Judith Alcocer v. Ashley Mills

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[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 17-14804
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 6:15-cv-00094-JRH-GRS
JUDITH ALCOCER 1,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
ASHLEY MILLS,
JOHN STATEN,
Defendants- Appellants.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Georgia
________________________
(October 9, 2018)
Before JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, and DUBINA, Circuit Judges.
ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:
1
After filing this lawsuit, Plaintiff-Appellee Judith Alcocer changed her name to Judith
Hinojosa-Diaz. For purposes of clarity, we continue to refer to Plaintiff-Appellee in this opinion
as Alcocer.
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Much has been said about the art of diagnosis. For example, Mahatma
Gandhi 2 opined, “A correct diagnosis is three-fourths the remedy.” Prashant
Gupta, Wisdom of Gandhi 53 (2008).
After all, a misdiagnosis can prevent a solution from ever being found.
Take, for instance, the case of President James A. Garfield. After an assassin
wounded President Garfield, the President’s physician became convinced that the
bullet was lodged near the liver, and he performed several unsuccessful operations
to remove it. CBS News, How Doctors Killed President Garfield, July 5, 2012,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-doctors-killed-president-garfield/ (last visited
Oct. 9, 2018). But, in fact, the bullet was on the other side of President Garfield’s
body. Id. And the unsuccessful operations—not the bullet—caused infection and
ultimately felled President Garfield. Id.
Not surprisingly, diagnosing the problem correctly is also crucial to
resolving 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims of constitutional-rights violations: the first step
in any § 1983 analysis requires identification of the precise right that is alleged to
2
Among many things for which he is remembered, Mahatma Gandhi, who formally
studied the law, advocated for the civil rights of Indians and was the leader of India’s non-violent
movement for independence from British rule. https://www.biography.com/people/mahatma-
gandhi-9305898 (last visited Oct. 9, 2018). His ways inspired many others, including Martin
Luther King, Jr., see https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/gandhi-mohandas-k (last
visited Oct. 9, 2018), Nelson Mandela, see https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-
and-nation/nelson-mandela-the-gandhi-of-south-africa-had-strong-indian-
connections/articleshow/26969042.cms (last visited Oct. 9, 2018), and Albert Einstein, see
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/albert_einstein_expresses_his_admiration_for_mahatma_g
andhi.html (last visited Oct. 9, 2018).
2
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have been violated. Different rights prescribe different legal analyses, so
accurately diagnosing the right at issue is critical to properly analyzing a § 1983
plaintiff’s claims. And correctly diagnosing the precise right involved, in turn,
demands careful consideration of the alleged facts.
Here, Plaintiff-Appellee Judith Alcocer was arrested and detained for the
misdemeanor offense of driving with a suspended license. After Alcocer satisfied
the bond requirements, the Bulloch County jail continued to detain her because jail
officers became suspicious that she might be present illegally in the United States.
She wasn’t. But that was not resolved to the jail’s satisfaction until after Alcocer
had already spent the night there.
Alcocer sued Defendants-Appellants Ashley Mills and John Staten,3
employees of the Bulloch County jail, for violating her constitutional rights.
Defendants moved for summary judgment, invoking qualified immunity, and the
district court denied the motion.
On appeal, we must consider whether the district court correctly identified
the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures as the right
allegedly violated, or whether instead, as Defendants assert, the facts here concern
the alleged violation of Alcocer’s Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from
continued detention after law enforcement should have known that she was entitled
3
Alcocer also sued others, but the district court granted summary judgment in their favor.
Because Alcocer did not appeal those rulings, we do not discuss these other defendants here.
3
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to release. The right involved makes a significant difference. If the facts implicate
Alcocer’s Fourth Amendment right, to receive qualified immunity, Defendants
must have had probable cause, or at least arguable probable cause, to believe
Alcocer was illegally in the United States. If, on the other hand, the Fourteenth
Amendment governs the fact pattern here, Alcocer must show that Defendants
were deliberately indifferent to her right to be released. We conclude the district
court did not err in determining that the Fourth Amendment governs the analysis
here.
But while the district court accurately identified the precise right involved, it
did not conduct an individualized analysis of each Defendant’s actions and
omissions and whether they were causally related to the alleged violation of
Alcocer’s Fourth Amendment rights. So we must reverse the denial of summary
judgment. We remand to the district court to, in the first instance, conduct an
individualized analysis of each Defendant’s actions and omissions to determine
whether either or both Defendants can be held liable for the deprivation Alcocer
experienced.
I. 4
4
Since we are reviewing an order on a motion for summary judgment, we must consider
the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party—in this case, Plaintiff-Appellee
Judith Alcocer—and resolve all material disputes of fact in her favor. Stephens v. DeGiovanni,
852 F.3d 1298, 1315 (11th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). We recognize, however, that “the facts,
as accepted at the summary judgment stage of the proceedings, may not be the actual facts of the
4
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At around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 30, 2014, Bulloch County
Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Alcocer for the misdemeanor offense of driving
with a suspended license. After arresting Alcocer, deputies took her to the Bulloch
County jail, where they transferred her to the custody of the jail staff.
At the jail, at roughly 3:30 p.m., Mills, then a jailer with the Bulloch County
Sheriff’s Office, booked Alcocer. As part of the process, Mills asked Alcocer for,
among other information, her address and her Social Security number, to input into
the Sheriff’s Office’s computer system. She also noted in the system Alcocer’s
Georgia driver’s license number.
When Mills finished reporting Alcocer’s demographic information, Alcocer
was fingerprinted. According to Alcocer, the same woman who booked her—
Mills—also took her fingerprints. 5
At some point in this process, Alcocer’s information was run through
computerized databases, including those of the National Crime Information Center
(“NCIC”), the Georgia Crime Information Center (“GCIC”), and the Automated
Fingerprint Identification System (“AFIS”). Mills testified that it was the
fingerprinting jailer’s responsibility to perform this task.
case.” Priester v. City of Riviera Beach, 208 F.3d 919, 925 n.3 (11th Cir. 2000) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
5
Mills denied having fingerprinted Alcocer, though she did state that she has
fingerprinted others in the past.
5
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After the Sheriff’s Office submitted Alcocer’s information to the databases,
it received a fax from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) office
located in Savannah. The fax stated with respect to Alcocer, “[ICE] RECORDS
INDICATE THAT THIS SUBJECT IS NOT LEGALLY IN THE UNITED
STATES AND APPEARS TO BE SUBJECT TO REMOVAL PROCEEDINGS.”
But significantly, the document cautioned, “THIS IS NOT A GOVERNMENT
DETAINER! THE INFORMATION IS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT USE AND
IS BEING PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. THIS
RESPONSE IS NOT SUPPORTED BY FINGERPRINTS.”
Apparently based on this fax, after Alcocer was processed into the jail, and
before Mills finished her shift at 7:00 p.m. that night, Mills’s supervisor, Sergeant
Kirkland, directed Mills to add a note to Alcocer’s information contained in the
Sheriff’s Office’s computer system: “CONTACT ICE IN ATLANTA GA FOR
PICK UP BEFORE RELEASING.”
While these events were occurring, Alcocer’s sister, Susana Hinojosa, was
hard at work trying to get Alcocer released from the jail. Alcocer had called to
advise Hinojosa that she had been arrested. So Hinojosa went to the jail to see
about getting Alcocer out.
At some point in the afternoon of January 30, the Sheriff’s Office staff
informed Hinojosa that Alcocer had to satisfy a $2,000 bail requirement to obtain
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release. So Hinojosa went across the street to a bail bondsman and arranged for
bail for Alcocer. Then Hinojosa returned to the jail to wait for Alcocer’s release.
Sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office staff informed
Hinojosa that it would not release Alcocer, despite Hinojosa’s payment of the bail,
because ICE had a hold on Alcocer. When Hinojosa asked the reason for the ICE
hold, the Sheriff’s Office staff said that Alcocer was “illegal or they’re trying to
deport her or something showed up on her record.”
Hinojosa responded that Alcocer was “not illegal[;] she’s a U.S. citizen, . . .
born in South Carolina.” And Hinojosa asked what she needed to bring to the jail
to prove that fact. The Sheriff’s Office staff ignored her. So she left to gather
paperwork to show that Alcocer was a United States citizen.
Sometime the next day (Friday, January 31, 2014), Sheriff’s Office staff
added notes to the information on Alcocer previously entered into its system. The
first note stated, “PER CAPTAIN STATEN, IF I.C.E. DOES NOT SEND A
HOLD ON [Alcocer] BY [Monday,] 02/03/2014, SUBJECT CAN POST BOND.
BOND IS IN FILE.” The second, entered by a different staff member, repeated the
same sentiment: “PER CAPTAIN STATEN IF WE DO NOT HEAR ANYTHING
FROM ICE BY MONDAY, THEN [Alcocer] CAN POST BOND ON
MONDAY.” Captain John Staten, referenced in these notes, was the highest
ranking officer at the jail.
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Meanwhile, Hinojosa had begun calling the jail at 8:00 a.m. on January 31 to
find out whether ICE had released its purported hold on Alcocer. The Sheriff’s
Office staff said it had not. Hinojosa responded that the Sheriff’s Office was
“holding [Alcocer] for no reason” and asked the Sheriff’s Office for a number for
ICE so she could resolve the problem herself. The staff member insisted the
Sheriff’s Office did not have a number for ICE.
So every fifteen minutes, Hinojosa called the Sheriff’s Office to ask whether
ICE had gotten back to the Office, all to no avail. Finally, at 11:00 a.m., a different
person at the Sheriff’s Office answered the phone. Once again, Hinojosa asked
whether Alcocer had been cleared to leave the jail. When the staff member said
she had not, Hinojosa asked whether he could call ICE to find out what the
problem was. Though the staff member declined to do so, he gave Hinojosa a
number for ICE in Savannah and suggested that she call the agency instead.
That’s exactly what Hinojosa then did. Eventually, Hinojosa was able to
speak with ICE employee Robert T. Franks. Hinojosa explained that the Bulloch
County Sheriff’s Office was refusing to release her sister because of an alleged
ICE hold, and that a mistake must have occurred because her sister was a United
States citizen. Franks responded that he would call the Sheriff’s Office and have
the order on which they were basing the hold faxed to him, and then he would send
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the Sheriff’s Office an order releasing Alcocer. He also instructed Hinojosa to take
to the jail all of her paperwork showing that Alcocer was a United States citizen.
Based on Franks’s advice, sometime between noon and 1:00 p.m., on
January 31, Hinojosa returned to the jail with Alcocer’s documentation. That
consisted of Alcocer’s birth certificate, her Social Security card, her medical
records, and her papers from the school board. But the Sheriff’s Office staff
refused to look at it, instead insisting that ICE had a hold on Alcocer.
Later that day, Franks called Hinojosa to let her know that the Sheriff’s
Office could not find the paperwork putting Alcocer on an ICE hold. He also told
Hinojosa that he would fax the Sheriff’s Office an order to release Alcocer.
Sure enough, Franks faxed the Sheriff’s Office a document entitled,
“IMMIGRATION DETAINER-NOTICE OF ACTION.” The notice reflected that
Alcocer was a United States citizen and instructed, “Cancel the detainer previously
placed by this Office on 1-31-2014.” About ten or fifteen minutes after Franks’s
call to Hinojosa, at 5:44 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office released Alcocer. All told,
Alcocer was detained for a total of roughly 26 hours.
Based on these events, Alcocer filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against
Mills and Staten. She alleged, as relevant here, that they violated her Fourth
Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure when they would not
release her after her bond was arranged. She further claimed that Staten was
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subject to supervisory liability for the allegedly unconstitutional actions of his
subordinates.
Mills and Staten moved for summary judgment, denying that they had
violated Alcocer’s Fourth Amendment rights and asserting qualified immunity.
Staten also argued for summary judgment on the basis that he was not subject to
supervisory liability. The district court denied Mills and Staten’s motion.6 They
now appeal.
II.
We review de novo the district court’s order denying summary judgment and
concluding Mills and Staten are not entitled to qualified immunity. Lee v. Ferraro,
284 F.3d 1188, 1190 (11th Cir. 2002). In doing so, we resolve all issues of
material fact in favor of the plaintiff, viewing the alleged facts in the light most
favorable to the plaintiff. Id. Then we determine whether, based on this version of
the facts, Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity. Id.
III.
Qualified immunity protects government employees from suit in their
individual capacities for discretionary actions in which they engage in the course
of their duties. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009); Harlow v.
6
The district court did grant Mills and Staten’s motion for summary judgment to the
extent that it sought summary judgment on other claims Alcocer had raised against them.
Because Alcocer does not appeal that aspect of the order, we do not discuss those claims here.
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Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). It allows “government officials to carry out
their discretionary duties without the fear of personal liability or harassing
litigation.” Durruthy v. Pastor, 351 F.3d 1080, 1087 (11th Cir. 2003) (citation
omitted). Under qualified immunity, “all but the plainly incompetent or one who is
knowingly violating the federal law” are shielded from litigation. Ferraro, 284
F.3d at 1194 (citation omitted). Yet qualified immunity “does not offer protection
if an official knew or reasonably should have known that the action he took within
his sphere of official responsibility would violate the constitutional rights of the
[plaintiff].” Holmes v. Kucynda, 321 F.3d 1069, 1077 (11th Cir. 2003) (quoting
Harlow, 457 U.S. at 815 (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration provided by
Holmes)).
An official who asserts entitlement to qualified immunity must first establish
that she or he was acting within the scope of his discretionary authority. Once the
official makes that showing, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to demonstrate that
qualified immunity is inappropriate. Ferraro, 284 F.3d at 1194. Overcoming the
official’s qualified-immunity defense requires a plaintiff to establish both that the
officer’s conduct violated a constitutionally protected right and that the right was
clearly established at the time of the misconduct. Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232; Grider
v. City of Auburn, 618 F.3d 1240, 1254 (11th Cir. 2010). We may consider in any
order whether the plaintiff has satisfied her burden. Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236.
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Because § 1983 “requires proof of an affirmative causal connection between
the official’s acts or omissions and the alleged constitutional deprivation,” Zatler v.
Wainwright, 802 F.2d 397, 401 (11th Cir. 1986) (per curiam) (citation omitted),
each defendant is entitled to an independent qualified-immunity analysis as it
relates to his or her actions and omissions. So we must be careful to evaluate a
given defendant’s qualified-immunity claim, considering only the actions and
omissions in which that particular defendant engaged.
That did not sufficiently occur here. Though the district court denied Mills
qualified immunity, it did not individually analyze her alleged actions before doing
so. Rather, it explained its denial of qualified immunity as follows:
Defendants detained [Alcocer], a United States citizen,
for 25 hours based upon a fax from I.C.E. stating,
without any supporting evidence, that [Alcocer] appeared
to be subject to removal. Furthermore, they detained her
in spite of the fact that she had in her possession a valid
Georgia driver’s license—a form of identification which
is not knowingly given to persons unlawfully present in
the United States—and in spite of the fact that her sister
procured and proffered a copy of her birth certificate,
social security card, and school records. No reasonable
officer in the same circumstances could have believed
probable cause existed to detain [Alcocer] for being in
the country illegally.
This description of events does not parse the actions Mill undertook and omitted,
on the one hand, and the actions others engaged in without Mills’s knowledge or
participation. For example, it states that Alcocer was detained based on the ICE
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fax that expressly stated it was not a detainer. But the analysis does not consider
whether Mills, in fact, saw the ICE fax, whether she nonetheless had a
responsibility to actually review the ICE fax, or whether she had no such duty and
was misinformed of the fax’s contents by another. The analysis also mentions that
Hinojosa provided Alcocer’s birth certificate, Social Security card, and school
records. But that happened on January 31. And Mills was not at work that day,
since her shift ended at 7:00 p.m. on January 30. So those particular events cannot
be considered in determining whether Mills is entitled to qualified immunity.
As for Staten, the district court order similarly does not sufficiently address
the evidence as it pertains solely to him. True, pointing to the two January 31,
2014, notes entered into the Sheriff’s Office’s computer system at Staten’s
direction, the order adds that Staten “was personally involved in detaining
[Alcocer].” But the district court did not consider what Staten knew or should
have known at the time that he instructed Office staff to continue to hold Alcocer.
For example, was Staten physically present at the Sheriff’s Office so he could
review the alleged detainer? Or was he out of the Office on January 30 and 31, so
he relied on another’s description of the ICE fax as a detainer? And if he accepted
another employee’s characterization of the ICE fax as a detainer, was it reasonable
for him to do so?
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Because the district court’s order did not individually evaluate each
defendant’s specific actions and omissions, we reverse the denial of summary
judgment and remand the matter to the district court for further proceedings. On
remand, the district court shall, in the first instance, conduct an individualized
analysis of whether each defendant is entitled to qualified immunity. In doing so,
the district court may choose to conduct the analysis on the basis of the record as it
currently exists, or it may allow the parties to supplement their summary-judgment
submissions in light of our opinion today.
IV.
Finally, though we do not opine on whether either Defendant is entitled to
qualified immunity, we agree with the district court’s determination that the right
at issue here arises under the Fourth Amendment, not the Fourteenth Amendment,
as Defendants assert.
In any § 1983 case, we must begin our analysis by identifying “the precise
constitutional violation” the defendant has allegedly committed. Franklin v.
Curry, 738 F.3d 1246, 1250 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam). This step requires us,
viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Alcocer, to establish the cause of
her continued detention after posting bond. Here, the district court noted that
Alcocer obtained a bond for her misdemeanor suspended-license offense and
would have been released on January 30, immediately upon securing her bond, had
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it not been for the alleged ICE detainer. Viewing the facts in the light most
favorable to Alcocer, the district court concluded that Alcocer remained
incarcerated because Defendants engaged in a second detention of her for being an
illegally present alien.
This fact pattern potentially presents two possible rights as candidates for
driving our analysis: (1) the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable
seizures, Case v. Eslinger, 555 F.3d 1317, 1326 (11th Cir. 2009), and (2) the
Fourteenth Amendment due-process right to be free from continued detention after
law enforcement should have known that the detained person was entitled to
release, West v. Tillman, 496 F.3d 1321, 1327 (11th Cir. 2007) (per curiam).
The Fourth Amendment, in relevant part, guarantees “[t]he right of the
people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable . . . seizures.” U.S.
Const. amend. IV. Detention, of course, is a type of seizure of the person to which
Fourth Amendment protections attach. See United States v. Perkins, 348 F.3d 965,
969 (11th Cir. 2003). If a detention exceeds the bounds of a Terry7 stop, which is a
“brief, investigatory stop when the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion
that criminal activity is afoot,” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000)
(citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 30), law enforcement must have probable cause to
support that seizure of the person. See United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 702
7
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).
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(1983). Along these same lines, the Supreme Court long ago held that, beyond a
Terry stop, any detention of a suspected alien “must be based on consent or
probable cause” that the person is, in fact, an alien. United States v. Brignoni-
Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 881-82 (1975).
Here, viewed in the light most favorable to Alcocer, the facts reflect that she
continued to be detained after satisfying the bond requirements, solely because of
suspicion that she might be illegally present in the United States. This overnight
detention plainly was not “brief,” so it could not have been a Terry stop. Nor did
Alcocer consent to her overnight detention. Indeed, she protested it. So if the
Fourth Amendment governs the analysis here, to the extent that Defendants were
causally involved in Alcocer’s overnight detention, they must show they had
probable cause (or in the qualified-immunity analysis, arguable probable cause) to
believe that Alcocer was illegally present in the United States.
We turn now to the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment applies when
an individual alleges an “over-detention,” or a continued detention after a right to
release, where probable cause supported the charge for which the person was
detained. See, e.g., West, 496 F.3d at 1327. When an over-detention occurs and
the Fourteenth Amendment governs the analysis, a plaintiff must demonstrate that
the defendant acted with deliberate indifference to her due-process rights. Id. at
1327. That requires her to show three things: (1) the defendant had subjective
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knowledge of a risk of serious harm, consisting of continued detention when the
plaintiff was entitled to be released; (2) he disregarded that risk; and (3) he did so
by conduct that is more than mere negligence. See id. (citation omitted).
As we have noted, we have applied the Fourteenth Amendment analysis in
cases involving over-detentions. In Case, 555 F.3d 1317, for example, the plaintiff
was arrested based on probable cause that he had violated the law. See id. at 1324-
27. But he was not released from jail until roughly seven hours after he satisfied
his bond. There, plaintiff’s over-detention appears to have been caused solely by
some type of deficiency in the administration of the jail. See id. at 1324, 1327,
1329-30. There was no allegation that the plaintiff continued to be detained
because of suspicion he had committed an independent violation for which
independent probable cause was required.
Similarly, in West, 496 F.3d 1321, following the plaintiff’s arrest on
probable cause that he had violated the law, the plaintiff posted bond but
nonetheless remained in custody for an additional 23 days. See id. at 1325-26.
That occurred purely as a result of deficiencies in the defendants’ administration of
the bond-notification procedure. As in Case, there was no allegation that the
plaintiff was detained after posting bond because of suspicion that he had
committed an independent violation for which independent probable cause was
required.
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And in Cannon v. Macon County, 1 F.3d 1558 (11th Cir. 1993), opinion
modified on reh’g on other grounds, 15 F.3d 1022 (11th Cir. 1994), the plaintiff
was arrested based on probable cause that she had committed a theft. Id. at 1560.
There, the arresting officer ran the plaintiff’s name through the National Crime
Information Center database and received information that the plaintiff was wanted
in another state.8 Id. As it turned out, though, another person with the same first
and last names actually committed the theft. Id. at 1560-61. The plaintiff was
misidentified as the offending person and was therefore mistakenly detained. Id.
So while it was surely no comfort to the plaintiff in Cannon, she was not detained
without probable cause that a violation had been committed by someone with her
first and last names.
In all of these cases, we held that the right at issue was the Fourteenth
Amendment due-process right to be free from continued detention after law
enforcement should have known that the detained person was entitled to release.
See id.; see also Campbell v. Johnson, 586 F.3d 835, 840 (11th Cir. 2009) (per
curiam). That right, we said, is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s
guarantee of substantive due process. See Cannon, 1 F.3d at 1563.
8
Although in Cannon we did not expressly determine whether the officers initially had
probable cause, this Court has found that an arrestee’s name matching a warrant database
establishes probable cause. See Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 F.3d 1341, 1345-46 (11th Cir. 2002)
(finding a valid arrest in similar circumstances); United States v. Roper, 702 F.2d 984, 989 (11th
Cir. 1983) (“NCIC printouts are reliable enough to form the basis of the reasonable belief which
is needed to establish probable cause.”) (quotation and citation omitted).
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After careful consideration of these cases, we conclude that the precise right
implicated by the facts Alcocer alleges is the Fourth Amendment right to be free
from unreasonable seizures. That is so for two reasons.
First, the facts here require this conclusion. In explaining why, we look at
the reason for Alcocer’s continued detention after she satisfied her bond
requirements. Viewing facts in the light most favorable to Alcocer, she remained
in jail solely because of suspicion that she was in the United States illegally. The
Sheriff’s Office staff told Alcocer’s sister that she was not being released due to an
ICE hold; statements in Alcocer’s file, mentioning Defendant Staten, show that her
continued detainment was related to an ICE hold; and Alcocer was released almost
immediately after an ICE agent notified the Sheriff’s Office that Alcocer was in
fact a citizen.
Any facts that might have underpinned the conclusion that Alcocer was in
the United States illegally were not a part of the probable cause that supported
Alcocer’s original detention, which was for the misdemeanor of driving with a
suspended license. For this reason, independent probable cause was required to
warrant Alcocer’s continued detention after she had satisfied all conditions of her
bond on her original detention. See, e.g., Morales v. Chadbourne, 793 F.3d 208,
217 (1st Cir. 2015) (holding that where plaintiff was not released from custody
after being ordered released on her personal recognizance for criminal charges of
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having made misrepresentations in an application for state benefits, “she was
subjected to a new seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes [when she was
immediately rebooked on suspicion of being illegally in the United States]—one
that must be supported by a new probable cause justification.”).
Second, the law similarly demands this result. The Fourth Amendment
provides an explicit source of protection for the right that Defendants allegedly
violated. The Fourteenth Amendment does not. Rather, as we have noted, the
Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from continued detention after law
enforcement should have known that the person was entitled to release is a
substantive-due-process right. See Cannon, 1 F.3d at 1563. Where the
Constitution “provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection” for
the violation alleged, we apply the analysis that constitutional provision requires,
rather than the analysis dictated by “the more generalized notion of ‘substantive
due process.’” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 (1989). Because the Fourth
Amendment provides “an explicit textual source for constitutional protection”
under the factual scenario here, it governs.
For these reasons, we hold that the district court correctly determined that
this case involves the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable
seizures.
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IV.
We reverse the district court’s denial of summary judgment for Defendants
and remand for the district court to conduct an individualized assessment of each
Defendant’s actions to determine whether either or both Defendants are entitled to
qualified immunity. We affirm the district court’s determination that this case
implicates the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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