Joyce v. Tewksbury

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

No. 95-1814

JOANNE JOYCE, INDIVIDUALLY
AND AS EXECUTRIX OF THE ESTATE OF
JAMES D. JOYCE,

Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.

TOWN OF TEWKSBURY, MASSACHUSETTS,
JOHN R. MACKEY, ALFRED DONOVAN
AND ROBERT BUDRYK,

Defendants, Appellees.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. A. David Mazzone, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Torruella, Chief Judge,

Campbell, Senior Circuit Judge,

Selya, Boudin, Stahl and Lynch, Circuit Judges.

April 29, 1997

OPINION EN BANC

Robert LeRoux Hernandez with whom Law Offices of Robert L.

Hernandez were on brief for appellant.

Larry W. Yackle with whom John Reinstein was on brief for

American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, amicus curiae.

Leonard H. Kesten with whom Deidre Brennan Regan, Kurt B.

Fliegauf and Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kestin were on brief for

appellees.

Per Curiam. We are concerned on this appeal with the

decision of the district court granting summary judgment on

one of the several claims that have been litigated in this

case, specifically, a claim that police entry into a house

without a search warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.

Review is de novo and the facts are set forth in the light

most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment. Le

Blanc v. Great Am. Ins. Co., 6 F.3d 836, 841 (1st Cir. 1993),

cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1018 (1994).

Late on the evening of August 6, 1989, officers Alfred

Donovan and Robert Budryk arrived at the home of Joanne and

James Joyce ("the Joyces") in Tewksbury, seeking to arrest

the Joyces' son, Lance Joyce. Although Lance did not live

with his parents, the police had received a call earlier in

the evening from Lance's ex-girlfriend informing them that he

was there. Allegedly, an outstanding warrant existed for

Lance's arrest on a charge of violating a chapter 209A

domestic restraining order. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 209A, 7.

Lance answered the officers' knock at the Joyces' side

door, opening the interior door but keeping the outer screen

door closed. Officer Budryk told Lance that the officers had

a warrant for his arrest, and asked him to step outside.

Instead, Lance retorted "ya right" and withdrew from the

doorway, calling for his mother. The police followed him.

Joanne Joyce, who had been asleep, then came downstairs to

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find her son and the police officers standing in her dining

room. Her husband entered the room a few minutes later.

The Joyces asked the officers what was going on and

whether they had a warrant; the officers explained that they

were there to arrest Lance and that a warrant for his arrest

existed, although they did not have it with them. James

Joyce left the room with a third officer (who had arrived

separately) to call the police department, which confirmed

Donovan and Budryk's understanding that there was an

outstanding warrant for Lance's arrest.

While her husband was gone, a scuffle ensued between the

police officers and Joanne Joyce. Joanne Joyce admits that

she protested Lance's immediate arrest, although she denies

pushing the police officers away. One of the officers

grasped Joanne Joyce's upper arms and moved her aside,

allowing them to handcuff Lance and secure his arrest; Joanne

Joyce claims that one of the officers threatened to kill her

unless she got out of the way. Joanne Joyce was charged with

assault and battery but acquitted in a state court jury trial

in February 1990.

In April 1990, the Joyces brought suit alleging that the

officers, the chief of police and the town had violated 42

U.S.C. 1983 and the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, Mass.

Gen. Laws ch. 12, 11I. The section 1983 claims were based

upon alleged violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth

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Amendments during the officers' entry without a search

warrant into the Joyce home and claimed use of excessive

force in arresting Lance Joyce. The Joyces also claimed that

the officers had committed assault and battery, intentional

infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution,

and that the town had negligently trained and supervised the

officers in violation of the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act,

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 258.

The defendants moved for summary judgment on the issue

of illegal entry. Citing United States v. Santana, 427 U.S.

38 (1976), they said that the police had not violated the

Fourth Amendment because they entered the Joyce home in

pursuit of Lance Joyce whom they were in the process of

lawfully arresting. The district court granted defendants'

motion by margin order, explaining that "[t]here is no

evidence in the record to support [that] the entry was in

violation of the Fourth Amendment."

A jury trial followed. The record indicates that only

three of the remaining claims were presented at trial: a

section 1983 claim alleging that the officers had violated

the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force to arrest Lance

Joyce, causing his mother injury; a malicious prosecution

claim; and a Massachusetts Civil Rights Act claim based on

the alleged threat by the officers to Joanne Joyce during the

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altercation. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants

on all counts.

Joanne Joyce then appealed on her own behalf and as

executrix of the estate of James Joyce. She asked not only

for reversal of the summary judgment grant on the illegal

entry claim but also for a new trial on the other claims,

arguing that the trial of the latter claims was tainted

because the jury was not allowed to consider unlawful entry

as one of the circumstances incident to the excessive force,

malicious prosecution and MCRA claims. A panel of this court

affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment.

Joanne Joyce then petitioned for rehearing en banc,

supported by the American Civil Liberties Union as amicus

curiae. Both urge that the officers' entry, without a search

warrant, violated the Fourth Amendment; they distinguish

Santana on the ground that the suspect there was standing in

public space (just outside her house) when the police engaged

her, while Lance Joyce was inside his parents' home

throughout. Joyce also argues that the underlying offense,

violation of a restraining order, is not a felony under

Massachusetts law.

In considering the petition for rehearing en banc, we

concluded that the claim against the officers might be

foreclosed by qualified immunity. Accordingly, we requested

supplemental memoranda. Having considered the memoranda, we

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have decided to grant rehearing en banc, withdraw the panel

opinion, and substitute this opinion as the en banc court's

resolution of the appeal. Because qualified immunity turns

primarily on an appraisal of existing case law, oral argument

has been deemed unnecessary.

When the police enter the home of the person they wish

to arrest, the arrest warrant suffices for entry if "there is

reason to believe the suspect is within." Payton v. New

York, 445 U.S. 573, 603 (1980). But even when armed with an

arrest warrant, police must generally have a search warrant

to enter lawfully a third person's home. Steagald v. United

States, 451 U.S. 204, 212-13 (1981). However, a third

person's house may be lawfully entered without a search

warrant if exigent circumstances exist, Steagald, 451 U.S. at

213-14, and exigent circumstances include "hot pursuit."

Santana, 427 U.S. at 42-43; Hegarty v. Somerset County, 53

F.3d 1367, 1374 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 675

(1995).

Here, the defendants claim that Santana justified their

entrance into the Joyce home because they were in hot pursuit

of Lance Joyce. Joanne Joyce and the ACLU respond that

police first engaged Santana when she was outside her home,

standing directly on her threshold. Ultimately, they argue

that to uphold the entry in this case creates a slippery

slope, allowing the police to enter without a search warrant

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if the police merely suspect that the person sought is inside

the house.

The governing case law under the Fourth Amendment does

not yield very many bright line rules. This is not

surprising since the ultimate touchstone is one of

reasonableness: the hot pursuit is only one of several well-

established examples of "exigent circumstances" that make it

reasonable for the police to enter without obtaining a search

warrant. See Minnesota v. Olsen, 495 U.S. 91, 100 (1990);

Hegarty, 43 F.3d at 1374. Conversely, we are not impressed

by the slippery slope argument: entry where an arrest is not

already in progress, or where the offense is truly trivial,

would present quite a different case.

But even within this reasonableness framework, the

present case is not entirely straightforward. Santana's

exception likely does not turn on whether the individual is

standing immediately outside or immediately inside the house

when the police first confront him and attempt an arrest.

And, the fact that Massachusetts classifies the alleged

violation here as a misdemeanor does not reduce it to a

"minor offense," see Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 753

(1984); we agree with the panel that "domestic violence and

violations of protective orders are among the more grave

offenses affecting our society."

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On the other hand, we have no information as to whether

Lance Joyce's conduct that gave rise to the protective order

involved actual violence, although the police may have had

some basis for concern apart from the protective order.1 We

have ourselves suggested that certain "mitigating factors"

may undermine an exigency showing, including any inadequacy

in the opportunity afforded for a peaceable surrender and the

fact that entry occurs at nighttime. Hegarty, 43 F.3d at

1374. So, there are arguments to be made on both sides.

The Supreme Court cases, with Steagald at one pole and

Santana at the other, do not definitively resolve our own

case. Even a quick review of lower court cases reveals that

there is no settled answer as to the constitutionality of

doorway arrests. See State v. Morse, 480 A.2d 183, 186 (N.H.

1984) (collecting cases); 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure

6.1(e) (3d ed. 1996) (same). Circuit court precedent is also

divided, with some decisions helpful to the police in this

case and others less so.2

1The police officers' testimony at trial indicated that
Lance had a drinking problem (information which was
corroborated by Mrs. Joyce's testimony), had been placed in
protective custody ten or eleven times and arrested once or
twice by the Tewksbury police, had resisted arrest or tried
to escape on prior occasions, and that officer Donovan had
been involved in a few of the earlier incidents.

2Compare, e.g., United States v. Rengifo, 858 F.2d 800,

804-05 (1st Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1023 (1989)

and United States v. Carrion, 809 F.2d 1120, 1123, 1128 & n.9

(5th Cir. 1987) with United States v. McCraw, 920 F.2d 224,

229-30 (4th Cir. 1990) and United States v. Curzi, 867 F.2d

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Given the unsettled state of the law, we have no

hesitation in concluding that the officers in this case are

protected by qualified immunity which protects public

officials against section 1983 liability so long as they

acted reasonably. Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 228

(1991); Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639 (1987). As

the Supreme Court has said, qualified immunity "provides

ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those

who knowingly violate the law." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S.

335, 341 (1986). The aim is to protect those who might

otherwise be deterred from official duties for fear that an

innocent mistake would create personal liability.

The critical point here is that officers Donovan and

Budryk are "entitled to qualified immunity [so long as] their

decision was reasonable, even if mistaken." Hunter, 502 U.S.

at 229 (emphasis added); see Veilleux v. Perschau, 101 F.3d

1, 3 (1st cir. 1996). Thus, the officers are not liable

unless in the circumstances of this case it is reasonably

well-established, and should therefore have been clear to the

officers, that the entry without a search warrant was

unlawful. Because it is not even clear that there was a

violation--a point that we do not decide--there certainly was

no violation so patent as to strip the officers of qualified

immunity.

36, 40 (1st Cir. 1989).

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The Joyces also sued the town under section 1983,

alleging that its failure to properly train and supervise the

officers resulted in their unlawful entry of her home.

Municipal liability under section 1983 is not vicarious, see

St. Louis v. Prapotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 128 (1988), and

municipalities do not enjoy qualified immunity, Owen v. City

of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 650 (1980). Consequently, it

is not impossible for a municipality to be held liable for

the actions of lower-level officers who are themselves

entitled to qualified immunity. Walker v. Waltham Housing

Auth., 44 F.3d 1042, 1047 (1st Cir. 1995).

However, our rationale here for granting qualified

immunity to the officers--that the unsettled state of the law

made it reasonable to believe the conduct in this case

constitutional--also precludes municipal liability.

Tewksbury could not have been "deliberately indifferent" to

citizens' rights, Bowen v. City of Manchester, 966 F.2d 13,

18 (1st Cir. 1992), in failing to teach the officers that

their conduct was unconstitutional. We need not decide

whether the Joyces have pointed to evidence suggesting that

the officers' conduct was endorsed by a municipal policy.

See St. Hilaire v. City of Laconia, 71 F.3d 20, 29 (1st Cir.

1995), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 2548 (1996).

There is some cost in not deciding the Fourth Amendment

issue on the merits, even in the form of dictum. But the en

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banc court is agreed that qualified immunity applies, and

there is less consensus about the underlying constitutional

issue. Indeed, some members of the en banc court consider

that Donovan and Budryk's entry into the Joyce home was of

very doubtful legality under the Fourth Amendment.

Resolution can properly await a case where the issue is

decisive, as it could easily be on a suppression claim where

qualified immunity does not apply.

The panel opinion is withdrawn and, for the reasons

given above, the judgment of the district court is affirmed

on grounds of qualified immunity.

Concurrence follows.

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TORRUELLA, Chief Judge (concurring). Resolving this
TORRUELLA, Chief Judge (concurring).

damages suit on qualified immunity grounds is entirely

appropriate, because the parties exercised the opportunity to

brief this issue, and because the issue of qualified immunity can

be "resolved with certitude on the existing record." United

States v. La Guardia, 902 F.2d 1010, 1013 (1st Cir. 1990)

(appellate court has discretion, in the exceptional case, to

"reach virgin issues"); see also Nat'l Ass'n of Social Workers

v. Harwood, 69 F.3d 622, 627 (1st Cir. 1995). One would think

that a Fourth Amendment right cannot possibly be deemed "clearly

established" from the point of view of the defendant police

officers when a total of seven judges, including the district

court, the appellate panel, and finally the en banc First Circuit

court, are themselves in disagreement as to the precise scope of

that right.

I write separately, however, only because I believe

that my dissenting brothers, in their efforts to show how

Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204 (1981) is controlling,

have lost sight of the touchstone of Fourth Amendment law, which

is reasonableness. See U.S. Const. Amend. IV ("The right of the

people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and

effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be

violated . . . .") (emphasis added). Our strong and deep-seated

intuitions regarding the sanctity of the home obviously inform

the determination of what kinds of searches are, and are not,

reasonable. We follow the Supreme Court's lead in these

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difficult determinations, but where the unique facts of a case do

not fall squarely under any one Supreme Court precedent, as here,

we cannot help but consider the reasonableness of the particular

search at issue.

We know from Santana that it may be reasonable to

follow a fleeing suspect from the threshold of a private

residence into that residence, without a search warrant, for the

purpose of effectuating an arrest. Santana, 427 U.S. at 43 ("[A]

suspect may not defeat an arrest which has been set in motion in

a public place, and is therefore proper under [United States v.

Watson, 423 U.S. 411 (1976)], by the expedient of escaping to a

private place."). We also know from Steagald that it is

certainly not reasonable to simply enter a third party's

residence without a search warrant, in the absence of exigent

circumstances, in the belief that the subject of an arrest

warrant is inside. One may seek to subsume the present case

under either Santana or Steagald -- but either way, this

requires that we draw some conclusions regarding their scope. In

drawing the outlines of the "exigent circumstances" or "hot

pursuit" exception, I find myself naturally turning to

reasonableness.

The precise question, then, is whether it is

reasonable for police officers, who are acting on an arrest

warrant arising from the commission of a jailable offense, who

are standing a few feet away from, and face-to-face with, the

subject of that arrest warrant (separated only by a transparent

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outer screen door), who have informed the same subject that he

must step outside because he is under arrest, and who then find

that the arrestee refuses to cooperate and retreats into the

residence, to follow that arrestee into the house in order to

effectuate the arrest. (And add to this the fact that although

the residence belonged technically to a third party, a suspect's

parents' residence is often looked upon as approximating his own

residence.) Because I believe, on these facts, that the

officers' entry and arrest was reasonable, I conclude that this

case falls under the "hot pursuit" rationale discussed in

Santana. Let us not lose sight of reasonableness in our efforts

to follow precedents that are, on occasion, not clearly

determinative.

This said, it may be that this particular damages

suit, with its spotty record, is not the best context in which to

define those "exigent circumstance" parameters on the merits. I

am confident, moreover, that these defendants are fully entitled

to qualified immunity. After all, this is not a case in which

the police entered an unrelated third-party's home in search of

an arrestee without any process at all -- such action would

clearly violate Steagald -- although some members of this court

may question whether the process that was followed here was

enough to satisfy the Fourth Amendment.

Concurrence follows.

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LYNCH, Circuit Judge (concurring). While I am
LYNCH, Circuit Judge (concurring).

sympathetic to the very strong arguments that the police

violated the Fourth Amendment, I join the per curiam. That

the judges of this court so strongly disagree about whether

there was a Fourth Amendment violation means that the law in

this area is not so clearly established as to make the

officers' actions objectively unreasonable. Anderson v.

Creighton, 483 U.S. 635 (1987); St. Hilaire v. City of

Laconia, 71 F.3d 20 (1995). The officers are entitled to

immunity, given the state of the law in 1989.

Dissent follows.

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SELYA, Circuit Judge, with whom STAHL, Circuit
SELYA, Circuit Judge, with whom STAHL, Circuit

Judge, joins (dissenting). Though the Fourth Amendment has
Judge, joins (dissenting).

fallen on hard times, a woman's home remains her castle. The

en banc court, seeking cover under the doctrine of qualified

immunity (a doctrine which, as I understand it, was neither

briefed nor argued to the panel), effectively condones an

unconstitutional encroachment on the sanctity of the home.

Although I applaud the withdrawal of the panel opinion, I

cannot in good conscience join the opinion of the en banc

court; that opinion admittedly edges closer to the holding

demanded by clearly established law, but stops short of

adhering to it and, thus, perpetuates a constitutionally

intolerable result. Respectfully and regretfully, I dissent.

As the en banc court faithfully relates, the

doctrine of qualified immunity protects state actors whose

actions are reasonable, if mistaken. But qualified immunity

does not shield violations of clearly established

constitutional principles merely because the specific factual

situation in which a violation arises has novel features. As

the Supreme Court recently noted in the immunity context,

"general statements of the law are not inherently incapable

of giving fair and clear warning, . . . a general

constitutional rule already identified in the decisional law

may apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in

question, even though the very action in question has not

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previously been held unlawful." United States v. Lanier, 117

S. Ct. 1219, 1227 (1997) (citation, brackets, and internal

quotation marks omitted). This is exactly such a case.

In the absence of exigent circumstances and

nothing in the instant record suggests any exigency, let

alone demonstrates exigency to an extent that might carry the

day on summary judgment the Fourth Amendment prohibits a

warrantless, non-consensual entry by the police into a

suspect's home in order to arrest him. See Payton v. New

York, 445 U.S. 573, 576 (1980). Of course, once the police

procure a valid arrest warrant, they may enter the suspect's

home for the limited purpose of effecting the arrest. See

id. at 603. But even then, the police may not enter a third

person's home without consent, a search warrant (in

contradistinction to an arrest warrant), or exigent

circumstances. See Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204,

205-06, 212-15 (1981).

In this case the police transgressed the clearly

established rule laid down by the Steagald Court. The

plaintiff, Joanne Joyce, was not herself a suspect. Yet the

defendant officers entered her home without her consent,

without a search warrant, and in the absence of any exigent

circumstances. To be sure, the defendants had an arrest

warrant for the plaintiff's son, Lance Joyce, but that is

scantconsolation becauseLance didnot livein hismother's home.

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In stitching together a qualified immunity defense

from this poor-quality cloth, the en banc court relies

heavily indeed, almost exclusively on United States v.

Santana, 427 U.S. 38 (1976). The court's reliance strikes me

as misplaced. Santana is an "exigent circumstances" case; it

stands only for the proposition that when the police confront

a suspect whom they have probable cause to arrest in a public

place, and the suspect subsequently flees into her own home,

they may pursue and arrest her. See id. at 42-43. That

proposition has no application here for two reasons (each of

which is independently sufficient to defenestrate the en banc

court's reasoning).

First, under Steagald, warrantless non-consensual

searches of a third person's home are only excused by exigent

circumstances. 451 U.S. at 205-06. Santana involved exigent

circumstances: the hot pursuit of a fleeing suspect from a

public place into a private one. 427 U.S. at 42-43. In this

case, by contrast, there is simply no evidence of any need

for pursuit hot, cold, or lukewarm. Certainly, the mere

fact that Lance Joyce, prompted by police action, moved from

one part of his mother's home to another did not create any

cognizable exigency. See United States v. Curzi, 867 F.2d

36, 40-43, 43 n.6 (1st Cir. 1989) (explaining that police

officers cannot use exigent circumstances that they have

created to justify a warrantless search).

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Second, and equally important, the record is

pellucid that Lance was not in a public place when the

officers first confronted him; although he opened an interior

door, he remained completely within the house and kept an

exterior weather door between himself and the officers

entirely shut. While the en banc court blithely asserts that

Santana does not turn on whether the individual whom the

police desire to apprehend is inside or outside a house when

the first contact occurs, this distinction makes every bit of

difference.3 The rule prohibiting warrantless invasions of

third parties' homes emerged in Steagald, a case that

followed and interpreted Santana. Rather than extending

Santana, Steagald, 451 U.S. at 214 n.7, 222, reinforces

Payton, a case in which the Supreme Court concluded that

"physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which

the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed." 445 U.S.

at 585 (citation omitted). Consequently, "the Fourth

Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the

house." Id. at 590. The Constitution does not equivocate on

3. Recent Supreme Court case law confirms that police action
directed at individuals within the confines of a dwelling is
subject to intense constitutional scrutiny. The
constitutional requirement to "knock and announce,"
established in Wilson v. Arkansas, 115 S. Ct. 1914, 1915-16

(1995), pertains only when the subject of the arrest warrant
is within a dwelling. The elevation of this requirement to
constitutional status can only be understood in terms of the
special protection granted those persons who are within a
private home's confines when the police first arrive on the
scene.

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this point. See United States v. Berkowitz, 927 F.2d 1376,

1388 (7th Cir. 1991) ("Payton did not draw the line one or

two feet into the home; it drew the line at the home's

entrance."); State v. Morse, 480 A.2d 183, 186 (N.H. 1984); 3

W. LaFave, Search and Seizure 6.1(e) (3d ed. 1996). Nor

should we.

In sum, I believe that the officers' entry into a

third party's home in the absence of consent, a search

warrant, or exigent circumstances plainly violated Steagald

and thus violated the homeowner's clearly established Fourth

Amendment rights. See United States v. McCraw, 920 F.2d 224,

228-29 (4th Cir. 1990) (rejecting use of Santana when door to

dwelling was only partially opened from within). By hedging

on this point, the en banc court not only denies the

plaintiff her day in court but also invites the proliferation

of such incidents. Since we will be seen as sanctioning that

which we are unwilling to condemn, I respectfully dissent.

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