APRIL SMITH v. JASON MUNDAY et al
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Gregory, Feb. 3, 2017,
Qualified Immunity- The officer who drafted and submitted an application for an arrest warrant can be held liable for malicious prosecution. However, officers that merely serve a facially valid arrest warrant are not liable for false arrest.
(Concur, Dissent – Agee- Reasonable minds could disagree as to whether there was probable cause; concur as to other claims)
Facts:
In 2009, Officer Munday and his partner used a CI to conduct a controlled purchase from a location in North Carolina. The CI was wired, searched for contraband, and given $60 in buy money.
The CI conducted the buy and said that he purchased drugs from a skinny, black female named “April Smith.” The video was pointed in the wrong direction to capture the transaction but showed “an unidentified black woman sitting on a front porch, and two other individuals standing on the porch.” The audio recorder had no batteries. “April Smith” was unknown to investigators.
A search of records at some point in the months after the buy revealed that a woman named “April Yvette Smith” lived in the county with priors for CDS Distribution. Two other women named “April Smith” were also found with criminal records.
Nine months after the controlled purchase, with no further investigation, Munday applied for an arrest warrant and charged “April Yvette Smith” with the CDS Distribution. He chose to charge her over the other two April Smiths “for no immediately apparent reason.”
Smith was jailed for eighty days and lost her job. The case was later dismissed.
Smith sued the officers who arrested her, Officer Munday (the officer that applied for the arrest warrant), and others.
Held:
The officers who arrested Smith on what appeared to be a valid arrest warrant were immune from suit. The officer that drafted the warrant application was not.
Probable Cause
Probable Cause- Probable-cause “examine[s] the facts within the knowledge of arresting officers to determine whether they provide a probability on which reasonable and prudent persons would act.”
From the Case: “When applying for an arrest warrant, Munday simply did not have enough information for any reasonable or prudent person to believe there was probable cause. He lacked any information connecting Smith’s conduct to the contours of the offense, and certainly lacked enough evidence to create any inference more than mere suspicion.”
“There is no evidence that Munday attempted to identify Smith as the black woman in the video footage. There is no evidence that the officers showed Lynch a photo of Smith to establish the identification. There is no evidence that the officers investigated Smith herself, or found any indication that Smith frequented the site of the drug sale that day, that month, or at all. Indeed, there is no explanation whatsoever for the nine month delay between Lynch saying a black woman named April Smith sold crack cocaine to him and the issuance of an arrest warrant
for April Yvette Smith.”
Malicious Prosecution
Malicious Prosecution- A claim of malicious prosecution under 1983 requires:
– An arrest not supported by probable cause
– The arrest was based on a warrant
– The criminal proceedings ended in the suspect’s favor.
Qualified Immunity- A magistrate judge’s approval of an arrest warrant does not shield the officer in a case where the probable cause is “so scant–indeed, it is nonexistent–that deferring to the magistrate judge would be inappropriate.”
Good Faith- While applying for a warrant prior to a search or seizure is generally evidence that officers acted in “good faith,” that does not apply where “the warrant application is so lacking in [] probable cause as to render official belief in its existence unreasonable.”
Good Faith- A warrant is insufficient to protect an officer where it has an “error that is apparent from a ‘simple glance’ at the face of the warrant itself.”
From the Case: “And here, even a glance shows that Munday was unreasonable if he believed he had probable cause.”
False Arrest
False Arrest- A claim of False Arrest requires an arrest not supported by probable cause
Qualified Immunity- Where an arrest warrant is valid on its face, an officer serving it is immune from suit even if the arrest warrant is later invalidated.