Martinez v. City of Rosenberg, 2024 WL 5063254 (5th Cir. 2024)
As a former Texan, I probably should have — but didn’t — know that if neither side of a street has a sidewalk, the left side is the correct side to walk along. Whether Alejandro Martinez knew better or not, he was walking on the right side (the wrong side) of Parrott Avenue near his home in Rosenberg, Texas. Officer R. Cantu was driving and saw Martinez “walking on the wrong side of the street.” Martinez, “a visibly disabled elderly man,” was “walking slowly with an obvious limp.” When Cantu stopped his vehicle and told Martinez to cross the street, the pedestrian approached the officer and said he had done nothing wrong. Martinez then turned away from Officer Cantu.
Just about one minute after he stopped and called out to Martinez, Officer Cantu “slammed him to the ground” and handcuffed him. Officer R. Dondiego assisted in handcuffing and arresting Martinez. Four more officers arrived. One of them allegedly kicked Martinez in the back while the man was still handcuffed on the ground. The six officers placed Martinez in a police car. Officers Cantu and Dondiego took Martinez to a hospital for a physical examination. Medical staff concluded he had no serious injuries. They gave him opiates and cleared him to be booked into jail.
Martinez sued the City of Rosenberg and the six officers, alleging unlawful arrest and excessive force. The trial court granted qualified immunity to the officers, finding they did not violate Martinez’s constitutional rights. The trial judge ruled the officers had probable cause to arrest Martinez. A dash camera recording showed he had walked on the right side (the wrong side) of the street for “several seconds.”
Department policy may provide that minor offenses be handled with warnings or citations, but the policy does not change the constitutional analysis regarding qualified immunity and excessive force.
The divided court of appeals panel affirmed the dismissal of Martinez’s complaint. The majority agreed the violation of even a few seconds created probable cause for a custodial arrest and incarceration and the court noted Martinez’s injuries were minimal. In addition, the majority held the six officers were justified in using force to take Martinez into custody, opining that officers used “reasonable force given the totality of the circumstances.”
The dissent disagreed that summary judgment based on qualified immunity was proper, citing the test of Graham v. Connor (490 U.S. 386 (1989)). In the Graham case, the Supreme Court articulated three questions to begin to measure constitutionality when force is used by law enforcement:
- What was the severity of the crime the officer believed the suspect to have committed or to be committing?
- Did the suspect present an immediate threat to the safety of officers or the public?
- Was the suspect actively resisting arrest or attempting to escape?
According to the dissent, a few seconds of walking on the wrong side of the street was not a particularly severe crime. Martinez, an old man who limped along and held out his hands to show that they were empty, wouldn’t have appeared to be a threat to the numerous officers. Martinez did pull his arm away when Officer Cantu reached for it, but prior Fifth Circuit decisions have held that pulling one’s arm “out of an officer’s grasp, without more, is insufficient to find an immediate threat to the safety of the officers.” The court had also previously held that “pulling one’s arm away from an officer is not ‘resistance’ sufficient to justify tackling — especially if the officer has no reason to believe that the arrestee is a threat.” Thus, the dissent believed the final Graham factor also turned in Martinez’s favor.
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Whether or not one perceives this case as a close call, there are several important lessons. First, the most minor violation can provide probable cause for an arrest. Even if it is not customary to arrest a person for something like jaywalking — or even if 99 out of 100 officers would not arrest for a particular minor offense — commission of a crime justifies an arrest. Department policy may provide that minor offenses be handled with warnings or citations, but the policy does not change the constitutional analysis. Second, being an elderly disabled person doesn’t give one a pass to jaywalk. (I think I can say this as an old man who limps.) Finally, the court’s decision reminds all of us that, “put simply, qualified immunity protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law” (Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7 (2015)).
