Rucker v. Marshall, 2024 WL 4481881 (5th Cir. 2024)
In Senatobia, Mississippi, Officer James Marshall saw Rodney Rucker sitting in a running car outside the Dreamland Inn — a hotel known for drugs and prostitution. Officer Marshall checked the vehicle registration, then walked up to Rucker and explained that he noticed Rucker, and this was a “high area for like narcotics, prostitution, and stuff like that.” When Marshall asked Rucker for identification, the man said he did not have his driver’s license and did not know his Social Security number. Officer Marshall asked for his name and Rucker gave only his first name, refusing to provide his last name and birth date.
After a few minutes of tense argument, Officer Marshall called for backup. He told Rucker to get out of the car, but Rucker refused. When another officer arrived, Officer Marshall said Rucker had white powder on his pants and nose. Rucker claimed he had “oil” on his nose and that the powder “could be anything.” The trial judge later noted no white powder was visible on body-worn camera recordings.
A backup officer arrived, and Rucker continued to refuse to identify himself or to get out of the car. The backup officer called a supervisor to ask whether the officers could break Rucker’s window. Then a third officer arrived. When Rucker refused another command to get out of the car, the officers broke Rucker’s window, forcibly removed him, and arrested him. A subsequent search of the car revealed no drugs, though Rucker failed a drug test and was observed to have “white powdery substance in both nasal cavities.” Charges against Rucker ended up being dropped because Officer Marshall was sick with COVID and unable to be in court.
Rucker subsequently sued the officers, claiming unlawful seizure and arrest, First Amendment retaliation, excessive force and bystander liability.
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The trial court denied the officers’ request for qualified immunity. The court ruled there were genuine factual disputes about the officers’ reasonable suspicion to detain Rucker, the alleged manufacturing of evidence of the alleged white powder, potential retaliation and the reasonableness of the force used. The officers appealed, claiming the trial judge failed to view “the facts in the light depicted by the body cam videos.”
The Court of Appeals held the trial court failed to properly analyze whether the officers’ actions violated clearly established law. In Scott v. Harris (550 U.S. 372 (2007)), the Supreme Court advised lower courts they could assess genuineness of asserted facts underlying a party’s claim when available video shows the party’s account of the facts is false. The appellate court reviewed the officers’ body -worn camera recordings of the encounter with Rucker and held “the body cam videos show beyond dispute that Marshall had reasonable suspicion to stop and question Rucker.”
Courts have attempted to define reasonable suspicion on many occasions; however, no court has been able to provide a black-letter, one-size-fits-all definition of the term. The U.S. Supreme Court has said, “Articulating precisely what ‘reasonable suspicion’ means is not possible. It is a commonsense, nontechnical conception that deals with the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act” (Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983)). Reasonable suspicion requires “specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant” a detention (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)). Also, reasonable suspicion is measured by the “totality of the circumstances” and from the collective knowledge of the officers involved in the stop (United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1 (1989)).
Reasonable suspicion is substantially less than probable cause and considerably less than proof of wrongdoing by preponderance of evidence (Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210 (1984)). But it is always more than a simple “hunch” or “mere suspicion.” Rather, it must be particular — that is, it must be directed at a specific person in order to detain that person (Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85 (1979)).
The appellate court noted Officer Marshall had over seven years of law enforcement experience and had made numerous arrests at Dreamland in his three months working in that area. Rucker was sitting in an idling car in a high-crime area after 0200 hrs. When Officer Marshall saw Rucker at this suspicious location at “an unusual hour of the night” when “the overwhelming majority of law-abiding citizens are at home in bed,” he had cause to be curious. Rucker’s car was registered to a local address, even though Rucker was apparently staying at a hotel. Several courts have ruled a local individual staying at a hotel raises suspicion.
The appellate court also held the video evidence showed the officers’ actions after the initial detention were reasonable. The encounter with Rucker “lasted no longer than was necessary” to “dispel his reasonable suspicion” until the officers developed further reasonable suspicion. Officer Marshall had probable cause to arrest Rucker for failing to comply with lawful commands and for operating a vehicle without displaying a driver’s license. Finally — again relying on the body-worn camera recordings — the court held the officers did not use excessive force, as Rucker’s repeated refusals to comply justified their actions.
The Court of Appeals ruled the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on all claims, including the bystander (failure to intercede) liability claim against backup officers.
