Filed: Apr. 28, 2016
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-1110 STANLEY JONES, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. LANNA CHANDRASUWAN; BRIAN HOLBROOK, Defendants - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen, Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:13-cv-00385-WO-JLW) Argued: December 8, 2015 Decided: April 28, 2016 Before GREGORY, DUNCAN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Floyd wrote th
Summary: PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-1110 STANLEY JONES, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. LANNA CHANDRASUWAN; BRIAN HOLBROOK, Defendants - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen, Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:13-cv-00385-WO-JLW) Argued: December 8, 2015 Decided: April 28, 2016 Before GREGORY, DUNCAN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Floyd wrote the..
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PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-1110
STANLEY JONES,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
LANNA CHANDRASUWAN; BRIAN HOLBROOK,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen,
Jr., Chief District Judge. (1:13-cv-00385-WO-JLW)
Argued: December 8, 2015 Decided: April 28, 2016
Before GREGORY, DUNCAN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Floyd wrote the opinion,
in which Judge Gregory and Judge Duncan joined.
ARGUED: S. Luke Largess, TIN, FULTON, WALKER & OWEN, P.L.L.C.,
Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Joseph Finarelli,
NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina,
for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Roy Cooper, North Carolina Attorney
General, Kimberly D. Grande, Assistant Attorney General, NORTH
CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellees.
FLOYD, Circuit Judge:
Appellees Lanna Chandrasuwan (Chandrasuwan) and Brian
Holbrook (Holbrook), both North Carolina probation officers,
sought Appellant Stanley Jones’s (Jones) arrest for allegedly
violating conditions of his probation. This case raises
questions regarding the application of the Fourth Amendment to
the seizure of probationers. The district court granted
Appellees’ motion for summary judgment on Jones’s Fourth
Amendment claim, finding that they were entitled to qualified
immunity. While we disagree with the district court’s
discussion at step one of the qualified immunity analysis, we
affirm because the right at issue was not clearly established at
the time Jones was arrested.
I.
In October 2009, Jones—at the time a teacher and North
Carolina resident—was arrested and charged with two counts based
on an inappropriate relationship with a student. While the
charges were pending, Jones resigned and began working as a
salesman for Prime Communications (Prime) in Greensboro, North
Carolina. Jones was promoted twice and, in April 2010,
transferred to a position with Prime in Augusta, Georgia.
On July 7, 2010, Jones returned to North Carolina and
pleaded guilty in state court to two counts of taking indecent
2
liberties with a student and was sentenced to a minimum of 6
months and maximum of 8 months in prison. The sentence was
suspended, and Jones was placed on supervised probation for 24
months. As one of the conditions of his probation, the state
court required that Jones pay $471.50 in court costs and fines
pursuant to a schedule to be determined by his probation
officer. The state court also allowed Jones to transfer
supervision of his probation to Georgia if accepted by the
Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision (the Compact),
an agreement between all 50 states allowing for the transfer of
probation supervision of adult offenders between member states.
Under the Compact, the sending state—in this case, North
Carolina—retains jurisdiction over the offender for purposes of
probation revocation, and the receiving state—in this case,
Georgia—supervises probation. Additionally, the sending state
is responsible for collecting any financial obligations imposed,
and, upon notification from the sending state that the offender
is not complying with payments, the receiving state must inform
the offender that he is in violation of the conditions of
supervision.
The same day he entered his plea, Jones reported to a
probation office in Greensboro and met with Judicial Services
Coordinator Latonia Williams (Williams). Jones completed an
application for transfer of supervision pursuant to the Compact.
3
In the application, Jones agreed to reside at the residence
listed until allowed by supervising authorities to change it, to
comply with the terms and conditions of supervision placed on
him by both North Carolina and Georgia, and that if he did not
comply with those terms and conditions, such a failure would be
considered a violation of probation and he could be returned to
North Carolina. Williams and Jones disagreed about whether he
would have to register as a sex offender, which could impact
whether Georgia accepted his transfer application. Jones left
to see his lawyer and Williams later determined that Jones would
not be required to register as a sex offender.
The next day, Jones again met with Williams. Jones and
Williams signed a DCC-2 form, which the North Carolina
Department of Community Corrections (DCC) uses to set a schedule
for payment of financial obligations. 1 However, the DCC-2 form
the parties signed was incomplete—it omitted information
regarding the payment rate, due date, and the total amount of
Jones’s financial obligation. This information was apparently
omitted because DCC had not yet received the criminal judgment,
which is required to establish the parameters of supervision.
The DCC-2 form was never completed.
1
While Jones asserts in his affidavit that he did not sign
a DDC-2 form, he concedes in his brief that he did, in fact,
sign the form.
4
Jones’s application for transfer of his probation
supervision was approved and Jones arrived in Georgia on July
13, 2010. The next day, North Carolina probation officers
forwarded the terms of Jones’s sentence to Georgia authorities
through the Interstate Compact Offender Tracking System (ICOTS),
a system facilitating communications between Compact member
states’ Compact offices. On July 15, 2010, Jones reported to
the Augusta, Georgia probation office. Throughout Jones’s
residency in Georgia, there were no reported violations of his
probation by Georgia authorities. In December 2010, Prime
offered Jones a promotion to a position located in Savannah,
Georgia. At Jones’s request, Georgia probation officers
transferred his supervision to a probation office in Savannah.
DCC policy requires that when a probationer is supervised
in another state under the Compact, a review is undertaken 180
days before his discharge. In January 2012, DCC employee Jay
Lynn (Lynn) conducted this 180-day review and determined that
Jones had not paid any of the costs and fines required by the
judgment. Lynn informed North Carolina Interstate Compact
District Coordinator Karl Waller (Waller) of this and instructed
him to confirm it with Holbrook, the chief probation and parole
officer in Greensboro. After confirming with Holbrook that
Jones had not paid his costs and fines, Waller sent a Compact
Action Request on January 25, 2012 to the Georgia Compact office
5
through ICOTS, requesting that Jones be instructed to pay the
costs and fines by February 1, 2012. On February 4, 2012, the
costs and fines remained unpaid and Waller completed a violation
report, which Lynn approved, stating that Jones was in violation
of the terms and conditions of his probation.
On February 9, 2012, Jones met with his probation officer
in Savannah, who introduced him to the Savannah office’s Compact
representative. The Compact representative explained that she
had received a notice from North Carolina that Jones had failed
to pay his costs and fines. Jones indicated that he knew he
still owed money, that the sum was due before his probation was
terminated in July, and that he would check with his lawyer
about arranging for payment. The same day, Waller received two
responses to his Compact Action Request. The first stated that
Jones had been instructed by his supervision officer to make
payment and that Jones was going to contact his lawyer about the
amount owed. The second response stated that Jones had been
instructed to make his payment and that he stated that he would
pay the balance by the end of the month.
On February 15, 2012, Waller returned Jones’s probation
file to Holbrook for “case management and collection of fines
and court costs.” J.A. 34. Holbrook forwarded the file to
Chandrasuwan—a probation officer under his supervision in the
Greensboro office—and instructed her to follow up with Jones.
6
On March 8, Chandrasuwan attempted to contact Jones at two
telephone numbers on file, but was unable to reach him. On
March 12, Chandrasuwan prepared a violation report recounting
that Jones had violated the conditions of his probation by
failing to timely pay court costs and fines. The same day,
Chandrasuwan attempted to notify Jones by mail of the need to
contact her or return to the Greensboro probation office within
two weeks to pay the outstanding fine. On March 26, when
Chandrasuwan had not heard from Jones, she filed the March 2012
violation report with the clerk of court.
On March 27, Chandrasuwan’s correspondence—which was sent
to Jones’s address in Augusta—was returned. The same day,
Chandrasuwan prepared an addendum violation report stating that
Jones had absconded and was avoiding supervision. Chandrasuwan
and Holbrook reached this conclusion without contacting Compact
officials or the Georgia probation office. Also the same day,
Chandrasuwan appeared before a magistrate judge in North
Carolina state court to secure an order for Jones’s arrest based
on his multiple probation violations. 2 At the hearing,
2
North Carolina law provides that an order for arrest may
be issued when “[a] defendant has violated the conditions of
probation.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-305(b)(4). Section 15A-
1345(a) provides that “[a] probationer is subject to arrest for
violation of conditions of probation by a law-enforcement
officer or probation officer upon either an order for arrest
issued by the court or upon the written request of a probation
(Continued)
7
Chandrasuwan presented the violation report and addendum and the
magistrate judge issued an order for Jones’s arrest. Jones’s
file was then transferred to another probation officer to
execute the arrest order.
On May 1, the United States Marshals Service arrested Jones
at his home in Savannah and he was held in a Georgia county
jail. The next day, Jones’s wife paid the $471.50 in full. On
May 7, Holbrook secured an order dismissing the probation
violations and recalling the arrest order and transmitted the
order to authorities in Georgia. Jones was released from
custody on May 8. In in interim, Prime terminated Jones’s
employment because he could not work due to his arrest and
incarceration. After a period of unemployment, Jones and his
family moved back to North Carolina.
In March 2013, Jones filed this action in North Carolina
state court, bringing claims for violation of his Fourth
Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and for malicious
prosecution under state law. Appellees removed the case to
federal court and moved for summary judgment. The district
court granted summary judgment in favor of Appellees, finding
that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The district
officer, accompanied by a written statement signed by the
probation officer that the probationer has violated specified
conditions of his probation. . . .”
8
court denied supplemental jurisdiction over Jones’s malicious
prosecution claim and dismissed the claim without prejudice.
Jones timely appealed.
II.
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo. Evans v.
Techs. Applications & Serv. Co., 80 F.3d 954, 958 (4th Cir.
1996). “Summary judgment is appropriate when ‘there is no
genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’” Bostic v. Schaefer,
760 F.3d 352, 370 (4th Cir. 2014) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted). “A dispute is genuine if a reasonable
jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”
Libertarian Party of Va. v. Judd,
718 F.3d 308, 313 (4th Cir.
2013) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “A fact
is material if it might affect the outcome of the suit under the
governing law.”
Id. (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). “We are required to view the facts and all
justifiable inferences arising therefrom in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party . . . .”
Id. at 312. In doing
so, we must not weigh evidence or make credibility
determinations. Mercantile Peninsula Bank v. French,
499 F.3d
345, 352 (4th Cir. 2007). “[C]ourts may not resolve genuine
disputes of fact in favor of the party seeking summary
9
judgment.” Tolan v. Cotton, 134 S. Ct. 1861, 1866 (2014) (per
curiam).
III.
Section 1983 is not itself a source of substantive rights,
but rather provides a method for vindicating federal
constitutional and statutory rights. 42 U.S.C. § 1983;
Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 271 (1994) (citation omitted).
Qualified immunity, an affirmative defense to liability under
§ 1983, protects all government officials except those who
violate a “statutory or constitutional right that was clearly
established at the time of the challenged conduct.” Carroll v.
Carman, 135 S. Ct. 348, 350 (2014). Determining whether
qualified immunity is appropriate is a two-step inquiry.
Pearson v. Callahan,
555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009). First, a court
must decide whether the facts that a plaintiff has shown make
out a violation of a constitutional right.
Id. Second, the
court must consider whether the right at issue was “clearly
established” at the time of the alleged misconduct.
Id.
While courts have the discretion to decide which of the
steps to address first, based on the facts and circumstances of
the case at hand, the two-step procedure is “often appropriate”
and “beneficial” because it “promotes the development of
constitutional precedent.”
Id. at 236. Indeed, “our regular
10
policy of avoidance” often “threatens to leave standards of
official conduct permanently in limbo.” Camreta v. Greene, 131
S. ct. 2020, 2024 (2011). To prevent that problem, the Supreme
Court permits “lower courts to determine whether a right exists
before examining whether it was clearly established.” Id.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court instructs courts to “think hard,
and then think hard again, before turning small cases into large
ones.”
Id. at 2023.
After thinking hard about it twice, we determine that the
two-step procedure is appropriate in this case in order to
clearly establish the standard that probation officers must meet
in order to arrest a probationer who allegedly violated the
conditions of his probation.
A.
Jones contends that Appellees violated his Fourth Amendment
rights by seeking his arrest for alleged probation violations.
We first determine what level of suspicion Appellees must have
had in order to arrest Jones for allegedly violating the terms
of his probation. Then we determine whether Appellees had that
level of suspicion here.
11
1.
Jones contends that Appellees violated his Fourth Amendment
rights by seeking his arrest for alleged probation violations
without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. The Fourth
Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures,” U.S. Const. amend. IV, and “this usually
requires the police to have probable cause or a warrant before
making an arrest.” Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 136
(2009). Probationers such as Jones, however, “do not enjoy the
absolute liberty to which every citizen is entitled, but only
. . . conditional liberty properly dependent on observance of
special [probation] restrictions.” Griffin v. Wisconsin,
483
U.S. 868, 874 (1987) (citations and internal quotation marks
omitted, alteration in original). The Supreme Court “has
repeatedly acknowledged that a State’s interests in reducing
recidivism and thereby promoting reintegration and positive
citizenship among probationers and parolees warrant privacy
intrusions that would not otherwise be tolerated under the
Fourth Amendment.” Samson v. California,
547 U.S. 843, 853
(2006).
Ultimately, “[t]he touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is
reasonableness” and the reasonableness of a search or seizure is
determined “by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which
12
it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the
degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate
governmental interests.” United States v. Knights, 534 U.S.
112, 118–19 (2001) (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). A person’s status as a probationer
informs both sides of this reasonableness balance: the intrusion
upon an individual’s privacy and necessity to promote legitimate
governmental interests. See
id. at 119.
Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has announced the
level of suspicion required under the Fourth Amendment to arrest
a probationer for a suspected probation violation. The Supreme
Court faced an analogous issue in Knights—the level of suspicion
required for searches of probationers—which provides guidance in
the arrest context. In Knights, the Supreme Court determined
that, where a probationer was subject to a probation condition
that his person or property could be searched at any time
without a warrant, reasonable suspicion that the probationer is
engaged in criminal activity is enough to make a search
reasonable. 534 U.S. at 121.
After Knights, it remains an open question whether a
suspicionless search of a probationer can be constitutional.
United States v. Midgette, 478 F.3d 616, 625 (4th Cir. 2007);
Knights, 534 U.S. at 120 n.6. Additionally, the Supreme Court
has upheld suspicionless searches of parolees pursuant to a
13
state statute allowing for such searches. Samson, 547 U.S. at
850 (noting that parolees have fewer expectations of privacy
than probationers, because parole is more akin to imprisonment
than probation is to imprisonment). However, the privacy
interests and governmental interests implicated in arrests and
searches are sufficiently different to foreclose the possibility
of a constitutional suspicionless arrest of a probationer. Cf.
Segura v. United States,
468 U.S. 796, 806 (1984) (“Different
interests are implicated by a seizure than by a search.”
(collecting cases)). Suspicionless arrests implicate obvious
privacy concerns while doing little to advance the government’s
“two primary goals of probation—rehabilitation and protecting
society from future criminal violations.”
Knights, 534 U.S. at
119.
On the other hand, these goals are advanced when probation
officers seek the arrest of a probationer they reasonably
believe has violated the terms of his probation. The government
has strong interests both in ensuring that probationers adhere
to the conditions of their probation and in effectively
redressing probation violations if they do not. These interests
are strengthened by the fact that probation is often imposed in
lieu of incarceration and that conditions of probation are often
intended to prevent future criminal conduct. While the privacy
concerns implicated by an arrest are certainly substantial,
14
balancing the governmental and private interests supports a
degree of suspicion lower than probable cause for arresting a
probationer for an alleged probation violation. Cf. Knights,
534 U.S. at 121 (“Although the Fourth Amendment ordinarily
requires the degree of probability embodied in the term
‘probable cause,’ a lesser degree satisfies the Constitution
when the balance of governmental and private interests makes
such a standard reasonable.”). Therefore, we hold that
probation officers must have reasonable suspicion before seeking
the arrest of a probationer for allegedly violating conditions
of his probation.
“The concept of reasonable suspicion, like probable cause,
is not readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal
rules.” United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989)
(citation and quotations omitted). In Knights, the Supreme
Court held that reasonable suspicion in the search context
exists where there is “a sufficiently high probability that
criminal conduct is occurring to make the intrusion on the
individual’s privacy interest reasonable.”
Knights, 534 U.S. at
121. Relying on Knights, we hold that reasonable suspicion in
the arrest context is present when there is a sufficiently high
probability that a probationer has violated the terms of his
probation to make the intrusion on the individual’s privacy
interest reasonable.
15
2.
With a reasonable suspicion standard in hand, we next must
determine whether Appellees had reasonable suspicion in this
case that Jones had violated the terms of his probation.
Appellees contend that they had reasonable suspicion that Jones
violated the terms of his probation in two ways: by failing to
pay his costs and fines and by absconding. While this is
admittedly a close case, we conclude that considering the
totality of the circumstances, there was not reasonable
suspicion of either violation. See Knights, 534 U.S. at 118
(holding that reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is
determined by “examining the totality of the circumstances”
(citation and quotations omitted)).
Whether Appellees had reasonable suspicion that he violated
a probation condition by failing to pay costs and fines turns
largely on application of the North Carolina probation statute.
North Carolina law provides that as a regular condition of
probation, a defendant must pay court costs and any fine ordered
by the court. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1343(b)(9). “[T]he court
may delegate to a probation officer the responsibility to
determine the payment schedule.” Id. § 15A-1343(g). A
probationer “must be given a written statement explicitly
setting forth the conditions on which he is being released.”
Id. § 15A-1343(c). Additionally, a probationer “must be given a
16
written statement setting forth” any modification to the
conditions of his probation that is subsequently made. Id.
North Carolina courts have read the written statement
requirement of § 15A-1343(c) quite strictly. In State v. Suggs,
the sentencing court modified the terms of the defendant’s
probation to add a special condition that the defendant
surrender his driver’s license and not operate a car for 6
months.
373 S.E.2d 687, 687 (N.C. Ct. App. 1988). However, a
written statement setting forth this condition was not given to
the defendant and after being charged with violating that
condition, the defendant moved to dismiss the charge because he
had not received a written copy of the modification.
Id. The
North Carolina Court of Appeals found that the provision of §
15A-1343(c) requiring written notice of a modification was
“obviously . . . mandatory” and that the court had “no authority
to rule otherwise.”
Id. at 688. The court rejected the state’s
argument that oral notice was a satisfactory substitute for a
written statement, holding that such a reading would “render the
statute nugatory.”
Id. Therefore, the court concluded that the
purported modification “was of no effect.”
Id. The North
Carolina Court of Appeals confirmed this reading of § 15A-1343
in State v. Seek, finding that an oral modification was
17
similarly unenforceable. 3 566 S.E.2d 750, 751 (N.C. Ct. App.
2002).
In a case with similar facts to those here, a probationer
was ordered to perform community service and pay court costs and
fines as conditions of his probation. State v. Boone, 741
S.E.2d 371, 371 (N.C. Ct. App. 2013). Although the schedule for
the defendant’s payments and community service was to be
established by the probation officer, there was no evidence that
a schedule had been established.
Id. at 371–73. The probation
officer filed a violation report alleging that the defendant had
violated his probation by failing to complete his community
service and failing to pay the entire amount of costs owed.
Id.
at 371–72. At a revocation hearing, the sentencing court
ordered the defendant’s probation revoked.
Id. at 372. The
North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed, basing its ruling on
the lack of a schedule for payment or community service and the
3
Suggs and Seek both considered modifications of probation
conditions rather than original conditions, and there is some
disagreement between the parties about whether the DCC-2 form—
had it been completed and given to Jones—would be an original
condition of probation or a modification. Jones did receive a
Criminal Bill of Costs, which listed the due date for the costs
and fines as July 7, 2012—the day his probation was to end.
However, we need not decide whether this Bill of Costs was a
condition of probation that the DCC-2 form would have modified
or whether the DCC-2 form itself would have been an original
condition of probation. Section 15A-1343(c) requires that a
probationer “must be given a written statement” of either an
original condition or a modification.
18
fact that, at the time of the violation report, six months
remained on the defendant’s probation. Id. at 372. Although
not explicitly relying on § 15A-1343(c), the Boone court held
that in the absence of a payment schedule, there was
insufficient evidence to support a finding that the defendant
had violated the terms of his probation.
Id.
Based on the plain language of § 15A-1343(c)—as well as the
North Carolina Court of Appeals’ holdings in Suggs, Seek, and
Boone—it is clear that a payment plan is a condition of
probation that must be provided to a probationer in writing and,
if a payment plan is not provided to the probationer in writing,
it is unenforceable. 4 It is undisputed that Jones was never
presented with any writing indicating that his costs and fines
were due before the end of his probation. Therefore, Appellees
could not have had reasonable suspicion that Jones violated a
condition of probation by failing to pay his costs and fines
4
The district court invoked Pullman abstention to avoid
determining whether § 15A-1343 gives probation offers discretion
whether to put a payment plan in writing. However, we are
convinced that § 15A-1343(c) requires all conditions of
probation to be in writing in order to be enforceable. While
§ 15A-1343(g) allows a court to delegate to a probation officer
the responsibility to determine a payment schedule, it does not
give the probation officer the discretion to not set a payment
plan or to not provide that payment plan in writing to the
defendant.
19
because there was no enforceable condition requiring him to pay
the costs and fines before the termination of his probation. 5
In seeking Jones’s arrest, Appellees also claimed that
Jones had absconded from supervision. This was based on several
attempts by Chandrasuwan to reach Jones by phone and mail. As
an initial matter, we note that this absconding charge was based
entirely on Appellees’ attempts to contact Jones regarding a
probation violation they unreasonably believed he had committed.
In other words, if Appellees had realized that there was no
enforceable payment condition, they never would have attempted
to contact him and the absconding charge would not have come
about.
Nevertheless, Appellees did not have reasonable suspicion
that Jones had absconded. Their attempts to reach Jones were
completely outside of the Compact. They had no communications
5 Appellees base their reasonable suspicion on a
communication from the Georgia Compact office stating that a
Georgia probation officer told Jones that he needed to pay the
costs and fines and that Jones said would pay “by the end of the
month.” J.A. 46. As an initial matter, Waller issued a
violation report before he heard back from Georgia and there is
no evidence that Appellees saw the communication indicating that
Jones would pay his costs and fines by the end of February.
Moreover, even if Appellees saw this communication from Georgia,
there was still no enforceable written condition requiring Jones
to pay the costs and fines by the end of the month. See Seek,
152 N.C. App. at 239 (“[O]ral notice is not a satisfactory
substitute for the written statement that the statute requires.”
(citation, quotations, and alteration omitted)).
20
with Georgia probation officials, who Appellees acknowledge were
supervising Jones’s probation. 6 Both DCC and Compact Rules
require that communications regarding violations be transmitted
between the Compact offices of the sending and receiving states.
See J.A. 100 (Compact Rule 2.101(d) providing that “[v]iolation
reports or other notices regarding offenders under this compact
shall be transmitted only through direct communication of the
compact offices of the sending and receiving states.”); Addendum
to Appellant’s Br. 39-40 (Chapter D Section .0300 of DCC policy
providing that if the North Carolina probation office wants the
offender to return to North Carolina for a hearing, the
violation report should be submitted through ICOTS). Quite
simply, there was not a sufficiently high probability that Jones
absconded because no effort was made to contact the office
responsible for supervising Jones’s probation.
Therefore, Appellees violated Jones’s Fourth Amendment
rights by seeking his arrest for alleged probation violations
without reasonable suspicion.
6 It seems especially odd that Appellees—who assert that
they relied on communications from the Georgia compact office
indicating that Jones would pay his costs and fines by the end
of the month—would not contact the Georgia Compact office to
determine Jones’s whereabouts, especially when they knew Georgia
probation officials had been in contact with Jones only a month
earlier.
21
B.
Even after finding that Appellees violated Jones’s
constitutional rights by seeking his arrest without reasonable
suspicion, we still must determine whether that right was
clearly established. We hold that it was not.
“A right is clearly established only if its contours are
sufficiently clear that ‘a reasonable official would understand
that what he is doing violates that right.’” Carroll, 135 S.
Ct. at 350 (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640
(1987)). While “a case directly on point” is not required,
“existing precedent must have placed the statutory or
constitutional question beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd,
131 S. Ct. 2074, 2083 (2011).
As discussed above, neither the Supreme Court nor this
Court had announced the level of suspicion required under the
Fourth Amendment to arrest a probationer for a suspected
probation violation. In other words, precedent had not placed
the level of suspicion required to arrest a probationer “beyond
debate.” Id. The district court acknowledged that “this area
of the Fourth Amendment is particularly murky.” J.A. 133. This
“murkiness” is also demonstrated by the fact that Jones
originally argued that Appellees violated his rights by
arresting him without probable cause, before later settling on a
reasonable suspicion standard. As discussed above, precedent
22
had not definitively ruled out suspicionless arrests of
probationers.
Therefore, we conclude that the standard required by the
Fourth Amendment to arrest a probationer was not clearly
established at the time Appellees sought Jones’s arrest for
allegedly violating the terms of his probation.
IV.
Although we find that Appellees violated Jones’s Fourth
Amendment rights, we affirm the district court’s conclusion that
they are entitled to qualified immunity because the right at
issue was not clearly established at the time Appellees sought
Jones’s arrest.
AFFIRMED
23
