Mullinax v. McKeithen Ex Rel. Bay County

Case: 13-13631 Date Filed: 06/30/2014 Page: 1 of 6
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 13-13631
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 5:12-cv-00341-RS-CJK
RICHARD LEE MULLINAX,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
FRANK MCKEITHEN,
Individually and in his official capacity
as sheriff of Bay County, Florida,
DOUGLAS SMITH,
Individually,
Defendants – Appellants.
___________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
____________________________
(June 30, 2014)
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Before WILSON and JORDAN, Circuit Judges, and ROTHSTEIN, * District
Judge.
PER CURIAM:
Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen and Bay County Deputy Sheriff
Douglas Smith appeal the district court’s summary judgment order denying them
qualified immunity for their alleged violation of Richard Mullinax’s Fourth
Amendment rights. Having carefully reviewed the parties’ briefs, and with the
benefit of oral argument, we affirm.
I
We write only for the parties, and presume their knowledge of the
underlying record. We therefore summarize only what is necessary to explain our
decision.
The pertinent facts, viewed in the light most favorable to Mr. Mullinax, are
as follows.
Mr. Mullinax pled no contest to violating the terms of his probation,
imposed for a prior state conviction. As part of a plea agreement with the state, he
negotiated a 60-day furlough before he would start to serve an 18-month sentence
for the violation. The state trial judge accepted Mr. Mullinax’s plea and, pursuant
to the agreement, continued sentencing for 60 days.
*
Honorable Barbara J. Rothstein, United States District Judge for the Western District of
Washington, sitting by designation.
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Two days after the plea hearing, Sheriff McKeithen contacted the trial judge
in order to rescind Mr. Mullinax’s furlough. The judge, however, referred Sheriff
McKeithen to the attorneys of record in the case, including Assistant State
Attorney Megan Ford. Sheriff McKeithen testified that either he or another
member of the Bay County Sheriff’s Office then contacted Ms. Ford to pursue a
revocation of Mr. Mullinax’s furlough. See D.E. 57-9 at 10.
At around that same time, Deputy Smith was ordered by a supervisor to find
and retrieve Mr. Mullinax. See D.E. 64-3 at 14. Deputy Smith found Mr.
Mullinax and ordered him into an unmarked police vehicle. Although Mr.
Mullinax was allowed to sit in the front passenger seat, with his hands unrestrained
by handcuffs, he nonetheless believed that he was under arrest. See D.E. 64-1 at ¶
22. According to Mr. Mullinax, he had previously been arrested under similar
conditions. See id. Deputy Smith then drove Mr. Mullinax to the Bay County
Sheriff’s Office and locked him in a holding room. See id. 64-1 at ¶ 26. There Mr.
Mullinax, believing he was not free to leave, remained locked up for roughly three
hours in violation of the trial judge’s furlough order and without probable cause
that he had committed another offense. See id.
During the period in which Mr. Mullinax was in custody, Ms. Ford filed an
emergency motion to revoke Mr. Mullinax’s furlough. Once the motion was
granted, Mr. Mullinax was transferred from the holding room to the Bay County
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Jail and was later sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for his probation
violation. See D.E. 75 at 6.
Mr. Mullinax brought suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Sheriff
McKeithen, individually and in his official capacity, and Deputy Smith,
individually, for violating his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable
arrest and detention. 1 The district court denied the defendants’ motion for
summary judgment with respect to the Fourth Amendment claims. The defendants
now appeal, arguing that they are entitled to qualified immunity.
II
We conduct plenary review of the district court’s summary judgment order,
viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Mr. Mullinax. See Gennusa v.
Canova, 748 F.3d 1103, 1108 (11th Cir. 2014). Summary judgment is appropriate
if there are no genuine issues of material fact and a party is entitled to judgment as
a matter of law. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); Bradley v. Franklin Collection Serv.,
Inc., 739 F.3d 606, 608 (11th Cir. 2014). “The doctrine of qualified immunity
protects government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their
conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of
which a reasonable person would have known.” Morris v. Town of Lexington,
1
Mr. Mullinax’s complaint also included a § 1983 claim of deliberate indifference to a
serious medical need, as well as state law claims for negligence and false arrest. Those claims
are not at issue in this appeal.
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Alabama, 748 F.3d 1316, 1321 (11th Cir. 2014) (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted).
Substantially for the reasons set forth in the district court’s order, we affirm
the denial of summary judgment. First, although the defendants argued in the
district court that qualified immunity was appropriate on Mr. Mullinax’s Fourth
Amendment claim because (1) no clearly established Fourth Amendment rights
were violated, and (2) there was probable cause or arguable probable cause for Mr.
Mullinax’s arrest and detention, they have abandoned those arguments on appeal
by not raising them in their brief. See, e.g., Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines
Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir. 2004); Allstate Ins. Co. v. Swann, 27 F.3d
1539, 1542 (11th Cir. 1994). Second, contrary to the defendants’ assertion, the
evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Mr. Mullinax, permits a reasonable
jury to conclude that Sheriff McKeithen was personally involved in, ordered, or
ratified Mr. Mullinax’s arrest and detention.
The defendants contend that they are entitled to qualified immunity because
Mr. Mullinax’s claim should have been analyzed under the Due Process Clause,
and not the Fourth Amendment, and there was no violation of Mr. Mullinax’s
clearly established rights under the Due Process Clause. We decline to address
these arguments because they were never raised below. See, e.g., Access Now,
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Inc., 385 F.3d at 1331. The defendants made only Fourth Amendment arguments
in the district court. See D.E. 57 at 9-14, 18-21. 2
III
The district court’s summary judgment order is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
2
The defendants claim that their Due Process Clause arguments were properly raised in
their notice of supplemental authority, see D.E. 70, but we disagree. A review of that notice does
not suggest that the defendants meant to introduce a new legal theory in support of qualified
immunity, let alone abandon their Fourth Amendment arguments.
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