Johnson v. Nocco

83 F.4th 896

Marques A. JOHNSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Chris NOCCO, in his official capacity as Sheriff, Pasco County, Florida, Defendant, James Dunn, in his individual capacity, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 21-10670

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit

Filed: October 2, 2023

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, D.C. Docket No. 8:20-cv-01370-TPB-JSS

Ryan David Barack, Michelle Erin Nadeau, Kwall Barack Nadeau, PLLC, Clearwater, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Thomas W. Poulton, Donald Andrew DeBevoise, DeBevoise & Poulton, PA, Winter Park, FL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before Wilson, Branch, and Tjoflat, Circuit Judges.

Tjoflat, Circuit Judge:

This appeal presents two questions. The first is whether the Fourth Amendment precluded a law enforcement officer—who had stopped a vehicle for a traffic violation—from asking a passenger in the vehicle to identify himself unless the officer had reason to suspect that the passenger had committed, was in the process of committing, or was likely to commit a criminal offense. The second question is whether binding precedent¹ clearly established, at the time relevant here, that an officer could not ask a passenger to identify himself absent this reasonable suspicion. The District Court answered both questions in the affirmative and accordingly denied the officer's motion to dismiss the passenger's claim pursuant to the doctrine of qualified immunity.

The officer appeals the District Court's decisions.² Concluding that the District Court erred in denying the officer's motion to dismiss the passenger's claim, we reverse.

Our discussion proceeds as follows. Part I sets out the passenger's claim under the Fourth Amendment (and relatedly under the Fourteenth Amendment) and the District Court's reasons for denying the officer's motion to dismiss the claim. Part II reviews Supreme Court precedent concerning whether it is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment for an officer, during a traffic stop, to ask the vehicles occupants—the driver and passengers alike—to exit the vehicle. Part III addresses how that precedent informs the answer to the question here—whether an officer may ask a passenger for identification absent a reasonable suspicion that the passenger has committed, is committing, or is likely to commit a criminal offense. Part IV addresses whether the officer here lacked arguable probable cause to arrest the passenger under Florida Statute § 843.02 for refusing to comply with the officer's demand that he identify himself. Part V concludes.

I.

A.

The officer is James Dunn—a Pasco County, Florida Sherriff's Office deputy. Chris Nocco, the Pasco County Sheriff, is a codefendant with Dunn in the case below. The passenger is Marques A. Johnson. Johnson's initial complaint in this case consisted of twelve counts. Johnson's first amended complaint, the complaint at hand, contains ten counts. Count I of the amended complaint, which replicates verbatim Count I of the initial complaint, was brought against Dunn in his individual capacity and is the only count before us in this appeal.³

Count I seeks damages against Dunn under 42 U.S.C. § 1983⁴ for violating Johnson's Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights on August 2, 2018, in Pasco County, Florida. Count I alleges that Dunn, accompanied by Deputies Christopher Ramos and Mark Pini, stopped a motor vehicle towing a motorcycle on a trailer because the trailer's license tag was obscured.⁵ This vehicle was driven by Johnson's father (the "driver"). Dunn approached the front passenger side of the vehicle and obtained the driver's driver's license and vehicular registration. Next, he asked Johnson, seated in the front passenger seat (another passenger was in the back seat), if he "had his 'ID on him.'" Johnson replied that he was "merely a passenger in the vehicle and was not required to identify himself." Dunn responded that "under Florida law he was required to identify himself and that if he did not identify himself, [Dunn] would 'pull him out and he would go to jail for resisting.'" A Sheriff's Office "supervisor informed Deputy Dunn that he should arrest [Johnson]" for refusing to identify himself. Dunn accordingly placed Johnson "under arrest for resisting without violence" in violation of Florida Statute § 843.02.⁶

Count I is styled "Fourth Amendment Violation — False Arrest" and asserts two causes of action: a claim that Deputy Dunn's demand that Johnson identify himself amounted to an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment⁷ and a claim that Dunn arrested Johnson without probable cause in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment claim is based on Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and its progeny. The due process claim is that Dunn lacked probable cause to arrest Johnson for violating § 843.02.

Dunn's request that Johnson identify himself was allegedly unreasonable because at the specific moment Dunn encountered Johnson he was, in effect, conducting a Terry stop⁸ and could not demand that Johnson identify himself without "any specific basis for believing he [was] involved in criminal activity." Count I cites Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52-53, 99 S. Ct 2637, 2641, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979), a Terry progeny, in support of the claim. Moreover, Dunn could not "arrest [Johnson] for failure to identify himself if the request for identification [was] not related to the circumstances justifying the stop," according to the Supreme Court in Hiibel v. Sixth Jud. Dist. Ct., 542 U.S. 177, 188, 124 S. Ct. 2451, 2459, 159 L.Ed.2d 292 (2004). The due process claim is that Johnson expressed his refusal to identify himself in "mere words." Dunn therefore lacked probable cause to arrest Johnson for resisting an officer without violence in violation of § 843.02.

Dunn moved to dismiss Count I of both the initial and amended complaints on the ground that the doctrine of qualified immunity immunized him from suit. Dunn's second motion took issue with the cases Count I relies on to support its Fourth Amendment claim, namely Terry, Hiibel, and Brown. Dunn argued that those cases did not support Count I's allegation that he could not ask Johnson to identify himself unless he reasonably suspected that Johnson had committed, was in the process of committing, or was likely to commit a criminal offense. He argued that, if anything, those cases supported his position—that Florida law permitted him to ask Johnson to identify himself. Dunn cited Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 129 S. Ct. 781, 172 L.Ed.2d 694 (2009), and Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S. Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977), as recognizing, in the interest of officer safety, an officer's need to question the occupants of vehicles stopped for traffic violations.

B.

The District Court ruled on Dunn's motion to dismiss Count I in two orders: one addressed the sufficiency of Count I of Johnson's initial complaint; the other addressed the sufficiency of Count I of the amended complaint.⁹ For efficiency, we treat the two orders as one.

The District Court held that Dunn was entitled to assert the qualified immunity defense because, in conducting the traffic stop, he acted within the scope of his discretionary authority as a Sheriff's deputy.¹⁰ To overcome this defense, Johnson had to show (1) that Count I's allegations established that Dunn violated his Fourth Amendment right not to be asked to identify himself, and if so, (2) that right was clearly established at the time of the violation. Exercising its discretion under Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236, 129 S. Ct. 808, 818, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009), as to which showing it should address first, the Court addressed the two showings in order.

The District Court first found that Dunn had probable cause to initiate the traffic stop and a "valid basis to briefly detain both Plaintiff and his father who was driving the vehicle. See, e.g., Johnson, 555 U.S. at 333, 129 S.Ct. 781 (temporary detention of driver and passengers during traffic stop remains reasonable for duration of the stop)." Dunn also had "a valid basis to require the driver to provide identification and vehicle registration." But he did not have "a valid basis to also require a passenger, such as Plaintiff, to provide identification, absent a reasonable suspicion that the passenger had committed, was committing, or was about to commit a criminal offense." The Court supported that statement by citing Florida Statute § 901.151(2)¹¹ and three U.S. Supreme Court decisions. In a parenthetical citation to this statute, the District Court said an "officer may detain [a] person for purpose of ascertaining identity when [the] officer reasonably believes [the] person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime." The main Supreme Court decisions the District Court cited were Hiibel¹² and Brown v. Texas.¹³

Referring to § 901.151(2), the District Court acknowledged that the "Florida courts had not specifically held that law enforcement officers may require [a] passenger[] to provide identification during traffic stops absent a reasonable suspicion that the passenger had committed, was committing, or was about to commit a criminal offense." The District Court concluded that "the ultimate source of authority on this issue is the Fourth Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, not a specific provision of Florida law."¹⁴

The District Court concluded its analysis of Johnson's Fourth Amendment and False Arrest claims:

Plaintiff had a legal right to refuse to provide his identification to Deputy Dunn. As such, Deputy Dunn had neither actual probable cause nor arguable probable cause to arrest Plaintiff [for violating § 843.02]. The Court further finds that based on the Fourth Amendment itself and the case law discussed, the law was clearly established at the time of the arrest. Deputy Dunn is not entitled to qualified immunity, and

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