Lacy v. City of San Francisco

Background

Denise Lacy and her eight-year-old granddaughter, D.G., brought this civil-rights case against the City and County of San Francisco and San Francisco Police Sergeants Maguire and Hutchings. The case arose from an August 3, 2017 incident at the San Francisco Hall of Justice, where officers arrested Lacy’s grandson, Lamonte Mims, and investigated a phone believed to be connected to a homicide.

According to the evidence viewed in the plaintiffs’ favor for summary judgment, Sergeant Maguire asked Lacy to open her car after telling her that officers were looking for a phone. He said officers could obtain a warrant and would have to hold the car while waiting for one, and Lacy then opened the car. Officers searched the interior and trunk. Later, officers asked D.G. for her phone number. D.G. testified that an officer repeatedly yelled at her, took her phone, called the number she provided, and returned the phone after it rang. Lacy testified that Maguire later said the phone they wanted was in her purse and threatened her with arrest and impoundment of her car; Maguire disputed making those threats. The court used the plaintiffs’ version of disputed facts when deciding the motion.

The plaintiffs dismissed their claims concerning the City’s policies and practices and their unlawful-detention claims. Five Section 1983 claims remained: unlawful searches of Lacy’s vehicle and purse, unlawful searches of Mims’ phone and D.G.’s phone, and unlawful seizures of Mims’ phone and D.G.’s phone. Section 1983 is a federal law allowing claims against state or local officials for violating constitutional rights.

Rulings on the Search Claims

The court granted summary judgment on the unlawful-search claims. It found no evidence that officers searched Lacy’s purse. Lacy testified that she prevented Maguire from reaching into the purse and instead reached in herself and handed him the phone.

The court also found that Lacy’s testimony did not create a trial-worthy factual dispute over whether officers searched the digital contents of Mims’ phone. Although she testified that Maguire “opened the phone up and went in there,” the court characterized that testimony as too vague to establish a search of the phone’s digital data.

As to the vehicle, the court held that Lacy voluntarily consented to the search under the overall circumstances. It emphasized that she was not under arrest, Maguire did not raise his voice or refer to a weapon, and he told her that officers could obtain a warrant. The court ruled that the absence of a warning that she could refuse consent and the absence of Miranda warnings did not make her consent involuntary.

Seizure of Mims’ Phone

The court granted summary judgment on the claim involving the phone found in Lacy’s purse and referred to as Mims’ phone because Mims was using it, although Lacy owned it. The court accepted Lacy’s account that she handed over the phone after Maguire threatened arrest and vehicle impoundment, but held that the seizure was justified under the emergency exception to the warrant requirement.

The court found probable cause based on several circumstances: Mims had been arrested on homicide charges; officers believed he possessed a phone that had been called 671 times over two months by another homicide suspect; and officers had obtained a location-tracking warrant for a phone that was signaling nearby. The court also found good reason to fear that evidence could be compromised because the phone was possessed by someone other than Mims.

The court further found that officers took reasonable steps to protect privacy because the evidence did not show that they searched the phone before obtaining a warrant. Although the warrant was obtained seven days after the seizure, the court held that the delay did not meaningfully interfere with Lacy’s possessory interest because Mims, the phone’s user, remained in custody and Lacy testified that she did not use the phone.

Seizure of D.G.’s Phone

The court denied summary judgment to Sergeant Maguire on the claim that he unlawfully seized D.G.’s phone. Accepting the plaintiffs’ evidence, the court found that officers had no reasonable basis to believe D.G.’s phone was Mims’ phone after D.G. provided its number and the phone rang when officers called it. At that point, the court held, the officers had no probable cause to believe that D.G.’s phone contained evidence of a crime.

The court rejected defendants’ argument that the location-tracking warrant alone justified taking D.G.’s phone. It held that officers needed probable cause to believe that the specific phone they seized contained evidence, and that the fact that the phone was in the plaintiffs’ vicinity was not enough after officers learned it belonged to an eight-year-old girl and had a different number.

The court granted summary judgment to Sergeant Hutchings on this claim because the record contained no evidence that Hutchings was involved in taking D.G.’s phone. The court denied qualified immunity to Maguire. Qualified immunity can protect an officer from liability unless the officer violated a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time. The court concluded that established law required probable cause to believe D.G.’s phone was Mims’ phone and that defendants had not identified authority supporting a lower standard.

Disposition

The court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part. It granted summary judgment on the unlawful-search claims and on the seizure of Mims’ phone, and granted it to Hutchings on the seizure of D.G.’s phone. It denied summary judgment on Maguire’s alleged seizure of D.G.’s phone. The court also granted defendants’ separate administrative motion to file the investigation warrants under seal. It vacated the existing pretrial and trial dates and scheduled a further case-management conference.