same legal standard that should have been used by the district court.”
Rivera v. City & County of Denver, 365 F.3d 912, 920 (10th Cir. 2004) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the pleadings,
depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the
affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and
that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(c).
Plaintiffs’ suit against Sheriff Goss in her official capacity is equivalent to
a suit against Cherokee County (the County) itself. See Kentucky v. Graham, 473
U.S. 159, 166 (1985) (“[A]n official-capacity suit is, in all respects other than
name, to be treated as a suit against the entity.”). Therefore, we will henceforth
refer to the claim against the Sheriff as a claim against the County. Liability can
be imposed on the County only if (1) a constitutional violation occurred, see City
of Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 799 (1986) (per curiam), and (2) the
violation was caused by a government policy or custom, see Monell v. Dep’t of
Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978). A government policy or custom may be
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manifested either in the acts of “its law makers or by those whose edicts or acts
may fairly be said to represent official policy.” Id. at 694. It is not disputed that
the decisions of Sheriff Goss represent official policy. Cf. Bd. of County
Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 405 (1997) (sheriff’s hiring decisions were
official policy).
Plaintiffs contend that liability here can be based on a County policy
regarding the use of firearms in executing a search and on the failure to train and
supervise the SW AT team. The Supreme Court in City of Canton v. Harris, 489
U.S. 378, 388-89 (1989), imposed strict limitations on when a municipality can be
liable under § 1983 for lapses in training:
W e hold today that the inadequacy of police training may serve as the
basis for § 1983 liability only where the failure to train amounts to
deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the police
come into contact. This rule is most consistent with our admonition .
. . that a municipality can be liable under § 1983 only where its
policies are the moving force behind the constitutional violation.
Only where a municipality’s failure to train its employees in a
relevant respect evidences a deliberate indifference to the rights of
its inhabitants can such a shortcoming be properly thought of as a
city policy or custom that is actionable under § 1983. . . . Only
where a failure to train reflects a deliberate or conscious choice by a
municipality— a policy as defined by our prior cases— can a city be
liable for such a failure under § 1983.
(internal citations, quotation marks, and brackets omitted). W e treat allegations
of failure to supervise (which often may be indistinguishable from failure to train)
the same way. See Medina v. City & County of Denver, 960 F.2d 1493, 1500
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(10th Cir. 1992); Schepp v. Fremont County, 900 F.2d 1448, 1454 (10th Cir.
1990); M eade v. Grubbs, 841 F.2d 1512, 1527-28 (10th Cir. 1988).
W e hold that Plaintiffs’ SWAT-team claim fails because use of the SW AT
team did not in itself violate Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. As for the claim that
Bryan Johnson was improperly held at gunpoint, we need not decide whether this
was a constitutional violation, because any violation was not caused by a County
policy or custom.
1. U se of SW A T T eam
The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. The Fourth Amendment requires examination
of not only whether a particular search or seizure was justified, but also whether
it w as conducted in a reasonable manner. See Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1,
7-8 (1985). In Holland v. Harrington, 268 F.3d 1179 (10th Cir. 2001), we said
that “Fourth A mendment scrutiny extends . . . to the decision to employ a SWA T
team to make an arrest . . . and to conduct a search of a residence,” id. at 1189,
but that such a decision was not unreasonable unless the decisionmakers knew
“that the SW AT team w ould use excessive force, intending to cause harm to any
person, or . . . instructed the SW AT team to use excessive force while conducting
the . . . raid,” id. at 1191.
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Plaintiffs contend that Sheriff Goss unreasonably decided to use the SW A T
team under a blanket policy to employ the team for all searches in narcotics cases.
But they have not presented any evidence that Sheriff Goss knew the team would
use excessive force, intended to cause harm, or instructed the team to use
excessive force. Without such evidence the mere decision to deploy a SW AT
team, even under a blanket rule, does not offend the Fourth Amendment. Cf.
Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 395 (1997) (rejecting a blanket exception to
the knock-and-announce rule in felony drug investigations, but concluding that
the particular no-knock entry at issue w as justified under the Fourth Amendment);
Heller, 475 U.S. at 799 (“If a person has suffered no constitutional injury at the
hands of the individual police officer, the fact that the departmental regulations
might have authorized the use of constitutionally excessive force is quite beside
the point.”).
2. H olding M inor at G unpoint
Plaintiffs claim that the execution of the search was unreasonable under the
Fourth Amendment because a member of the SW AT team held Bryan Johnson, a
minor, at gunpoint for at least 15 minutes. But even if this action occurred and
was unreasonable, Plaintiffs have not shown that the County bears liability.
First, Plaintiffs claim that the County is liable because of a departmental
policy requiring SW AT-team members to secure at gunpoint all occupants,
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including juveniles, until the residence has been secured. They conceded at oral
argument that this policy by itself is not unconstitutional, but asserted that the
policy caused the violation because Bryan Johnson was held at gunpoint for an
unreasonable length of time. W e disagree. A commonsense interpretation of this
policy would not authorize an officer to hold a 12-year-old at gunpoint for 15
minutes without reasonable grounds to do so. Plaintiffs have not shown a “direct
causal link” between the policy and the alleged constitutional deprivation.
Brown, 520 U.S. at 404.
Next, Plaintiffs claim that the County can be held liable for failure to train
and supervise the SW AT-team members. Plaintiffs assert that Sheriff Goss did
not adequately train the SW AT-team members in SW AT tactics and procedures;
was not personally involved in drug investigations; did not require the deputies to
inform her of the progress of their investigations; did not establish a system for
her deputies to exchange information; allowed her main drug investigator to keep
“track of his investigations from memory” alone, Aplt. Br. at 38; did not review
the W hitewater search warrant; did not keep track of the SW AT team’s activities;
and did not require the deputies to document their activities during the execution
of a warrant.
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These claims fail because Plaintiffs have not shown that Sheriff Goss acted
with the requisite deliberate indifference— a necessary element to a failure-to-
train or failure-to-supervise claim. As we recently stated:
The deliberate indifference standard may be satisfied when the
municipality has actual or constructive notice that its action or failure
to act is substantially certain to result in a constitutional violation,
and it consciously or deliberately chooses to disregard the risk of
harm. In most instances, notice can be established by proving the
existence of a pattern of tortious conduct. In a narrow range of
circumstances, however, deliberate indifference may be found absent
a pattern of unconstitutional behavior if a violation of federal rights
is a highly predictable or plainly obvious consequence of a
municipality’s action or inaction, such as w hen a municipality fails to
train an employee in specific skills needed to handle recurring
situations, thus presenting an obvious potential for constitutional
violations.
Carr v. Castle, 337 F.3d 1221, 1229 (10th Cir. 2003). It was undisputed that “the
people who were involved in the search were fully trained by the Council on Law
Enforcement Education and Training (‘CLEET’) and that they had all undergone
further continual training on various issues including SW AT training.” Aplee.
App. at 458 (Order of June 15, 2005 at 11). The district court found no evidence
of deliberate indifference on the part of the County in failing to train the team
members. Plaintiffs have pointed to no evidence that Sheriff Goss was put on
notice by information that the SW AT team had employed excessive force against
children on prior occasions or that such abuse is to be expected absent some
training not given to SW AT-team members. Plaintiffs’ bald allegations of
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training failures contrast with the evidence presented in Allen v. M uskogee, 119
F.3d 837 (10th Cir. 1997), in which we reversed a grant of summary judgment on
such a claim. In Allen the plaintiffs had presented expert testimony that “the
training was out of synch with the entire U nited States in terms of w hat police are
being trained to do.” Id. at 843 (internal quotation marks omitted). The evidence
here establishes only that the SW AT-team members were trained, and no evidence
was presented that the training was deficient under prevailing norms. Nor are the
supervisory failures referenced by Plaintiffs such that their “highly predictable or
plainly obvious consequence” would be holding a 12-year-old at gunpoint
without justification. Carr, 337 F.3d at 1229.
III. C O N C L U SIO N
W e AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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05-7081, W hitewater v. Goss
L U C E R O , J., dissenting.
M y respected colleagues use a seemingly straightforward order and
judgment in resolving this case, yet, because the M ajority’s judgment fails to
adhere to the established precedent of this circuit, I must respectfully dissent.
As daylight broke on April 24, 2002, thirteen members of the Cherokee
County Sheriff’s D epartment SW AT team – guns drawn and dressed in full
camouflage – stormed the residence of sixty-one-year old Robert W hitewater.
During the raid, all occupants of the home, including a twelve-year old child,
were secured at gunpoint and led outside. Although most of the M ajority’s
reasoning is sound, I cannot agree with its conclusion that Sheriff Goss’s decision
to deploy a SW AT team to conduct a search of the W hitewater residence was
reasonable, and therefore dissent as to that part of the opinion.
M y colleagues recognize that in Holland v. Harrington, 268 F.3d 1179(10th Cir. 2001), we held that the Fourth Amendment applies to the decision to
deploy a SW AT team. However, if precedential, the M ajority would reduce
Holland’s holding to the proposition that “unless the decisionmakers knew ‘that
the SW AT team w ould use excessive force, intending to cause harm to any
person, or . . . instructed the SW AT team to use excessive force while conducting
the . . . raid” such a decision is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. M aj.
Op. at 5 (citing Holland v. Harrington, 268 F.3d at 1189).
Such a reading of Holland impermissibly clashes with the clear text of the
decision. In Holland, we stated that use of a SW AT team to execute a search or
seizure “necessarily involves . . . an overwhelming show of force – force far
greater than that normally applied in police encounters with citizens.” Id. at
1190. Accordingly, the Holland panel had no difficulty in concluding that the
initial decision to deploy a SW AT team must be reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment. Id. It adopted the balancing test established by the Supreme Court
in Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985), to judge the reasonableness of the
decision, “balancing the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s
Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests
alleged to justify the intrusion.” Id. (citing Garner, 471 U.S. at 8). Under that
test, the Holland court concluded that the decision to deploy the SW AT team w as
reasonable because: (1) the officers knew that the individual that owned the
property had a violent criminal history; (2) firearms were suspected to be located
at the property; (3) the officers knew that other residents of the property had a
history of violence; (4) although unaw are of exactly how many residents were
located at the property, the officers suspected at least 7-8 adults resided there; and
(5) the use of a SW AT team w as based on the officers’ goal to effectuate a quick
and safe execution of the search warrant and prevent the destruction of evidence.
Id. at 1191.
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Having analyzed whether the initial decision to deploy a SW AT team w as
reasonable, the Holland panel turned to the plaintiffs’ alternative theory that the
decision to deploy the SW AT team w as unreasonable because SW AT team
members actually used excessive force while executing the search. Id. Our
previous decision in Holland specifically noted that this second theory presented
“another matter.” Id. Our circuit then held that defendants as supervisors can not
be held liable for the actions of their deputies based on their decision to deploy
the SW AT team because they did not know “that the SW AT team would use
excessive force, intending to cause harm to any person, or . . . instructed the
SW AT team to use excessive force while conducting the . . . raid.” Id. at 1191.
Under Holland’s balancing test, Sheriff Goss’s decision to deploy the
SW AT team to execute the search of W hitew ater’s residence was plainly
unreasonable. There is no evidence that W hitewater – whose only prior brushes
with the law consisted of public drunkeness convictions – presented any risk of
violence. Nor did Sheriff Goss have any reason to believe that the property itself
or its other occupants posed any threat to officer safety. The only identified basis
for the use of the SW AT team w as the potential presence of marijuana at the
W hitewater residence.
Sheriff Goss, who made the final decision, testified in her deposition that
she could not think of any situation involving drugs of any kind where she would
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not use the SW AT team to execute the warrant. 1 Yet, the likelihood that narcotics
are present at a location does not by itself create a significant risk of violence to
justify the decision to deploy a SW AT team under Holland. See also Richards v.
W isconsin, 520 U.S. 385 (1997) (rejecting a categorical exception to the knock-
and-announce requirement for searches involving narcotics because “not every
drug investigation” will “pose special risks to officer safety and the preservation
of evidence”); United States v. Basham, 268 F.3d 1199, 1205-1206 (10th Cir.
2001) (rejecting the argument that “because a person is involved in the drug trade,
that person is likely to be dangerous or possess firearms”); United States v.
M yers, 106 F.3d 936, 940 (10th Cir. 1997) (rejecting the routine use of flash-bang
devices when executing search warrants, but finding a particular use of a flash-
bang device was justified because the suspect had a lengthy history of criminal
activity, including a conviction for fire-bombing).
Through the present order and judgment, the M ajority’s purported
lim itation of H olland’s proscription, that disallows the blanket use of SW AT
teams to execute search and arrest warrants would scuttle Holland. Allowance of
1
Because this case was brought against the Sheriff in her official capacity,
the plaintiffs must also prove that the constitutional violation was caused by
governm ent policy or custom. Unquestionably, the decision to deploy the SWA T
team to execute the search of the W hitewater residence was the result of a policy
of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department. Bryan Swim, the SW AT team
leader, testified during his deposition that “it was determined that the SW AT team
would be used just pretty much on every search warrant that was executed.”
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the use of SW AT teams in virtually every case involving any quantity of drugs
whatsoever is unacceptable under the clearly established precedent of our court
and of the Supreme Court. See In re Smith, 10 F.3d 723, 724 (10th Cir. 1993)
(“W e are bound by the precedent of prior panels absent en banc reconsideration or
a superseding contrary decision by the Supreme Court.”). I would reverse the
district court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of the County.
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