In Harper v. City of Los Angeles, (— F.3d —, 2008 WL 2718874, C.A.9 (Cal.), July 14, 2008), the United States Court of Appeals considered an appeal of a jury’s award of damages to three police officers who sued their city and its chief of police, after they were wrongly arrested – and later acquitted – on charges of planting evidence and making false statements.
The court upheld the awards, ruling that the evidence showed a lack of probable cause to arrest the officers, and that the wrongful arrests were caused by an official policy set by the police chief.
Facts
In a case stemming from the Los Angeles (“City”) Police Department’s Rampart Division corruption scandal, officers Paul Harper, Brian Liddy and Edward Ortiz were arrested in 2000 on charges that they planted evidence and made false statements when arresting a suspect in 1996.
All three officers were acquitted of the charges, and then filed suit against the City and its then Chief of Police, Bernard Parks (“Parks”), alleging that the investigation leading to their arrest was inadequate, there had been no probable cause to arrest them, and their constitutional rights were therefore violated. The jury found in favor of the officers, and awarded each of them $5,000,001 in damages. The City appealed both the verdict and the damage awards.
Decision
Both the verdict and the damage awards were supported by ample evidence, the court ruled.
Probable cause to arrest exists when “officers have knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to lead a person of reasonable caution to believe an offense has been or is being committed by the person being arrested,” the Court noted, citing United States v. Lopez, 482 F.3d 1067 (9th Cir. 2007).
In this case, no such knowledge or trustworthy information existed, the court said, noting that the case against the officers relied almost entirely on the stories of one other officer – Rafael Perez – who had admitted to committing crimes and was seeking more lenient sentencing by implicating other officers. Several aspects of Perez’ stories changed during various interviews and the court also pointed to evidence that Perez had boasted of being able to get fellow officers he disliked investigated.
The court also noted conversations between Parks and then Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, in which Parks “hounded” Garcetti to file criminal charges against the officers, even without sufficient evidence, to get the matter over with. The jury reasonably concluded that since as police chief Parks was the “official policy maker” of the police department, his comments to Garcetti amounted to an official city policy.
Therefore, the court concluded the officers’ rights were violated and the City’s official policy was the cause of the violation, justifying the jury’s verdict. The damage awards were also justified because ample evidence showed that each of the officers suffered severe adverse physical and mental effects as a result of their wrongful arrests, as well as significant personal anguish and the loss of their professional reputations as a result of the City violating their rights.
The verdict and the damage awards were affirmed.