USCA1 Opinion
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 96-1895
LUIS VARGAS-BADILLO,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
ANDRES DIAZ-TORRES, ET AL.,
Defendants - Appellees.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Daniel R. Dom nguez, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Torruella, Chief Judge,
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Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge,
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and Stahl, Circuit Judge.
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Peter John Porrata, with whom Law Offices of Peter John
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Porrata was on brief for appellant.
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Sylvia Roger-Stefani, Assistant Solicitor General,
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Department of Justice, with whom Carlos Lugo-Fiol, Solicitor
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General and Edda Serrano-Blasini, Deputy Solicitor General, were
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on brief for appellees.
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May 30, 1997
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TORRUELLA, Chief Judge. Luis Vargas-Badillo ("Vargas")
TORRUELLA, Chief Judge.
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brought this damages suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, claiming that
he was illegally arrested and subjected to excessive force by the
defendants, two Puerto Rico police officers.1 The district court
found that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on
the unlawful arrest claim, and granted their motion for summary
judgment. The court also determined that Vargas failed to state
a proper claim of excessive force. Vargas appeals on the
unlawful arrest claim, arguing that there was no probable cause
to support his warrantless arrest.2 We affirm.
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
In the summary judgment context, we review all material
facts in genuine dispute in the light most favorable to the non-
movant, here Vargas. Serrano-Cruz v. DFI Puerto Rico, 109 F.3d
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23, 24 (1st Cir. 1997). Vargas was one of three men who were in
a Puerto Rico Aqueducts and Sewers Administration truck that
collided with a car driven by Minerva Delgado-Gonz lez
("Delgado"). After the collision, which took place at night on a
hilly road, Vargas, Delgado, and Vargas' two colleagues agreed to
meet at a nearby police station to report the accident.
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1 Vargas initially named as defendants an unnamed supervisor and
Ismael Betancourt, the superintendent of the Puerto Rico Police
Department. The actions against these two other defendants were
dismissed through partial judgments, at which point the remaining
defendant officers filed their summary judgment motion.
2 On appeal, Vargas does not challenge the district court's
determination regarding his failure to state a cognizable
excessive force claim.
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At the police station, the defendant police officers,
Andr s D az-Torres and Andr s Maldonado-Castro, questioned the
four persons. Delgado told the officers that Vargas was the
driver of the truck -- a fact that Vargas disputes -- and that
she thought that he and the other men smelled of alcohol. She
also stated that the men had shiny eyes and staggered a bit.
When the officers sought out Vargas for further
questioning, he was outside the police station, drinking
something from a plastic cup. After the officers asked to speak
with him, he threw down his cup, entered the station, and began
smoking a cigarette. When the officers ordered him to put out
the cigarette, Vargas stubbed it out with his shoe on the floor
of the police station. Officer D az then told Vargas to dispose
of the cigarette in a trash can. Vargas denies being rude or
aggressive toward the officers, although he does not deny having
taken these particular actions.
Immediately thereafter, the police officers placed
Vargas under arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol,
under Section 5-801 of the Puerto Rico Vehicle and Traffic Law.
P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 9, 1041 et seq. They handcuffed and
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searched him before transporting him to a police station that had
a working breathalyzer. After the breathalyzer test indicated a
blood alcohol level of zero percent, Vargas was released. Vargas
was subsequently charged on a count of reckless driving based on
the same incident -- a criminal charge which was dropped once
Vargas' insureragreed to payfor the damagescaused by theaccident.
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The district court granted summary judgment on the
basis of qualified immunity. In so holding, it made two
findings: that the defendants were presented with sufficient
evidence to establish probable cause for Vargas' arrest, and that
although the particular warrantless arrest violated a Puerto Rico
statute, it did not violate any clearly established federal law.
DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
We review the district court's summary judgment
determination de novo. Ionics, Inc. v. Elmwood Sensors, Inc.,
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110 F.3d 184, 185 (1st Cir. 1997).
A. The Qualified Immunity Standard
A. The Qualified Immunity Standard
The doctrine of qualified immunity provides that
"government officials performing discretionary functions . . .
are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their
conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or
constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have
known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982).
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Defendant police officers are shielded if either of the following
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holds: if the federal law allegedly violated was not clearly
established at the time of the alleged violation, or if, at
summary judgment, there is no genuine dispute of material fact
that would prevent a finding that the defendants' actions, with
regard to applying or following such clearly established law,
were objectively reasonable. See Stella v. Kelley, 63 F.3d 71,
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73 (1st Cir. 1995). In effect, qualified immunity protects "all
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but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the
law." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986).
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This appeal presents two distinct legal issues. First,
we must determine whether the warrantless arrest of a suspected
misdemeanant, where the misdemeanor did not occur in the
officers' presence, would have violated clearly established
federal law as of December 1990. Second, we must determine
whether the officers acted in conformity with clearly established
law under an objective reasonableness standard.
B. The Clearly Established Law
B. The Clearly Established Law
It is not disputed that at the time of Vargas' arrest,
clearly established Fourth Amendment law required that the
defendants have probable cause to support Vargas' warrantless
arrest. See Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 91 (1964). Whether there
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were adequate grounds for making a probable cause determination
is addressed in the next section. However, Vargas also appears
to contend that the officers violated a rule prohibiting
warrantless arrests for misdemeanors that do not occur in the
presence of the arresting officers. We must thus determine
whether such a rule was a clearly established part of federal law
in December 1990, when Vargas' arrest occurred.
Vargas correctly points out that in Puerto Rico, such a
rule exists. Rule 11 of the Puerto Rico Rules of Criminal
Procedure provides that a warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor
offense is only permitted where the arresting officer has grounds
to believe that the misdemeanor was committed in his presence,
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whereas no such presence requirement governs the warrantless
arrest of felons. See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 34, App. II, R. 11
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(1991). Driving under the influence of alcohol is a misdemeanor
in Puerto Rico. See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 9, 1042 (1976).
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Regardless of whether the arresting officers violated Rule 11,
Vargas can offer no support for the proposition that, as of
December 1990, this provision had a clear basis in federal
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constitutional or statutory law. "Mere violations of state law
do not, of course, create constitutional claims." Roy v. City of
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Augusta, 712 F.2d 1517, 1522 (1st Cir. 1983).
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To date, neither the Supreme Court nor this circuit
ever has held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless
arrests for misdemeanors not committed in the presence of
arresting officers. Into this silent past, a "clearly
established right" cannot be retrojected. Moreover, cases from
sister circuits addressing this very issue have arrived at the
opposite conclusion. See, e.g., Pyles v. Raisor, 60 F.3d 1211,
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1215 (6th Cir. 1995) (arrestee cannot recover under section 1983
on ground that officers violated state law prohibition of
warrantless arrests for misdemeanors not committed in officers'
presence); Barry v. Fowler, 902 F.2d 770, 772 (9th Cir. 1990)
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(same); Street v. Surdyka, 492 F.2d 368, 371-72 (4th Cir. 1974)
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(same); see also Vargas-Badillo v. D az-Torres, Opinion and
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Order of May 24, 1996, at 12-17 (D.P.R. 1996) (providing an
illuminating discussion of the questionable constitutional status
of this longstanding rule). Thus, we conclude that the only
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clearly established federal right implicated in Vargas'
warrantless arrest in December 1990 was his Fourth Amendment
right not to be arrested without probable cause.
C. Objective Reasonableness and Probable Cause
C. Objective Reasonableness and Probable Cause
We next assess whether the second part of the qualified
immunity standard, requiring that the officers acted in an
objectively reasonable fashion in light of clearly established
law, was met. Here, that assessment turns on the officers'
determination of probable cause.
In cases applying this [qualified
immunity] standard to police arrests in
this circuit, an arrest challenged as
unsupported by probable cause is deemed
"'objectively reasonable'" unless "there
clearly was no probable cause at the time
the arrest was made."
Topp v. Wolkowski, 994 F.2d 45, 48 (1st Cir. 1993) (quoting Floyd
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v. Farrell, 765 F.2d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1985)). In the instant case,
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the evidence giving rise to probable cause to believe Vargas
drove under the influence of alcohol was far from substantial --
and yet we cannot say that there clearly was no probable cause
from the point of view of reasonable persons standing in these
police officers' shoes. See Farrell, 765 F.2d at 5 ("Despite a
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finding of no probable cause at a later hearing, a police officer
should not be found liable under 1983 for a warrantless arrest
because the presence of probable cause was merely questionable at
the time of arrest."); Briggs v. Malley, 748 F.2d 715, 719 (1st
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Cir. 1984).
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The Fourth Amendment requirement of probable cause to
perform a warrantless arrest turns on "whether at that moment the
facts and circumstances within [the officers'] knowledge and of
which they had reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient
to warrant a prudent man in believing that the petitioner had
committed or was committing an offense." Beck, 379 U.S. at 91;
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see also United States v. Figueroa, 818 F.2d 1020, 1023 (1st Cir.
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1987) (quoting Beck). Here, the following undisputed facts
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could, at the very least, have led reasonable police officers to
believe that they were obeying the probable cause requirement in
proceeding to arrest Vargas for driving under the influence of
alcohol. The officers were informed by Delgado, whether
correctly or incorrectly, that Vargas was the driver of the
truck. Delgado also informed the defendants that Vargas and the
other men smelled of alcohol and had glassy eyes. Reasonable
police officers could further believe that Vargas' actions
suggested insolence, and were thus the kind of actions that
correlate with drunkenness.
It is worth emphasizing that in the qualified immunity
context, we need not adjudge whether these facts were legally
sufficient grounds for this warrantless arrest.3 We only
conclude that the undisputed facts in this case preclude a
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3 The evidence suggesting that an arrest was necessary was
frankly not very strong in this case. We are concerned, for
example, that in light of Vargas' cooperation with the police and
voluntary decision to report to the police station, the police so
quickly chose the option of arrest and handcuffing, rather than
some less severe means to the end of giving him a breathalyzer
test.
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finding that there was clearly no probable cause, or that "no
reasonably competent officer would have found probable cause."
Prokey v. Watkins, 942 F.2d 67, 72 n.4 (1st Cir. 1991). The
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reports and observations suggesting that Vargas had been driving
while intoxicated were sufficient to satisfy the rule in this
circuit that questionable calls on matters of probable cause,
such as the one in this case, are protected through the doctrine
of qualified immunity. Cf. Rivera v. Murphy, 979 F.2d 259, 263-
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64 (1st Cir. 1992) (denying qualified immunity where arresting
officer provided "no facts to support his legal conclusion that
he had probable cause"). This kind of discretionary judgment
call, made routinely by peace officers, must be protected from
the chilling effect of personal liability. Our binding
precedents addressing qualified immunity strike the difficult
balance between chilling effective law enforcement and protecting
individual liberties by reviewing allegedly unlawful warrantless
arrests to determine whether there was clearly no probable cause,
and we follow these precedents today. See, e.g., Topp, 994 F.2d
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at 48.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the district court's grant
of summary judgment to the defendants is affirmed.
affirmed
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