Case Law 2

Question 1

what are the facts Powell v. Haddock, 366 Fed. Appx. 29 (11th Cir. 2011)

Answer 1

Police were dispatched on the side of a highway e because of a family altercation (Florida). Once deputies arrived at the scene, deputy grabbed Powell’s arm as though to push her off the road as she was telling him what had happened. Powell told Deputy Stone to “get [his] hands off [her],” and took a few steps away from Deputy Stone, when Deputy Rackard told Powell that if she didn’t listen or follow his lawful command he was going to shoot her.

Question 2

what is the holding of Powell v. Haddock, 366 Fed. Appx. 29 (11th Cir. 2011)

Answer 2

Deputy Rackard argues that he had arguable probable cause to arrest Powell for resisting an officer without violence once she failed to follow his instructions, but there was no instruction given that Powell failed to obey and her words alone did not rise to the level of resisting an officer

Question 3

J.M v. State, 960 So. 2d 813 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007)

Answer 3

J.M, a fight was occurring in a public park where four hundred students had gathered to watch a fight. The officers requested J.M. to leave the park because his physical presence was impeding their ability to diffuse the fight.

Question 4

K.A.C. v. State, 707 So. 2d 1175 (1998)

Answer 4

K.A.C. was a possible truant located on a public street during school hours and pursuant to Florida law the Officer was expressly authorized to inquire regarding the child’s truancy.

Question 5

what are the facts of Redd, 140 F.3d 1378

Answer 5

Appellee traveling ministers were arrested for disorderly conduct by appellant police officers when they were preaching loudly on a public sidewalk near a busy intersection

Question 6

what is the holding of Redd, 140 F.3d 1378

Answer 6

The court also held the state could enforce regulations of time, place, and manner of expression that were content-neutral and narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest. Appellees were not selectively arrested for engaging in religious speech.

Question 7

what is the holding of Williamson v. Mills, 65 F.3d at 158

Answer 7

The court held that appellee was not entitled to qualified immunity from appellant’s claim of false arrest because an officer in appellee’s shoes could not have reasonably concluded that he had probable cause to arrest appellant for taking pictures of undercover officers while participating in a public festival as there was no link between the suspected criminal activity involving death threats against an undercover officer and appellant.

Question 8

what does mills say about investigative detention/arrest?

Answer 8

The district court determined that Mills’s detention had crossed the hazy boundary between an investigative stop (requiring only a reasonable suspicion under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968), and its progeny) and an arrest (requiring probable cause). We agree with the court’s analysis–and indeed it goes unchallenged in this appeal–but believe that the court asked the wrong question. The relevant question is not whether the detention amounted to an arrest, but whether precedent compelled a reasonable official in Mills’s shoes, possessing the information he possessed, to conclude that his detention of Williamson was an arrest rather than an investigative stop. In a case such as this in which the level of Fourth Amendment protection is a possible issue, determination of the investigative stop-arrest boundary necessarily enters into the legal analysis we ascribe to the defendant to determine whether “what [he] is doing violates federal law in the circumstances.” Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150. See United States v. Espinosa-Guerra, 805 F.2d 1502, 1506 (11th Cir.1986); United States v. Berry, 670 F.2d 583, 591 (5th Cir. Unit B 1982) (en banc).

Question 9

Faulkner, 488 F. 2d 328.

Answer 9

Police officers investigated a car driven by defendant driver after they noticed that the car did not have a front license plate and that the rear license plate was hanging at an angle. Defendants gave conflicting stories as to ownership and the officers, suspecting that the car might have been stolen, found that the vehicle identification number had been removed. The officers were provided the license and registration papers, but neither defendants’ name appeared on them. The search of car revealed a large quantity of $ 20 bills, some of them bearing the same serial number.

Question 10

What is the holding of the Faulkner

Answer 10

Faulkner holds that under the circumstance (e.g contradictory stories about their relationship and the ownership of the car, the vehicle identification number was missing from the car, and the registration papers did not match the occupants’ names or anyone they claimed to know) it was constitutionally permissible to search the vehicle for proof of ownership.

Question 11

Asher v. McClure, 424 Fed. Appx. 818, 821 (11th Cir. 2011),

Answer 11

none of the Defendants or any other law enforcement officer ran the license plate tags or otherwise attempted to determine who owned the Corvette or to whom it was registered. Nor did they look inside the car and see anything that would give them reason to believe that they would find contraband in the car. It was only after the warrantless entry into the house, at which point Defendants found the keys to the Corvette as well as other numerous firearms, that they decided to search the car. Because disputed issues of material fact remain concerning the constitutionality of the search of both the house and the Corvette on the property, we affirm the district court’s denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity

Question 12

Hope, 536 U.S. at 741.

Answer 12

The inmate was handcuffed to a hitching post on two occasions. Once following an argument with another inmate and the second time following a wrestling match with a guard. On the later occasion, he remained shirtless all day while the sun burned his skin. He remained attached to the post for approximately seven hours during which he was given water only once or twice and was given no bathroom breaks. The Court held that the facts as alleged constituted an obvious Eighth Amendment violation. Any safety concerns had long since abated by the time the inmate was handcuffed to the hitching post. Despite the clear lack of an emergency situation, the guards knowingly subjected him to a substantial risk of physical harm, to unnecessary pain caused by the handcuffs and the restricted position of confinement for a seven hour period, to unnecessary exposure to the heat of the sun, to prolonged thirst and taunting, and to a deprivation of bathroom breaks that created a risk of particular discomfort and humiliation.

Question 13

What is the holding of Hope?

Answer 13

Qualified immunity operates to ensure that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice their conduct is unlawful. For a constitutional right to be clearly established, its contours must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent

Question 14

Jones v. City of Dothan, 121 F.3d 1456 (11th Cir. 1997)

Answer 14

Appellee citizens filed an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C.S. § 1983 against appellant police officers alleging that appellants violated appellees’ constitutional rights by performing an illegal pat down and using excessive force. Appellants filed a motion for summary judgment predicated on qualified immunity. The magistrate judge denied the motion. On appeal, the court reversed, stating that appellees were required to show that when appellants acted, the law was developed in such a concrete and factually defined context to make it obvious to all reasonable government actors in appellants’ position that the conduct violated federal law. The court determined that while the use of force by appellants may have been unnecessary, both the actual force used and the injury inflicted were minor in nature and the application of an excessive force standard would not inevitably have led a reasonable officer in appellants’ position to conclude that the force was unlawful. The court also determined that there was no law that would have made it readily apparent to reasonable officers in appellants’ position that their conduct in performing a pat down was unconstitutional.

Question 15

Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480

Answer 15

Defendants handcuffed the decedent, who had a history of psychological problems and who had stopped taking his medication, and placed him into a police car with his feet in leg restraints on the back seat and his head in the space between the front and back seats. The decedent suffocated

Question 16

Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480

Answer 16

The court noted that the trial court did not find that either defendant knew of and disregarded an excessive risk that the decedent would suffocate after he was placed in the back seat of the police car and before it arrived at the station five minutes later or that either defendant drew from the facts known to that defendant the inference that a substantial risk of harm existed. The court held that the events surrounding the arrest and the force applied made it clear that there was no genuine issue of material fact concerning excessive force.

Question 17

Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480

Answer 17

For example, when the claim is that a search and seizure or arrest violated the Fourth Amendment, qualified immunity depends upon whether arguable probable cause existed. More specifically, the qualified immunity issue in such cases is not whether probable cause existed, but whether a reasonable officer possessing the information the defendant officer possessed could have believed it did. E.g., Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 228, 112 S. Ct. 534, 537, 116 L. Ed. 2d 589 (1991); Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641, 107 S. Ct. 3034, 3040, 97 L. Ed. 2d 523 (1987); Swint v. City of Wadley, Ala., 51 F.3d 988, 996 (11th Cir. 1995). That is a core qualified immunity issue.

Question 18

Swint v. City of Wadley, 51 F.3d 988

Answer 18

On December 14, 1990, and again on March 29, 1991, law enforcement officers from Chambers County and the city of Wadley, Alabama, raided the Capri Club in Chambers County as part of a narcotics operation. The raids were conducted without a search warrant or an arrest warrant

Question 19

Swint v. City of Wadley, 51 F.3d 988

Answer 19

Based on the record before us, read in a light favorable to the plaintiffs, we cannot conclude that the individual defendants had even arguable probable cause to conduct the extensive raids of the Club, which included a search of the premises, the seizure of all employees, patrons, and owners present, and the search of some of those who were detained. Stated somewhat differently, law enforcement officers in the position of these individual defendants could not reasonably have concluded that adequate probable cause existed to justify the searches and seizures that occurred.

Question 20

Eubanks v. Gerwen, 40 F.3d 1157

Answer 20

In this instance, the district court properly determined that defendants were acting within their discretionary authority, and that under clearly established applicable legal principles with regard to warrantless searches and seizures, Detective Losey’s investigatory stop, and thus the subsequent arrest, was legal. In a case involving a warrantless search and seizure, the question of whether [**7] qualified immunity should be held to exist turns upon whether there was “arguable” probable cause, as opposed to probable cause in fact. Von Stein v. Brescher, 904 F.2d 572, 579 (11th Cir.1990). HN2Go to the description of this Headnote.The standard for arguable probable cause is whether a reasonable officer in the same circumstances and possessing the same knowledge as the officer in question could have reasonably believed that probable cause existed in the light of well-established law. Id. As the district court detailed, Detective Losey had arguable probable cause under the circumstances, given that Johnson had been a reliable informant in the past and that the tip which he provided to Losey on the day in question contained specific information which tended to show the tip itself was reliable. As there is no genuine issue of material fact to be resolved in determining if the defendants’ actions were objectively reasonable under the law, the district court correctly held that defendants were entitled to assert qualified immunity and correctly granted summary judgment as to Eubanks’ § 1983 false arrest contentions.

Question 21

Eubanks v. Gerwen, 40 F.3d 1157

Answer 21

Plaintiff filed suit after a confidential informant led police to arrest plaintiff for possession of cocaine, for which he was ultimately acquitted. Plaintiff alleged that the confidential informant set him up to get a better sentence for himself on a pending criminal charge.

Question 22

Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324

Answer 22

The case involved the inaccessibility of the airline’s web site to individuals who were visually impaired and used the Internet through a special software program called a “screen reader.” Some features of the web site made it very difficult to access using a screen reader. Plaintiffs claimed that this limitation placed the web site in violation of Title III, which required privately operated “places of public accommodation” to be accessible to disabled individuals. The instant court found that plaintiffs presented the instant court with a case that was wholly different from the one they brought to the district court. Specifically, plaintiffs had not appealed from the determination that the airline’s website was not a place of public accommodation under Title III. Rather, their appellate brief, for the first time, argued that the airline as a whole was a place of public accommodation because it operated a “travel service,” and that it had violated Title III precisely because of the web site’s connection to the airline’s “travel service.” The instant court concluded that this case was not one of the “exceptional” ones in which it should elect to entertain a new theory and argument.

Question 23

Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324

Answer 23

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has permitted issues to be raised for the first time on appeal under five circumstances: First, an appellate court will consider an issue not raised in the district court if it involves a pure question of law, and if refusal to consider it would result in a miscarriage of justice. Second, the rule may be relaxed where the appellant raises an objection to an order which he had no opportunity to raise at the district court level. Third, the rule does not bar consideration by the appellate court in the first instance where the interest of substantial justice is at stake. Fourth, a federal appellate court is justified in resolving an issue not passed on below where the proper resolution is beyond any doubt. Finally, it may be appropriate to consider an issue first raised on appeal if that issue presents significant questions of general impact or of great public concern

Question 24

Crenshaw v. Lister, 556 F.3d 1283

Answer 24

It is the law in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that when the exhibits contradict the general and conclusory allegations of the pleading, the exhibits govern. Where a plaintiff attaches documents and relies upon the documents to form the basis for a claim or part of a claim, dismissal is appropriate if the document negates the claim