Winfield v. Trottier

11-4404-cv
Winfield, et al. v. Trottier
1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
2
3 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
4
5 August Term, 2012
6
7 (Argued: October 5, 2012 Decided: March 6, 2013)
8
9 Docket No. 11-4404-cv
10
11 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
12
13 MARIE WINFIELD and JASON WINFIELD,
14
15 Plaintiffs-Appellees,
16
17 - v.-
18
19 DANIEL TROTTIER,
20
21 Defendant-Appellant,
22
23 AIMEE NOLAN, STATE OF VERMONT,
24
25 Defendants.
26
27 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x
28
29 Before: JACOBS, Chief Judge, POOLER and HALL,
30 Circuit Judges.
31
32 A police officer appeals the denial of qualified
33 immunity by the United States District Court for the
34 District of Vermont in a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 198335 alleging that he violated the Fourth Amendment rights of a
36 motorist and her passenger when, while searching her car
37 with her consent during a traffic stop, he read a piece of
38 her mail. We reverse.
1 MICHAEL B. KIMBERLY, Mayer Brown
2 LLP, Washington, DC for
3 Appellees.
4
5 MEGAN J. SHAFRITZ, Assistant
6 Attorney General, (Jana M.
7 Brown on the brief) for, William
8 H. Sorrell, Attorney General for
9 the State of Vermont for
10 Appellant.
11
12 DENNIS JACOBS, Chief Judge:
13 Daniel Trottier (“Trottier”), a Vermont State Police
14 officer, appeals from an order entered in the United States
15 District Court for the District of Vermont (Reiss, J.),
16 denying his motion for qualified immunity in a claim brought
17 by motorist Marie Winfield (“Winfield”) under 42 U.S.C. §
18 1983, alleging that Trottier violated her Fourth Amendment
19 rights when, while searching her car with her consent during
20 a traffic stop, he read a piece of her mail.
21 At issue is the scope of Winfield’s consent to the
22 search of her car, which is determined by looking at what a
23 reasonable person would have understood by the exchange
24 between Trottier and Winfield. We conclude that, while the
25 scope of Winfield’s consent was not limited to a search for
26 any particular object of contraband, it did not extend to
27 the text of her mail. However, since this right was not
28 clearly established at the time of the search, Trottier is
29 entitled to qualified immunity. We therefore reverse.
2
1 BACKGROUND
2 The district court found that the following facts were
3 undisputed. On May 26, 2007, Winfield was driving north on
4 Interstate 89 in Vermont, en route to visit her father in
5 Montreal. Trottier, a state trooper, stopped her for
6 driving twenty miles per hour over the limit, and was
7 inspired to search the car by certain things he deemed
8 suspicious: The passenger, Winfield’s son Jason, avoided
9 making eye contact with him; and Winfield was eating a
10 Powerbar “in what he regarded as a hurried manner.”
11 Winfield v. Trottier, No. 5:08-cv-278, 2011 WL 4442933, at
12 *1 (D. Vt. Sept. 21, 2011).
13 As Trottier was waiting for verification of Winfield’s
14 identity, he approached the car and asked, “Ms. Winfield,
15 you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but while we’re
16 waiting, would you mind coming back here for a minute
17 [behind the car] and talk[ing] to me for a second?” She got
18 out and walked with Trottier to the back of her car while
19 State Trooper Aimee Nolan arrived on the scene, as backup.
20 The following exchange ensued:
21 TROTTIER: Listen, is there anything in
22 there I should know about? You seemed awfully
23 nervous when I was talking with you. . . . Your
24 hand was shaking and you’re--you had, like, a leg
25 tremor going on. No?
3
1 WINFIELD: Not that I know of.
2 TROTTIER: Oh, Okay. Not that you know of,
3 or there’s nothing? It just kind of, you know,
4 piqued my interest there.
5 WINFIELD: Really?
6 TROTTIER: Because when I was talking with
7 you, you were shaking; your voice was shaking.
8 Winfield explained that she was “probably tired”
9 because her daughter’s high school graduation was the
10 previous night. The conversation continued:
11 TROTTIER: Okay. Okay. There’s nothing in
12 there I should know about is there? No guns or
13 money?
14 WINFIELD: You can look if you want.
15 TROTTIER: Oh you don’t mind? Do you mind?
16 No--no large sums of money in there or--no? Okay.
17 WINFIELD: Be my guest.
18 TROTTIER: Okay.
19 WINFIELD: You can look.
20 TROTTIER: Okay. Here. Hold on one
21 second.
22 WINFIELD: Inside my trunk?
23 TROTTIER: Okay.
24 WINFIELD: I don’t know [inaudable]--
25 TROTTIER: Here. Do me a favor, okay?
26 WINFIELD: I don’t have anything.
27 TROTTIER: What’s that?
28 WINFIELD: No, I don’t have anything in
29 there. My--
30 TROTTIER: Okay. Oh, just stay over here
31 for a second. I don’t want you to get run over.
32 Do you mind?
33 WINFIELD: I was just going to pop my
34 trunk.
35 TROTTIER: Oh, that’s okay. Do you mind if
36 I look through--do--do you mind? You don’t mind?
37 Okay. Do me a favor. Stand over here for me.
38 You don’t have anything on you we should know
39 about, do you? No guns or bombs or anything like
40 that?
4
1 WINFIELD: [Inaudible.]
2 TROTTIER: No? Okay.
3 Id. at *2-3.
4 After patting down Jason (with his consent), Trottier
5 searched the car. Trottier, who admits he was not looking
6 for anything in particular, found an envelope addressed
7 either to or from a court, opened it,1 and read what was
8 inside. It was a court document pertaining to the arrest of
9 Winfield’s husband “for possession,” and a letter that
10 Winfield had written to a judge. Id. at *3 n.4. After
11 finishing the search and finding nothing, he issued a
12 speeding citation and the Winfields proceeded on their way.
13 The Winfields sued, alleging, inter alia, violations of
14 the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches
15 and seizures. The district court concluded that “no
16 reasonable understanding of the exchange between Ms.
17 Winfield and Trooper Trottier could be construed as consent
18 for Trooper Trottier to read Ms. Winfield’s mail, regardless
19 of to whom or from whom [the mail] was addressed.” Id. at
20 *10. The court denied qualified immunity because “[i]t was
1
The record on appeal does not indicate whether
Trottier unsealed the envelope. The district court noted,
in its findings of undisputed facts, that Trottier simply
“removed from its envelope and read” the document inside.
Id. at *3.
5
1 well-established at the time of the search that ‘[i]t is a
2 violation of a suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights for a
3 consensual search to exceed the scope of the consent
4 given.’” Id. at *11 (quoting United States v. McWeeney, 454
5 F.3d 1030, 1034 (9th Cir. 2006)) (second alteration in
6 original)).
7
8 DISCUSSION
9 The Court reviews de novo a decision on a motion for
10 summary judgment. Mario v. P & C Food Mkts., Inc., 313 F.3d
11 758, 763 (2d Cir. 2002); see also Miller v. Wolpoff &
12 Abramson, L.L.P., 321 F.3d 292, 300 (2d Cir. 2003). Summary
13 judgment is appropriate if there is no genuine dispute as to
14 any material fact and the moving party is entitled to
15 judgment as a matter of law. Miller, 321 F.3d at 300. In
16 assessing a motion for summary judgment, the Court is
17 “required to resolve all ambiguities and draw all
18 permissible factual inferences in favor of the party against
19 whom summary judgment [was granted].” Terry v. Ashcroft,
20 336 F.3d 128, 137 (2d Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks
21 omitted).
22
6
1 I
2 “Qualified immunity protects officials from liability
3 for civil damages as long as ‘their conduct does not violate
4 clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of
5 which a reasonable person would have known.’” Gilles v.
6 Repicky, 511 F.3d 239, 243 (2d Cir. 2007) (quoting Harlow v.
7 Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). In deciding
8 qualified immunity, courts ask whether the facts shown [i]
9 “make out a violation of a constitutional right,” and [ii]
10 “whether the right at issue was clearly established at the
11 time of defendant’s alleged misconduct.” Pearson v.
12 Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009) (internal quotation marks
13 omitted).
14 To be clearly established, “[t]he contours of the right
15 must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would
16 understand that what he is doing violates that right.”
17 Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). In this
18 way, qualified immunity shields official conduct that is
19 “‘objectively legally reasonable in light of the legal rules
20 that were clearly established at the time it was taken.’”
21 X-Men Sec., Inc. v. Pataki, 196 F.3d 56, 66 (2d Cir. 1999)
22 (alterations omitted) (quoting Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639);
7
1 see also Taravella v. Town of Wolcott, 599 F.3d 129, 134-35
2 (2d Cir. 2010).
3
4 II
5 Plaintiffs challenge appellate jurisdiction on the
6 ground that the qualified immunity inquiry in this case
7 turns on a question of fact: the reasonableness
8 determination as to the scope of Winfield’s consent.
9 We have appellate jurisdiction over this interlocutory
10 appeal. “[A] district court’s denial of a claim of
11 qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue
12 of law, is an appealable ‘final decision’ within the meaning
13 of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding the absence of a final
14 judgment.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 529 (1985)
15 (emphasis added). An appealable order therefore cannot turn
16 on a district court decision as to “what occurred, or why an
17 action was taken or omitted, but [must related to] disputes
18 about the substance and clarity of pre-existing law.” Ortiz
19 v. Jordan, --- U.S. ---, 131 S. Ct. 884, 893 (2011); see
20 also Britt v. Garcia, 457 F.3d 264, 271-72 (2d Cir. 2006).
21
22
8
1 A
2 “The standard for measuring the scope of a suspect’s
3 consent under the Fourth Amendment is that of ‘objective’
4 reasonableness--what would the typical reasonable person
5 have understood by the exchange between the officer and the
6 suspect?” Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 251 (1991).
7 As there are no disputed facts in this case,
8 Plaintiffs’ argument is essentially that an appeals court
9 lacks jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal that turns
10 on a determination of reasonableness. But in other
11 contexts, courts hold that reasonableness may be a question
12 of law when the facts are undisputed. See, e.g., Kent v.
13 Katz, 312 F.3d 568, 577 (2d Cir. 2002) (“[W]hen the
14 defendant accepts . . . the plaintiff’s version of the
15 facts, the defendant may immediately appeal the denial of [a
16 summary judgment] motion because the objective
17 reasonableness of the undisputed actions may then be
18 susceptible to resolution as a matter of law.” (emphasis
19 added) (citing Salim v. Proulx, 93 F.3d 86, 91 (2d Cir.
20 1996))); Huang v. Attorney Gen., 620 F.3d 372, 385 (3d Cir.
21 2010) (“[I]n the context of qualified immunity for
22 constitutional torts, the reasonableness of a state actor’s
9
1 conduct based on undisputed facts is subject to de novo
2 review as a question of law.” (emphasis added)); Vaughn v.
3 Ruoff, 253 F.3d 1124, 1128 (8th Cir. 2001) (“If the material
4 predicate facts are undisputed, the reasonableness inquiry
5 is a question of law.”).
6 Plaintiffs fail to cite a single case holding that an
7 appellate court lacks jurisdiction to review a ruling on
8 qualified immunity when the facts are undisputed.2 Instead,
9 they cite cases such as Hatheway v. Thies, 335 F.3d 1199,
10 1204 (10th Cir. 2003), in which the question was whether
11 certain facts were disputed, and Copar Pumice Co. v. Morris,
12 639 F.3d 1025, 1027 (10th Cir. 2011), in which “[t]he
13 parties provide[d] distinctly differing accounts of the
14 ensuing encounter.”
15
2
Plaintiffs cite cases in which the scope of
consent to search is a question of fact reviewed for clear
error. See United States v. Gandia, 424 F.3d 255, 265 (2d
Cir. 2005); United States v. Garrido-Santana, 360 F.3d 565,
570 (6th Cir. 2004); United States v. Rosborough, 366 F.3d
1145, 1150 (10th Cir. 2004). Gandia, the only Second
Circuit case plaintiffs cite, turned on facts that were
disputed. 424 F.3d at 265. Moreover, these cases were
criminal cases in which the court set out the standard of
review without touching on the question presented here,
whether there is appellate jurisdiction to review a denial
of qualified immunity involving the scope of consent.
10
1 In this case involving no disputed facts, we have
2 appellate jurisdiction, under Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S.
3 511 (1985), to decide whether there was a violation of a
4 constitutional right.
5 B
6 We also have appellate jurisdiction to decide whether
7 the right at issue was “clearly established.” See Moore v.
8 Andreno, 505 F.3d 203, 207 (2d Cir. 2007) (“Nevertheless,
9 our appellate jurisdiction over this case is not in doubt.
10 The district court’s holding that the law governing
11 third-party consent searches was clearly established is a
12 conclusion of law and is thus immediately appealable.”);
13 Salim, 93 F.3d at 89 (finding it “easy to apply” Mitchell v.
14 Forsyth “whenever a defendant’s interlocutory appeal
15 challenges a denial of a qualified immunity defense on the
16 ground that the district court erred in ruling that the law
17 the defendant is alleged to have violated was clearly
18 established”).
19
20 III
21 Courts may “exercise their sound discretion in deciding
22 which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis
11
1 should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in
2 the particular case at hand.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S.
3 223, 236 (2009). Here, we analyze both because it is
4 “‘difficult to decide whether [the] right [in this case] is
5 clearly established without deciding precisely what the
6 existing constitutional right happens to be.’” Id. (quoting
7 Lyons v. Xenia, 417 F.3d 565, 581 (6th Cir. 2005) (Sutton,
8 J., concurring)). We consider each qualified immunity
9 inquiry in turn.
10 A
11 The Fourth Amendment is not offended by a warrantless,
12 suspicionless search to which a suspect consents. Florida
13 v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250-51 (1991). In general, “an
14 individual who consents to a search of his car should
15 reasonably expect that readily-opened, closed containers
16 discovered inside the car will be opened and examined.”
17 United States v. Snow, 44 F.3d 133, 135 (2d Cir. 1995).
18 “A suspect may of course delimit as he chooses the
19 scope of the search to which he consents.” Jimeno, 500 U.S.
20 at 252. To determine the parameters of consent, we ask
21 “what would the typical reasonable person have understood by
22 the exchange between the officer and the suspect?” Id. at
23 251.
12
1 “The scope of a search is generally defined by its
2 expressed object.” Id. In Jimeno, a police officer who
3 believed he overheard the defendant arranging an illegal
4 drug transaction over a public telephone followed the
5 defendant’s car and pulled him over to give him a ticket
6 when he made an illegal turn. Id. The officer then
7 expressed his suspicion and asked, and was granted,
8 permission to search the car for drugs. Id. at 249-50. A
9 brown paper bag on the floor of the car was opened and
10 yielded cocaine. Id. at 250. The Supreme Court held that
11 the search was lawful: If a suspect’s “consent would
12 reasonably be understood to extend to a particular
13 container, the Fourth Amendment provides no grounds for
14 requiring a more explicit authorization.” Id. at 252.
15 Here, Winfield’s consent was not limited to a search
16 for guns or money because Trottier’s full question did not
17 convey any “expressed object” of the search: “There’s
18 nothing in there I should know about is there? No guns or
19 money?” The open-ended question reached “anything” he
20 should “know about,” of which guns and money were examples.
21 A typical reasonable person would not think that Winfield’s
22 consent was limited to places that could hold guns or money.
23 Winfield’s consent authorized a search for drugs or smuggled
13
1 cigarettes or child pornography as things Trottier should
2 “know about,” even in places that could contain neither guns
3 nor large sums of money. This case is nothing like Jimeno;
4 Trottier did not tell Winfield that he was looking for (or
5 suspected she had) any particular kind of contraband.3
6 Nevertheless, Winfield’s consent did not arguably
7 extend to Trottier’s reading her mail. He did not, for
8 example, get specific consent to search for evidence of
9 extortion by mail or securities fraud. The Fourth Amendment
10 specifically protects “[t]he right of the people to be
11 secure in their . . . papers.” U.S. Const. amend. IV.
12 Reading a person’s personal mail is a far greater intrusion
13 than a search for contraband because it can invade a
14 person’s thoughts. See United States v. Dichiarinte, 445
3
Winfield arguably limited the scope of her consent
to the trunk of the car. She repeatedly referred to her
trunk during her interaction with Trottier. Moreover,
Trottier asked Winfield, “there’s nothing in there?” while
standing with her at the rear of her car. See United States
v. Neely, 564 F.3d 346, 349-51 (4th Cir. 2009) (concluding
that scope of consent was impliedly limited to trunk of car
based on surrounding circumstances). We need not decide the
issue because even if Winfield arguably limited her consent
in this way, a reasonable officer in Trottier’s place could
believe that the scope was not so limited. See Taravella v.
Town of Wolcott, 599 F.3d 129, 134-45 (2d Cir. 2010) (“[T]he
qualified immunity defense also protects an official if it
was objectively reasonable for him at the time of the
challenged action to believe his acts were lawful.”
(internal quotation marks omitted)).
14
1 F.2d 126, 130 n.4 (7th Cir. 1971) (“The fact that the
2 defendant submitted to a degree of intrusion upon his
3 privacy by permitting the agents to enter his home and
4 rummage through his personal property does not mean that the
5 much greater intrusion on his privacy resulting from
6 government agents’ reading his personal papers must
7 automatically be allowed.”). Given this greater intrusion,
8 the typical reasonable person would not assume that consent
9 to a general search of a car for contraband would include
10 consent to read personal papers. Once Trottier opened the
11 envelope and discovered neither large sums of money nor
12 contraband,4 he should have moved on to search the rest of
13 the car. Trottier exceeded the scope of Winfield’s consent
14 when he read the letter.
15 Trottier argues that he read her mail because he
16 thought it might contain evidence of a parole or probation
17 violation. That is a conceivable rationale for reading
18 mail, just as Trottier might have perused love letters for
19 evidence of statutory rape, or brokerage receipts for
20 evidence of insider trading. But the issue is whether a
21 reasonable person would believe that the consent given by
4
We assume without deciding that the envelope could
have contained contraband.
15
1 Winfield authorized such a search for such a purpose. We
2 think not. And Trottier cites no persuasive authority in
3 his support.5
4 “[T]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is
5 ‘reasonableness.’” Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U.S.
6 398, 403 (2006). A typical reasonable person would not
7 assume that Winfield gave Trottier consent to read her
8 personal mail. Therefore, Trottier violated Winfield’s
9 Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable
10 searches.
5
We are unpersuaded by the one case holding that
generalized consent to search an area grants police the
authority to read documents found in that area. United
States v. De La Rosa, 922 F.2d 675, 679 (11th Cir. 1991).
The rest are easily distinguishable. In United States v.
Kwan, No. 02 CR. 241, 2003 WL 21180401, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. May
20, 2003), the defendant authorized the police to “look
around,” knowing they were investigating a possible theft of
confidential documents. Id. at *1; cf. Jimeno, 500 U.S. at
252. Moreover, the court focused on whether Kwan had given
the agents consent to search in his desk, not read his
papers. Id. at *6.
The search in United States v. Vaneenwyk was a lawful
search incident to arrest; so the discussion as to scope of
consent was dicta. 206 F. Supp. 2d 423, 425 (W.D.N.Y.
2002).
In United States v. Reyes, 922 F. Supp. 818, 822
(S.D.N.Y. 1996), and United States v. Galante, No. 94 Cr.
633, 1995 WL 507249, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 25, 1995), the
officers read no personal papers; they searched the digital
memory of pagers and cell phones found in a car they had
consent to search. See Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735,
745-46 (1979) (holding that defendants have no legitimate
expectation of privacy in numbers they dialed or numbers
that dialed them).
16
1 B
2 Trottier is entitled to qualified immunity if the right
3 he violated was not “clearly established” at the time of the
4 events at issue. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001).
5 “The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a
6 right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to
7 a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the
8 situation he confronted.” Id. at 202.
9 We must first determine “the level of generality at
10 which the relevant ‘legal rule’ is to be identified.”
11 Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639 (1987). To do so,
12 we should “‘balance . . . the interests in vindication of
13 citizens’ constitutional rights and in public officials’
14 effective performance in their duties.’” Id. (quoting
15 Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 195 (1984)). The right must
16 be defined “in a more particularized, and hence more
17 relevant, sense: The contours of the right must be
18 sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would
19 understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Id.20 at 640.
21 The district court defined the right at a level so
22 general as to be “insufficiently clear”: “‘[I]t is a
17
1 violation of a suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights for a
2 consensual search to exceed the scope of the consent
3 given.’” Winfield v. Trottier, No. 5:08-cv-278, 2011 WL
4 4442933, at *11 (D. Vt. Sept. 21, 2011) (alteration in
5 original) (quoting United States v. McWeeney, 454 F.3d 1030,
6 1034 (9th Cir. 2006)).
7 The right at issue is properly stated as follows: It is
8 a Fourth Amendment violation when a police officer reads a
9 suspect’s private papers, the text of which is not in plain
10 view, while conducting a search authorized solely by the
11 suspect’s generalized consent to search the area in which
12 the papers are found. No prior case in the Second Circuit
13 has so held. Accordingly, Trottier’s actions were
14 “‘objectively legally reasonable in light of the legal rules
15 that were clearly established at the time it was taken,’”
16 X-Men Sec., Inc. v. Pataki, 196 F.3d 56, 66 (2d Cir. 1999)
17 (alterations omitted) (quoting Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639),
18 and he is entitled to qualified immunity.
19 * * *
20 The district court’s decision denying Trottier’s motion
21 for summary judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to
22 the district court with instructions to enter judgment for
23 Trottier on the ground of qualified immunity.
18