District of Columbia police responded to a complaint about loud music and illegal activities in a vacant house. Inside, the house was nearly barren and in disarray. It smelled of marijuana. Beer bottles and liquor cups were on the floor, which was dirty. The living room was a make-shift strip club. An upstairs bedroom had a naked woman and several men in it. Many partygoers scattered when they saw the police. Some hid. The officers questioned everyone and got inconsistent stories.
Two women said “Peaches” was the house’s tenant and that she was the hostess of the party. Peaches was not there, though. The officers spoke by phone to Peaches. She was nervous, agitated, and evasive. Eventually, she admitted that she had no permission to use the house. The owner confirmed that he had given no one permission to be there. The officers then arrested the partygoers for unlawful entry. Several partygoers sued for false arrest under the Fourth Amendment and District law.
The District Court concluded that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest the partygoers for unlawful entry and that two of the officers, petitioners here, were not entitled to qualified immunity. A divided panel of the D. C. Circuit affirmed.
Justice Thomas wrote an opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Breyer, Alito, Kagan and Gorsuch. It held that the officers had probable cause to arrest the partygoers. Considering the “totality of the circumstances,” the officers made an entirely reasonable inference that the partygoers knew they did not have permission to be in the house. Taken together, the condition of the house and the conduct of the partygoers allowed the officers to make several “ ‘common-sense conclusions about human behavior.’ ” Because most homeowners do not live in such conditions or permit such activities in their homes, the officers could infer that the partygoers knew the party was not authorized. The officers also could infer that the partygoers knew that they were not supposed to be in the house because they scattered and hid when the officers arrived. Peaches’ lying and evasive behavior gave the officers reason to discredit everything she said. The officers also could have inferred that she lied when she said she had invited the partygoers to the house, or that she told the partygoers that she was not actually renting the house. The D.C. panel majority violated two legal principles. First, it viewed each fact in isolation, rather than as a factor in the totality of the circumstances. Second, it believed that it could dismiss outright any circumstances that were “susceptible of innocent explanation.” Instead, it should have asked whether a reasonable officer could conclude—considering all the surrounding circumstances, including the plausibility of the explanation itself—that there was a substantial chance of criminal activity.”
And that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity under 42 U. S. C. §1983 unless the unlawfulness of their conduct was “clearly established at the time,” To be clearly established, a legal principle must be “settled law,” and it must clearly prohibit the officer’s conduct in the particular circumstances before the officer. In the warrantless arrest context, “a body of relevant case law” is usually necessary to “ ‘clearly establish’ the answer” with respect to probable cause. Even assuming that the officers lacked actual probable cause to arrest the partygoers, they are entitled to qualified immunity because, given “the circumstances with which [they] w[ere] confronted,” they “reasonably but mistakenly conclude[d] that probable cause [wa]s present.” The panel majority and the partygoers have failed to identify a single precedent finding a Fourth Amendment violation “under similar circumstances.” And this is not an “obvious case” where “a body of relevant case law” is unnecessary. (b) Instead of following this straightforward analysis, the panel majority reasoned that, under clearly established District law, a suspect’s bona fide belief of a right to enter vitiates probable cause to arrest for unlawful entry. Thus, it concluded that the “uncontroverted evidence” of an invitation in this case meant that the officers could not infer the partygoers’ intent from other circumstances or disbelieve their story. But looking at the entire legal landscape at the time of the arrests, a reasonable officer could have interpreted the law as permitting the arrests here. There was no controlling case holding that a bona fide belief of a right to enter defeats probable cause, that officers cannot infer a suspect’s guilty state of mind based on his conduct alone, or that officers must accept a suspect’s innocent explanation at face value. And several precedents suggested the opposite.
Justice Sotomayor said that the SCOTUS could have decided the whole case by merely finding that the police had qualified immunity and left the D.C. Appeals Court’s decision alone otherwise— the probable cause question was a D.C. law question, not one that affected the whole nation. Justice Ginsberg said that the majority got the facts wrong- that the officers’ depositions showed that there was not probable cause for unlawful entry for the suspects arrested. They were arrested for disorderly conduct instead, for which there was no probable cause either. Justice Ginsburg said that the officers’ behavior was improper, but agreed that under the standard of qualified immunity, no cause of action lay against them.
District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. ____, No. 15–1485, Jan,A 22, 2018
