Gregory Christian v. K. Payne ( 2018 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 18-6315
GREGORY T. CHRISTIAN,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
K. A. PAYNE, Greenville Police Officer; ANDREW LEAGUE, Greenville Police
Officer,
Defendants - Appellees,
and
CITY OF GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA,
Defendant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at
Greenville. Timothy M. Cain, District Judge. (6:16-cv-01757-TMC)
Submitted: August 29, 2018 Decided: October 11, 2018
Before KING, DIAZ, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Gregory T. Christian, Appellant Pro Se. Ross B. Plyler, ROE, CASSIDY, COATES &
PRICE, PA, Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Gregory T. Christian brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2012) action against K.A.
Payne and Andrew League, alleging that these officers of the Greenville, South Carolina
Police Department violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they searched him after
he was accused of taking a ring at a South Carolina yard sale. The officers first
conducted a pat down search for weapons and subsequently searched Christian’s person
for the ring. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation and
granted summary judgment in favor of the officers, concluding that they were entitled to
qualified immunity for both searches. Christian timely appealed. For the reasons that
follow, we affirm.
“We review de novo a district court’s grant or denial of a motion for summary
judgment, construing all facts and reasonable inferences therefrom in favor of the
nonmoving party.” General Ins. Co. of Am. v. United States Fire Ins. Co., 886 F.3d 346,
353 (4th Cir. 2018). “A summary judgment award is appropriate only when the record
shows ‘that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled
to judgment as a matter of law.’” Core Commc’ns, Inc. v. Verizon Md. LLC, 744 F.3d
310, 320 (4th Cir. 2014) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)). “[A]n otherwise properly
supported motion for summary judgment” will not be defeated by the existence of some
factual dispute; rather, “[o]nly disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the
suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment.” Id.
at 247-48.
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Qualified immunity—an affirmative defense to liability under § 1983—“shields
government officials from liability for civil damages, provided that their conduct does not
violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights within the knowledge of a
reasonable person.” Yates v. Terry, 817 F.3d 877, 884 (4th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation
marks omitted). Applied properly, qualified immunity “protects all but the plainly
incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731,
743 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted).
“In determining whether an officer is entitled to summary judgment on the basis of
qualified immunity, courts engage in a two-pronged inquiry.” Smith v. Ray, 781 F.3d 95,
100 (4th Cir. 2015). The first prong “asks whether the facts, viewed in the light most
favorable to the plaintiff, show that the officer’s conduct violated a federal right.” Id.(citing Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001)). “The second prong of the qualified
immunity inquiry asks whether the right was clearly established at the time the violation
occurred such that a reasonable person would have known that his conduct was
unconstitutional.” Id. “To be clearly established, a right must be sufficiently clear that
every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.
In other words, existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional
question beyond debate.” Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 664 (2012) (internal
quotation marks, citations, and brackets omitted).
The two prongs of the qualified immunity test may be addressed in any sequence.
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009). Under either prong, however, courts
may not resolve genuine disputes of fact in favor of the party seeking summary judgment.
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Tolan v. Cotton, 134 S. Ct. 1861, 1866 (2014). “The purely legal question of whether the
constitutional right at issue was clearly established is always capable of decision at the
summary judgment stage, but a genuine question of material fact regarding whether the
conduct allegedly violative of the right actually occurred must be reserved for trial.”
Schultz v. Braga, 455 F.3d 470, 476 (4th Cir. 2006) (quotation marks, brackets, and
ellipses omitted).
Officer Payne stated that he conducted the pat down search for weapons out of
concern for safety.
Police may conduct a patdown search without a warrant if, under the
totality of the circumstances, the officer has an articulable, reasonable
suspicion that a person is involved in criminal activity and that he is armed
. . . . If a reasonably prudent person would believe that his safety, or the
safety of others, is endangered, he may conduct a limited search of outer
clothing to discover any weapons.
United States v. Raymond, 152 F.3d 309, 312 (4th Cir. 1998). In this case, the officers
responded to a report of a stolen ring at a yard sale by a suspect described as belligerent.
Christian admitted that, during his encounter with the police, he reached into his pocket
to retrieve his driver’s license. There is no evidence in the record that the officers asked
him for his identification or otherwise understood that Christian was reaching into his
pocket for his license. Under a totality of the circumstances, an objectively reasonable
officer in Payne’s position would have believed that Christian may have been armed and
was reaching for a weapon, and a reasonable officer would not have believed that
conducting a pat down search in this situation would violate Christian’s constitutional
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rights. We therefore conclude that the district court did not err in finding that the officers
were entitled to qualified immunity on this claim.
Turning to the second search, an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s general
prohibition against warrantless searches is voluntary consent given by an individual
possessing the authority to do so. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 181 (1990); United
States v. Lattimore, 87 F.3d 647, 650 (4th Cir. 1996) (en banc). “Consent to search is
valid if it is (1) knowing and voluntary, and (2) given by one with authority to consent.”
United States v. Buckner, 473 F.3d 551, 554 (4th Cir. 2007) (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted). “[W]hether a consent to a search was in fact voluntary or was
the product of duress or coercion, express or implied, is a question of fact to be
determined from the totality of all the circumstances.” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412
U.S. 218, 227 (1973) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Christian signed a consent form giving the officers permission to conduct the
second search. The form expressly stated that Christian gave his consent voluntarily and
without any threats or promises. Christian, who was in his fifties at the time he signed
the form, holds an aerospace engineering degree, and devoted his career to the Space
Shuttle and Space Station programs at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, does not
dispute that he understood the form he signed. However, he explains that he only signed
the form out of fear and duress. Christian began removing his jacket and shoes and
placed his hands on the patrol car without being instructed to do so after the officers
asked him if they could search him for the ring. Even accepting Christian’s statement, as
we must on summary judgment orders, that he only signed the consent form out of fear
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and duress, we conclude that reasonable officers in the position of the Defendants would
have understood Christian’s actions, namely signing the consent form and positioning
himself for a search without being instructed to do so, indicated his consent to the search.
We therefore agree with the district court that Defendants also were entitled to qualified
immunity with regard to the second search.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s order granting summary judgment in
favor of Defendants. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument
would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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