Appeals Court Judge: Qualified Immunity Is A Rigged Game The Government Almost Always Wins

from the well-deserved-(and-well-placed)-shots dept

We've long cast a skeptical eye on the judicial theory of qualified immunity. Conjured out of thin air by the Supreme Court, qualified immunity cannot be found among the thousands of laws and statutes our legislature has created over the past couple of centuries.

Qualified immunity raises an almost-insurmountable bar for plaintiffs to hurdle when alleging Constitutional violations. It's not enough to provide evidence of violated rights. Previous court decisions on point must exist, and the court must have previously established [insert rights violation here] as a Constitutional violation for the plaintiff's lawsuit to advance. This summation of the QI standard from Scott Greenfield may seem outlandish, but it's actually not that far from the truth.

The presumption is that if a court hasn’t told you that putting a gun in a person’s mouth and threatening to blow his head off unless he admits guilt [violates someone's rights], how could a cop possibly know this is unconstitutional?

Greenfield's post discusses a recent decision [PDF] by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling deals with an unconstitutional search of medical records performed by the DEA. The Appeals Court agrees with the plaintiff rights were violated.

Relying on Supreme Court precedent, we held that it was clear at the time that “prior to compliance, Cotropia was entitled to an opportunity to obtain review of the administrative subpoena before a neutral decision maker.” Id. at 358 (citing See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 545 (1967); Donovan v. Lone Steer, Inc., 464 U.S. 408, 415 (1984)). Similarly, the demand to turn over Dr. Zadeh’s medical records immediately did not provide an opportunity for precompliance review. We agree, then, that a requirement of precompliance review in many, if not most, administrative searches had been clearly established by Supreme Court precedent prior to the search here.

The government argued that the medical industry is "closely regulated" (like pawn shops or porn), thus eliminating the need to present subpoenas for review and/or engage in warrantless searches. The court disagrees with the government's assessment, pointing out the ridiculousness of claiming there's no expectation of privacy in medical records.

Acknowledging that the medical profession is subject to close oversight, the district court emphasized the absence of a history of warrantless inspections to conclude that the medical profession was not a closely regulated industry. Important to its conclusion was the confidential nature of the doctor-patient relationship: “It strains credibility to suggest that doctors and their patients have no reasonable expectation of privacy.” On appeal, the defendants all but concede that there is not a lengthy history of warrantless searches.

At the end of the day, all this discussion doesn't matter. The "unlawfulness" was "not clearly established" at the time it happened. Why? Because no case directly on point with this one had arisen where the Appeals Court had declared this particular rights violation -- containing these particular circumstances -- unconstitutional.

That's where the decision gets interesting. Recently-appointed appeals court Judge Don Willett concurs with the majority's opinion, but only to raise questions about qualified immunity and its effect on the justice system.

The court is right about Dr. Zadeh’s rights: They were violated.

But owing to a legal deus ex machina—the “clearly established law” prong of qualified-immunity analysis—the violation eludes vindication. I write separately to register my disquiet over the kudzu-like creep of the modern immunity regime. Doctrinal reform is arduous, often-Sisyphean work. And the entrenched, judge-made doctrine of qualified immunity seems Kevlar-coated, making even tweak-level tinkering doubtful. But immunity ought not be immune from thoughtful reappraisal.

Willett's next sentence is nearly as trenchant as Greenfield's take on QI:

To some observers, qualified immunity smacks of unqualified impunity, letting public officials duck consequences for bad behavior—no matter how palpably unreasonable—as long as they were the first to behave badly. [emphasis in the original]

And that's the problem: a novel way of violating rights -- even a way the court agrees is unconstitutional -- gets a free pass because no one has been sued over this exact rights violation occurring under these exact circumstances. This Supreme Court-erected standard of review -- cases on point -- has resulted in many federal judges refusing to declare acts unconstitutional… because no one before them has bothered to find violations clearly established. The justice system provides no justice. Instead, it erects shelters for government misconduct.

Section 1983 meets Catch-22. Plaintiffs must produce precedent even as fewer courts are producing precedent. Important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered. Courts then rely on that judicial silence to conclude there’s no equivalent case on the books. No precedent = no clearly established law = no liability. An Escherian Stairwell. Heads defendants win, tails plaintiffs lose.

This is where we're at as a country. Rights can be violated so long as the government employee finds a new way of doing it or happens to reside in a jurisdiction where that particular rights violation hasn't been "clearly established" as unconstitutional. Even if it has been, the government may still get away with it as long as the violation occurred before it was determined unconstitutional. What was supposed to balance citizens' ability to seek redress with the government's supposed need to move fast and break things is merely another way for government employees to avoid being held accountable for their actions.

Filed Under: don willett, fifth circuit, qualified immunity, rights

Appeals Court Says Filming The Police Is Protected By The First Amendment

from the another-circuit-added-to-the-list dept

In news that will surprise no one, police officers decided they must do something about someone filming the police department building from across the street. That's where this Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision begins: with a completely avoidable and completely unnecessary assertion of government power.

Phillip Turner was filming the police department. He was accosted by two officers (Grinalds and Dyess). Both demanded he provide them with identification. He refused to do so. The officers arrested him for "failure to identify," took his camera, and tossed him in the back of a squad car. Given the circumstances of the initial interaction, it's surprising the words "contempt of cop" weren't used on the official police report. From the opinion [PDF]:

Grinalds asked Turner, “How’s it going, man? Got your ID with you?” Turner continued videotaping, and Grinalds repeatedly asked Turner if he had any identification. Turner asked the officers whether he was being detained, and Grinalds responded that Turner was being detained for investigation and that the officers were concerned about who was walking around with a video camera. Turner asked for which crime he was being detained, and Grinalds replied, “I didn’t say you committed a crime.” Grinalds elaborated, “We have the right and authority to know who’s walking around our facilities.”

Grinalds again asked for Turner’s identification, and Turner asked Grinalds, “What happens if I don’t ID myself?” Grinalds replied, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Grinalds continued to request Turner’s identification, which Turner refused to provide. Grinalds and Dyess then “suddenly and without warning” handcuffed Turner and took his video camera from him, and Grinalds said, “This is what happens when you don’t ID yourself.”

Turner asked to speak to their supervisor. Given that this happened right across the street from the department, Turner didn't have to wait very long. A supervisor arrived and came to at least one correct conclusion:

Lieutenant Driver identified himself as the commander. Driver asked Turner what he was doing, and Turner explained that he was taking pictures from the sidewalk across the street. Driver asked Turner for his ID, and Turner told the lieutenant that he did not have to identify himself because he had not been lawfully arrested and that he chose not to provide his identification. Driver responded, “You’re right.”

Texas police officers love to misread the state's "failure to identify" statute. It doesn't say what they think it does… or what they want to believe it does. A former cop-turned-law student has a full explanation here, but suffice to say, cops cannot arrest someone for refusing to ID themselves -- at least not in Texas. The charge can be added after an arrest (if the refusal continues), but it can't be the impetus for an arrest.

After some discussion between the officers, Turner was released and his camera was given back. Turner filed a civil rights lawsuit. The lower court granted immunity to the officers on all allegations. The Fifth Circuit, however, refuses to go as far. And in doing so, it actually takes it upon itself to address an issue it easily could have avoided: whether the First Amendment covers the filming of public servants, specifically law enforcement officers.

First, the court asks whether the right to film police was "clearly established" at the time the incident took place (September 2015). It can't find anything that says it is.

At the time in question, neither the Supreme Court nor this court had determined whether First Amendment protection extends to the recording or filming of police. Although Turner insists, as some district courts in this circuit have concluded, that First Amendment protection extends to the video recording of police activity in light of general First Amendment principles, the Supreme Court has “repeatedly” instructed courts “not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality”: “The general proposition, for example, that an unreasonable search or seizure violates the Fourth Amendment is of little help in determining whether the violative nature of particular conduct is clearly established.” Thus, Turner’s reliance on decisions that “clarified that [First Amendment] protections . . . extend[] to gathering information” does not demonstrate whether the specific act at issue here—video recording the police or a police station—was clearly established.

The court doesn't leave it there, although it could have. The court notes that there's a circuit split on the issue, but just because the issue's far from decided doesn't mean courts have not recognized the right exists. It points to conclusions reached by the First and Eleventh Circuit Appeals Courts as evidence the right to film police has been acknowledged. Even so, there's not enough clarity on the issue to remove the officers' immunity.

We cannot say, however, that “existing precedent . . . placed the . . .constitutional question beyond debate” when Turner recorded the police station. Neither does it seem that the law “so clearly and unambiguously prohibited [the officers’] conduct that ‘every reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates [the law].’” In light of the absence of controlling authority and the dearth of even persuasive authority, there was no clearly established First Amendment right to record the police at the time of Turner’s activities.

This is where the opinion gets interesting. While many judges would leave a trickier, somewhat tangential issue open and unanswered, the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court decides it's time for it to set some precedent.

We conclude that First Amendment principles, controlling authority, and persuasive precedent demonstrate that a First Amendment right to record the police does exist, subject only to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions.

[...]

To be sure, “[s]peech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it.” Filming the police contributes to the public’s ability to hold the police accountable, ensure that police officers are not abusing their power, and make informed decisions about police policy. Filming the police also frequently helps officers; for example, a citizen’s recording might corroborate a probable cause finding or might even exonerate an officer charged with wrongdoing.

In the Fifth Circuit -- joining the First and Eleventh Circuits -- the First Amendment right to film police has been asserted. Unfortunately, the issue still remains mostly unsettled, and there's currently nothing in front of the Supreme Court that would set national precedent. Unfortunately, the decision doesn't help Turner with his First Amendment claim, but it will help others going forward.

The court also reverses immunity on one of Turner's Fourth Amendment claims. While it finds the officers were justified in questioning him, they went too far when they arrested him. First, as pointed out above, the "failure to identify" law can't be used to predicate an arrest. And, after questioning him, the officers still had nothing approaching the probable cause they needed to make a warrantless arrest. Even though Turner was detained in the back of the squad car for only a short period of time, the fact that he was obviously not free to go makes it an arrest under the Fourth Amendment.

Strangely, the dissent, written by Judge Edith Brown, claims the Appeals Court has no business setting precedent. In her opinion, the nation's second-highest courts should stand idly by and wait for the Supreme Court to do the work.

The majority asserts, unconnected to the particular facts and unnecessary to the disposition of this case, that “a First Amendment right to record the police does exist, subject only to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions.” The majority derives this general right to film the police from “First Amendment principles, controlling authority, and persuasive precedent.” But the Supreme Court has repeatedly reversed attempts to define “clearly established law” at such “a high level of generality.” White, 137 S. Ct. at 552.

The judge narrowly defines Turner's filming to ensure it would never fall under this supposedly "broad" definition of the right. She says the Appeals Court defines the protection as covering "filming police." But Turner wasn't doing that.

To the extent there is any consensus of persuasive authority, those cases focus only on the narrow issue of whether there is a First Amendment right to film the police “carrying out their duties in public.” E.g., Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78, 82 (1st Cir. 2011). Turner did not allege that he filmed police officers conducting their public duties, but rather that he filmed a police station.

Somehow, filming police officers as they enter and exit a public building is not "filming police carrying out their duties in public." Remarkably, Judge Brown says there may be "reasonable" security concerns that could Constitutionally prevent Turner's actions.

The majority does not determine that the officers here violated Turner’s First Amendment rights—perhaps because it would be reasonable for security reasons to restrict individuals from filming police officers entering and leaving a police station.

If police officers are entering and exiting a building from doors clearly viewable by the public from a public area, the officers obviously aren't that concerned about their "security." If so, they would use an entrance/exit members of the public can't see or don't have access to. If the Fourth Amendment doesn't protect the privacy of citizens in public areas, the same public areas can't be given a heightened privacy protection that only covers public servants.

Unsurprisingly, Judge Brown thinks Turner's involuntary stay in the back of a squad car could reasonably be viewed as Turner just hanging out there waiting to speak to a supervisor:

Because Turner himself requested a supervisor, a reasonable police officer in that situation could believe that waiting for the supervisor to arrive at the scene did not transform Turner’s detention into a de facto arrest. At the very least, Officers Grinalds and Dyess did not act objectively unreasonably in waiting for the requested supervisor—especially because Lieutenant Driver had to come from the Fort Worth Police Station across the street.

Except that most people "waiting for a supervisor" don't do so while:

a.) handcuffed

b.) sitting in the back of a locked squad car

The length of the detention doesn't matter. And it was ultimately the supervisor's arrival that sprung Turner. If not for the arrival of the supervisor -- who immediately recognized Turner couldn't be arrested for refusing to ID himself -- Turner would undoubtedly have spent an even longer period being detained, if not taken into the PD and processed.

The good news for Turner is that his sole remaining Fourth Amendment claims -- the wrongful arrest -- lives on. But the bigger win -- the First Amendment protections confirmation -- helps everyone else but him.

Filed Under: fifth circuit, filming police, first amendment, philip turner, police

Court Reverses Previous Decision; Upholds Suspension For Student Who Rapped About School Employee Misconduct

from the this-speech-we-said-was-protected?-yeah...-I-guess-it-isn't-anymore... dept

Late last year, we covered a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision pertaining to a high school student who was suspended from school because he uploaded a "disruptive" rap song to his Facebook account. While the song was vulgar and hinted at violence towards a school employee (who was allegedly taking advantage of female students), it was recorded and uploaded off-campus during non-school hours.

The divided decision found in favor of the student (Taylor Bell) and overturned his suspension. As the decision noted then, most of the claimed "disruption" was solely in the minds of the school administration.

At the disciplinary/due process hearing, no evidence was presented that the song had caused or had been forecasted to cause a material or substantial disruption to the school's work or discipline. In addition, there was no evidence presented indicating that any student or staff had listened to the song on the school campus, aside from the single instance when (Coach Michael) Wildmon had a student play the song for him on his cellphone in violation of school rules. Neither of the coaches named in the song attended or testified at the hearing, and no evidence was presented at the hearing that the coaches themselves perceived the song as an actual threat or disruption.

Because of the division in opinions in the original panel's decision, an en banc review was granted. And the pendulum has now swung in the other direction and Bell's suspension has been upheld.

Primarily at issue is whether, consistent with the requirements of the First Amendment, off-campus speech directed intentionally at the school community and reasonably understood by school officials to be threatening, harassing, and intimidating to a teacher satisfies the almost 50-year-old standard for restricting student speech, based on a reasonable forecast of a substantial disruption. See Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 514 (1969) (infringing otherwise-protected school speech requires “facts which might reasonably have led school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities”). Because that standard is satisfied in this instance, the summary judgment is AFFIRMED.

The 101-page decision, containing both additional concurrences and dissents, focuses more closely on the "disruptive" aspects of Bell's speech. Contrary to the original finding of the three-judge panel last year, the en banc review sees enough "disruption" to justify the school's actions.

Without learning, there can be little, if any, education. Without education, there can be little, if any, civilization.

It equally goes without saying that threatening, harassing, and intimidating a teacher impedes, if not destroys, the ability to teach; it impedes, if not destroys, the ability to educate. It disrupts, if not destroys, the discipline necessary for an environment in which education can take place. In addition, it encourages and incites other students to engage in similar disruptive conduct. Moreover, it can even cause a teacher to leave that profession. In sum, it disrupts, if not destroys, the very mission for which schools exist—to educate.

If there is to be education, such conduct cannot be permitted. In that regard, the real tragedy in this instance is that a high-school student thought he could, with impunity, direct speech at the school community which threatens, harasses, and intimidates teachers and, as a result, objected to being disciplined. Put succinctly, “with near-constant student access to social networking sites on and off campus, when offensive and malicious speech is directed at school officials and disseminated online to the student body, it is reasonable to anticipate an impact on the classroom environment”. Snyder, 650 F.3d at 951– 52 (Fisher, J., dissenting). As stated, the school board reasonably could have forecast a substantial disruption at school, based on the threatening, intimidating, and harassing language in Bell’s rap recording.

So, because the disruption could "reasonably" be "forecast" (even if there is little evidence such forecasted disruption ever occurred), the school did not err in punishing Bell for off-campus activities.

Judge E. Grady Jolly, in a concurring opinion, goes even further than the majority decision (which did not examine the "true threat" aspects of Bell's rap track) and declares certain forms of student speech wholly unprotected.

Student speech is unprotected by the First Amendment and is subject to school discipline when that speech contains an actual threat to kill or physically harm personnel and/or students of the school; which actual threat is connected to the school environment; and which actual threat is communicated to the school, or its students, or its personnel.

Not a statement anyone can really disagree with, but also an area the en banc panel didn't explicitly cover and also one mostly ignored by the school, which could have pursued criminal charges instead if they truly believed Bell's track was an "actual threat." (Instead, the school found Bell so "threatening" it didn't confront him about this track until nearly the end of the school day.)

The dissent, written by Judge James L. Davis, is scathing in its assessment of the majority's decision to grant deference to the presumed sanctity of the learning environment. In doing so, the majority has allowed two things to happen, both of them bad.

First, it has loosened the restrictions governing schools' punishment of students for off-campus behavior.

[T]he majority opinion obliterates the historically significant distinction between the household and the schoolyard by permitting a school policy to supplant parental authority over the propriety of a child’s expressive activities on the Internet outside of school, expanding schools’ censorial authority from the campus and the teacher’s classroom to the home and the child’s bedroom.

Even worse, the opinion sets a precedent that implicitly states certain public figures may not be criticized by certain individuals.

Although mischaracterizing itself as “narrow” in scope, the en banc majority opinion broadly proclaims that a public school board is constitutionally empowered to punish a student whistleblower for his purely off-campus Internet speech publicizing a matter of public concern.

Bell's rap song was a response to multiple complaints from female students about inappropriate comments and sexual overtures from two of the school's coaches. These complaints became sworn affidavits once the legal process was underway. So, even with the violent imagery, the track dealt mostly with the alleged misconduct of school employees. The en banc decision turns this sort of criticism into punishable behavior, especially if a school can "reasonably foresee" a possible disruption. Whether or not this disruption actually occurs is largely inconsequential.

Judge Davis says this is free speech, alright, if you like your "free speech" surrounded by scare quotes.

Even in the most repressive of dictatorships, the citizenry is “free” to praise their leaders and other people of power or to espouse views consonant with those of their leaders. “Freedom of speech” is thus a hollow guarantee if it permits only praise or state-sponsored propaganda. Freedom of speech exists exactly to protect those who would criticize, passionately and vociferously, the actions of persons in power. But that freedom is denied to Bell by the majority opinion because the persons whose conduct he dared to criticize were school teachers. If left uncorrected, the majority opinion inevitably will encourage school officials to silence student speakers, like Taylor Bell, solely because they disagree with the content and form of their speech, particularly when such off-campus speech criticizes school personnel.

The majority does note that social media's ability to "bleed" into school life poses problems unanticipated by earlier decisions (like 1969's Tinker), but rather than explore that issue further, it simply decided on- and off-campus behavior were roughly inseparable if negative discussion of school employees in involved. The very low bar of "reasonably foreseeable disruption" grants schools leeway to arbitrarily punish off-campus speech. Anything can be "reasonably foreseeable," if enough imagination is applied and enough empathy is granted to these projections by the courts. And any post facto lack of disruption seemingly does nothing to harm schools' arguments in defense of their overreactions.

Filed Under: fifth circuit, first amendment, free speech, rapping, students, taylor bell

Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals Upholds Decision That Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Doesn't Violate Fourth Amendment

from the sadly,-another-one-for-the-'unsurprising'-column dept

The ongoing court battle over warrantless cell phone location tracking continues and the latest decision is another setback for the Fourth Amendment. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy over their location data. The decision states that location data is a "business record" created by private companies with the implicit consent of cell phone users and therefore are not subject to privacy protections.

[C]ell site information is clearly a business record. The cell service provider collects and stores historical cell site data for its own business purposes . . . the government merely comes in after the fact and asks a provider to turn over records the provider has already created.

The rationale is that cell phone companies are not required by the government to create or retain this data and that citizens are not required by the government to carry or use cell phones, thus making this data subject to the Third Party Doctrine and removing any expectation of privacy.

This rationalization goes counter to the recent NJ Supreme Court decision (unrelated other than in subject matter), which found that location data should be subject to privacy protections for nearly the same reason. Although cell phones aren't in any way "mandatory," the court stated that no one uses a cell phone with the intent of creating a location-specific metadata trail for law enforcement to scoop up without a warrant.

The decision to declare cell phone location data "business records" also plays into the hands of intelligence agencies like the NSA and FBI, allowing them to harvest vast amounts of data on Americans without running the risk of violating their constitutional rights (at least, not according to these interpretations). The court also added that there is some form of recourse for citizens worried about their rights being violated -- but both suggestions are a dead end.

"But the recourse for these desires is in the market or the political process: in demanding that service providers do away with such records (or anonymize them) or in lobbying elected representatives to enact statutory protections."

As the ACLU points out, neither of these "remedies" are likely to result in additional privacy protections.

Regarding the first point, perhaps the court is unaware how opposed the cell phone companies are to even disclosing how long they keep subscriber data. It took a nation-wide public records act request campaign before we received a Justice Department information sheet on how long carriers keep such records. (According to the 2010 document, Verizon keeps historical cell phone records for "1 rolling year" while Sprint keeps them for "18-24 months.") There is no cell phone company that doesn't retain historical cell site location data, or even one that keeps it only for a short time. And anyway, our Fourth Amendment rights should not depend on the largesse of for-profit corporations.

As for pressing for Congressional change, the ACLU has been doing just that for years. (The federal statute the government uses to obtain cell phone location records was written way back in 1986 and hasn't been meaningfully updated since.) But the mere fact that some other branch of government could provide a remedy is no reason for courts to take a pass on protecting Americans' privacy.

Expecting corporations to protect your privacy is, for the most part, a non-starter, especially if these corporations can monetize the data in any way. Furthermore, how many people actually believe the government would allow cell phone providers to simply scrap the data (or anonymize it) once it's served it purpose (monthly billing, for instance), rather than retain it for months on end? Intelligence agencies and law enforcement would simply push for legislation and court orders to ensure this flow of data continues uninterrupted.

In a 25-page dissent, Judge James Dennis pokes holes in the majority's "business records" rationalization, quoting Justice Sotomayor's reservations about the majority's opinion in US vs. Jones:

[In future cases] considering the existence of a reasonable societal expectation of privacy in the sum of one’s public movements[,] . . . it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks. People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries, and medications they purchase to online retailers. . . . I would not assume that all information voluntarily disclosed to some member of the public for a limited purpose is, for that reason alone, disentitled to Fourth Amendment protection.

By allowing law enforcement to access "business records" without a warrant, the Court opens up the possibility that these agencies will find a person's internet history, email and contact lists to be similarly devoid of Fourth Amendment protections. Saying one thing is a business record and one thing isn't only further obscures an aspect that needs clear delineation, one that would preferably draw the line before location data rather than attempt to determine which "parts" of a person's cell phone are subject to privacy protections.

We also have to ask why there's such an aversion to obtaining a warrant. In many cases, the information needed is historical. In other cases, when something more current or time-sensitive might be needed, there are emergency orders and other legal remedies (once in the courtroom) to allow some warrantless data collection to be admitted as evidence. The more these battles drag on, the more it appears that these agencies are benefiting from multiple interpretations of outdated laws, a benefit they'd clearly prefer to keep intact. This creates a path of least resistance, which becomes especially problematic when combined with the agencies' natural tendency to collect as much data as possible, "just in case."

Filed Under: 4th amendment, business records, expectation of privacy, fifth circuit, gps, location tracking, phone tracking, privacy, third party doctrine