Lori Beltran v. Santa Clara County , 389 F. App'x 679 ( 2010 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FILED
JUL 26 2010
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS
LORI BELTRAN; COBY BELTRAN, by No. 09-16339
and through his Guardian Ad Litem Lori
Beltran, D.C. No. 5:03-cv-03767-RMW
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
MEMORANDUM *
v.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY; MELISSA
SUAREZ, individually and as an employee
of the County of Santa Clara; EMILY
TJHIN, individually and as an employee of
the County of Santa Clara,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Ronald M. Whyte, Senior District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted July 13, 2010
San Francisco, California
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Before: FERNANDEZ and TALLMAN, Circuit Judges, and HOGAN, Senior
District Judge.**
Appellant Lori Beltran, individually and as Guardian Ad Litem for
Appellant Coby Beltran, appeals the district court’s decision granting summary
judgment in favor of Santa Clara County social workers Emily Tjhin and Melissa
Suarez in this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. The Beltrans claim their civil rights were
violated when Tjhin and Suarez obtained a judicial warrant to take protective
custody of Coby based on a petition that the Beltrans allege contained material
misrepresentations and omissions. During the proceedings below, Tjhin and
Suarez maintained that they were entitled to qualified immunity for their actions to
secure the protective custody warrant and the district court so held. We have
jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
To prevail on summary judgment and defeat Tjhin’s and Suarez’s assertions
of qualified immunity the Beltrans must (1) make a substantial showing that the
challenged warrant petition contained misrepresentations or omissions that were
deliberate falsehoods or demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth and (2) the
misrepresentations or omissions were material because probable cause could not be
established without them. Butler v. Elle, 281 F.3d 1014, 1024 (9th Cir. 2002);
**
The Honorable Thomas F. Hogan, Senior United States District Judge
for the District of Columbia, sitting by designation.
2
Liston v. County of Riverside, 120 F.3d 965, 973 (9th Cir. 1997); Hervey v. Estes,
65 F.3d 784, 789 (9th Cir. 1995).
“We . . . review de novo the application of qualified immunity.” Hervey, 65
F.3d at 788. De novo review is applied to the ultimate determination of whether
misrepresentations or omissions in a warrant affidavit are material and thereby
negate probable cause. Greene v. Camreta, 588 F.3d 1011, 1035 (9th Cir. 2009).
Assuming the warrant affidavit was revised as the Beltrans urge, we ask whether
the revised application establishes probable cause as a matter of law. See Liston,
120 F.3d at 973–74.
The Beltrans contend on appeal that nine omitted categories of fact render
the protective-custody warrant petition misleading and nine statements constitute
misrepresentations. We do not address whether these alleged misrepresentations
and omissions constitute a “substantial showing” of deliberate falsity or reckless
disregard for the truth, however, because this case can be resolved by determining
the materiality of the alleged misrepresentations and omissions, assuming the
Beltrans could establish them to the satisfaction of a reasonable factfinder. We
agree with the district court that the statements and omissions are not material
because, after amending the warrant to omit the alleged misrepresentations and add
3
the alleged omissions, see Ewing v. City of Stockton, 588 F.3d 1218, 1224 (9th Cir.
2009), probable cause still exists.
Our conclusion is not altered by the Beltrans’ complaint that the warrant
petition relies on hearsay because we have stated before that “the Fourth
Amendment allows for a determination of probable cause based on hearsay
testimony,” Peterson v. California, 604 F.3d 1166, 1171 n.4 (9th Cir. 2010), and
government officials “may rely on hearsay and other evidence that would not be
admissible in a court to determine probable cause,” Hart v. Parks, 450 F.3d 1059,
1066 (9th Cir. 2006).
Finally, the Beltrans misunderstand the context of the “telling the total
story” language that originates in this Court’s decision in United States v. Stanert,
762 F.2d 775 (9th Cir. 1985). The Beltrans seek to expand the scope of this
language to require that a warrant affidavit include any information a plaintiff
deems favorable to his or her cause. In the Stanert decision, however, we were
referring to nothing more than the simple fact that an affidavit can deceive a judge
not only by containing express misrepresentations but also by omitting information
that renders an otherwise truthful statement to be false or misleading, in which case
the omitted information has prevented the “total story” from being “told.” 762
F.2d at 781. We previously have stated that “the omission rule does not require an
4
affiant to provide general information about every possible theory, no matter how
unlikely, that would controvert the affiant’s good-faith belief that probable cause
existed . . . .” United States v. Craighead, 539 F.3d 1073, 1081 (9th Cir. 2008);
accord United States v. Johns, 948 F.2d 599, 606 (9th Cir.1991).
AFFIRMED.
5